Tears in my eyes as I sell my old Esteem.... Review on Maruti Suzuki Esteem

12/12/2006, 5:30 PM - very emotional day in my life, as I handover the keys of our good old Esteem to the buyer..

She has been my soul mate since 1995...but life moves on and someday you have to give way to new things in your life..

I would have loved to keep this car as well, but had to part with her due to space constraints...

As a summary, I will rate this car on the scale of 1 to 10 (10 being best) as below.

1. Suspension - 8

   
   




2. Reliability - 10

   
   




3. Fuel efficiency for it's class - 9

   
   




4. Electricals - 7

   
   




5. Road holding - 9

   
   




6. Build - 7

   
   




7. Engine power - 9

   
   




8. Looks - 6

   
   




9. Dashboard - 5

   
   

I have driven this darling to far places like Bangalore, Badami (Karnataka), Solapur, Sangli, Nashik to name a few. Only once it gave me engine overheating problem when we were returning from Badami. This was again not her fault as the thermostat which controls cooling fan gone dead after reliable services of 7 years. In all those 11 years the only major expenses were when I changed the tyres with MRF Zigma steel radials and got it repainted couple of years back. Engine is built to last and absolutely no issues there. There are slight problems in electricals (done rewinding of alternator 2 years back) but again you dont expect such things to last for 9 years..do you ??

This car is delight to drive and behaves exactly the way you want it to. Road holding is very good and I often drove it at 100 Km/hr without slightest of nervouseness. It sticks to road quite well and doesn't roll easily.

Looks wise, she is not in a beauty competetion these days. Admitted. With these old looks and boring dashboard is the only thing I dislike about her.

There were some problems while crusing at 100+ speeds when steering kind of rattled a bit. But it was all due to worn out JK tyres, which I replaced immediately.

There is one minus point though in Esteem. My mother always curses her while getting out of the car as seating arrangement is little like a cave and you literally need push yourself hard to get out of it.

I wanted to buy new Esteem again but was in a dilemma as wanted to try out something new as well.... I am opting for Swift now ..because.....it has Esteem's engine and that's the one way I can retain my relation with my darling and still have something new to explore.....

I request readers of this review to be careful while purchasing Esteem. You will get so attached to her for many years and it will not be easy to give divorce to her.

Maybe I will get married again to her ?