12th August 2009
I have gone through the reviews on swift dzire in mouthshut and found the reviews very much useful. presently at home we have a Maruti Alto lxi, my dad’s car. Now that I am married, we felt the need of one more car though me and my wife stay in the same home with my dad, mom and brother.
As we had one hatchback already in use, our plan was obviously for a sedan. My budget was between 5L and 6L on road in Kerala. So under this range the vailable choices were Logan, Suzuki Dzire, Tata Indigo, Fiat Punto and Ford Ikon. I was reluctant to go for Fiat due to poor service experiences found in many reviews and due to poor resale value. So I opted not to go for Punto. The same issues are applicable to Logan, as many of my friends warned me regarding this. The next option, Tata Indigo is in all aspects an inferior car with almost outdated and under refined engine. I opted not to go for Ford due to the high maintenance cost, moreover the ikon is becoming obsolete model as well.
I had driven ikon and indigo so I know the performance aspects and the riding comforts. However I planned not to take a test drive of logan as I was least interested in it due to the issues that many users reported and as I feel that logan fail miserably in aesthetics (Its a matter of personal choice. Those who love Logan please excuse !)
The choice hence for me was Suzuki Dzire. I plan to cruise less than 750 km a month to the max. hence my choice was for petrol version. When I studied the features offered by the three petrol versions ie: LXI, VXI & ZXi, I found that though LXi was cheaper it lacked features like power windows, key less entry, CD player etc..and a lot of other add ons. So I planned to opt for the next model ie: VXI. However I was not having enough budget to expand my choice to ZXi for getting ABS and airbag plus tilt steering with music controls on steering.however those are features which I can live without.
As our present car, the Alto is from AVG Motors Kottayam, and as we have felt the service offered at par with our expectations , I decided to opt AVG motors to book my car. Now there is a heavy demand for the car and demand is much more high for diesel variants.
TEST DRIVE
I arranged a test drive with AVG motors and they said they offer test drive only on Diesel models of Suzuki swift Dzire. So I decided to go for Swift petrol for my test drive as I wanted to assess the performance of the car and the ride quality (as swift and dzire shares the same engine). I also tried a diesel dzire to feel the effect of the boot while parking and all.
The ride was really astonishing and the 87bhp engine really seems to be a true powerhouse. In the car were me and my wife, in the front seats and in the rear my brother and two maruti service executives . And the car felt peppy enough with 5 people on board and we could zip away with AC on and I tried switching AC off and on at times when we climbed steep roads and it could hardly be felt on performance. That was the thing I wanted to know exactly as we needed to switch off AC in Alto whenever we have 3persons in the back and when we climb up hill.
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Pros of the vehicle:
Really has the feel of a big car
Great design from Maruti (This is a factor of personal choice)
Excellent pickup and powerful engine. 87 BHP is an unmatched figure for any car in this segment including ford ikon, Mahindra Logan, Tata Indigo etc... Also the engine is a highly refined and highly reliable one
Great interior space and excellent seating positions
Sporty driving console that adds to the overall look of the car
Tachometer that lets you know the engine RPM
The boot that could carry your entire home along with you for a week hideout.
Cons
Even though the cons are much less a few to mension are:
Comparitively lesser legroom in the back seats. even this is compromised by inclining the seats to an additional 5 degrees when compared to swift. also the width of the seat is increased by 6 cm.
Factory fitted tyres are a bit lower in quality (JK) as its 165 and it ought to be a 185
The only change that can be seen in the front part from swift is that the new sedan is having a chrome grill on contrary to the convensional honeycomb grill. A bit more changes in the front would have helped to enhance the desighn (I personally love the present shape anyway)
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The overall ride quality is excellent and the power steering is really cool. Gear shifting is smooth as well. So after the test drive I decided to go for the petrol model and opted for Suzuki Dzire VXi.
2 days later, I booked my Suzuki Swift dzire (Silky silver color) and the executive said that the waiting period is 3 months for my color choice. The booking amount is Rs.50000. So I am expecting my car in a few months and I will be back with a detailed review once I get my car. Commends are highly appreciated.
31st August 2009
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I have an update regarding the waiting period for swift dzire. Initially, the dealer told me that the minimum waiting period now for swift dzire vxi is 3 months. however they take booking stating that it will take 4 months. But they assured that its just a formality to be in the safer side (for the dealer !). Today on 31st august the executive at avg gave me a call and told me that the car has been delevered from the factory and that the consignment will leave on 1st september from Delhi. So the car will be reaching me in 12-15 days time. so it just took about a month of waiting period as per the present update. The dealer also said that diesel version has more delay for delivery and the case of models with ABS is the worst of all.
September 17th 2009
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Hi all as you can see I have stripped off the 2 stars from the dealer satisfaction rating. the reason is that they played a tricky game with me last day. As I had come contacts with the RTO Office, the guys there told me that I need to bring the vehicle with the documents for registration and that they will take care of the rest . So I need to pay only the statutory amount for registration (In kerala its less than 400 rupees.) When I said this to the dealer, the executive there told me that it was not possible and that the usual practice is that they themselves register the vehicles. The executive also set some lame legal traps and explained why they cant hand over the car sans registration. The real reason is that they are charging rupees 2500 for registration as against the real cost of 400 rupees. How is it...tricky na... But the situation is same with almost all the dealers.