This is from a 30 minute test drive I did recently. The dealer is a friend of mine, so even though he knew I had no intention of(immediately) buying this car, he let me at it.
Pros:
Decent handling. Feels very surefooted on the bad roads I tried it out. Little body roll.
Leg room in the back is good, even with the front seat pushed back. But there’s a catch, see later.
Boot is enormous. 500 liters, I believe. It would have been bigger, if narrow tyres were allowed in India.
Colours are decent.
Gear shift was smooth. The dealer told me some people didn’t like it due to the short throw.
Gearing is great - car pulled even with a full load in 2nd gear. Try that in the Honda Civic, forget about the New City.
Ground clearance is 180mm in the VXi and 190mm in the Zxi. This is probably as good as it gets without turning it into a baby SUV.
Cons:
Maruti seems to have sourced some of the interiours from their 800/Alto dealers. The boot release is just awful. The colours are a shiny silver grey which looks really downmarket.
Drum brakes in the back, disc in the front. At 7 to 8.5 lakhs, they could have done better.
3. The shape isn’t all that hot - reminds me of the New City from Honda, a frog wannabe. Better than the Verna, though. Especially the grill.
The A pillar has a glass patch for good reason - there’s a blind spot right there.
Turning radius is surprisingly high for a car of this length - 5.3m
Legroom(edited in later): The rear seat legroom comes from placing the seats high, a la
Santro. This means that while taller people will be happy, others will find long drives tiring.
Milage: No idea - the car’s too new.
Bottomline:
May be Maruti will fix the interiors, and this is my next car.