I bought a new SX4-Zxi on 28.12.2010 and have completed almost 2 months.
First the pros: -
Looks are really very good, seating is Tall Boy and is very good, Auto climate control is indeed a good feature.
Now the cons: -
The ride quality is not that good and people seated at the back get a very bumpy ride on even slightly pot-holed roads also. I think we need auto-bahns for this car. I even filled it up with nitrogen gas, but the ride quality is really a concern. I was told by the dealer service engineer that I need to fill up less air than recommended - he made me fill up only 28 psi of Nitrogen Air. No idea what is the logic behind this. I had filled up 30psi initially, and with 28 psi also, the ride quality is very bad. I think the rear suspension is defective. Will take it up with Maruti Udyog.
The mileage is very poor - on the highway, we got around 11 max and in the city around 7.5 to 8 max. We complained to the dealer and they took us on a test drive to check the fuel efficiency. At the end of it, the results were as above. The dealer engineer told me that this is the’best mileage’ that can be achieved in this car. I told him the sales exec promised me 15.95 kmpl as per the brochure but that we can discount about 25 to 30% on that figure. But in reality, we have to discount almost 40 to 50% of that brochure figure. With petrol at Rs 64 pl, it costs a whopping Rs 8 to 8.50 per km in the city and Rs 6.5 on the highway.
The front right side A Pillar is indeed dangerous if a short driver drives the car. For taller drivers, it is not much of a problem. Probably they designed this car only for auto bahns and not city roads and traffic.
Overall experience over the last about 2 months is mixed. Not very happy with the mileage, back seat ride quality but very happy with the looks, front tall boy seating. will not recommend anyone to buy this car because of the above cons. However if Maruti rectifies these problems to my satisfaction, I will definitely change my recommendation status.