My experience with SX4. Review on Maruti Suzuki SX4

Hi, After driving SX4(ZXI) for 1.3yr, I am sharing my experience

Purchase Dt: Sep 08; No of services done: 3; KM Run: 15000 km(3500  highway, 11500 city)

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•Price, Low Cost of maintenance, Good head and shoulder room

•Ground clearance, you need not have to worry much of bad roads and speed breakers

•High instance of seating good for tall or old people(5.5 to 5.10)

•Good pickup at speed above 30 kmph, Easy of driving, Decent Mileage(12.5 with AC 50% city 50% highway)

•Give you a feel of driving a big car or a SUV

•Music system is built in and is simple, Inbuilt antenna on the back glass provides easy of cleaning and covering the car

•Good Boot space very help full when you are going on a long drive

•Decent head lights in terms of illumination

•Auto climate control, keeps constant temperature inside the car.This is just ok, but I am not very impressed, it should have been more intelligent, the car pickup comes down with AC ON. Car response is good even at speeds at 160 kmph

•Disk Brakes are good;they came handy on high way driving at 159kmph

•Car is very sturdy at high speed a true high way vehicle, Response on the uphill is good with the AC and 4 people and luggage. Audio controls on the steering wheel are good for people who love music

•The major point;people at Maruti are friendly in their communication.They do not frustrate their customers

•You can consider this as a car form wild which performs well beyond city limits, It has a brute force in itself

•Good number of service center, gives you more confidence to take your car to remote places without a second though. Good for high way and long trips and citi drive. Shock absorbs are good, but if there were intelligent to sense the weight inside the car and accordingly become hard and soft that would have been good

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•Interiors are average, I am not very impressed, Quality of music system is average. Leg space behind could have been more(city, indica or indigo has a better leg space)

•Interior Side door panels above the arm rest(doors)should have been of leather or washable material

•Steering column blocks easy entry and exit for the driver;more so if the person is tall.(It is easy to get in and get out for the driver in Santro/City). Remote Locking sensors are not power full

•Cabin is very noise when compared to Santor or City;you can hear the tyre noise inside the car

•Car hood is cluttered and does not give a nice feel about the car;the bad painting and finish job at the joints in the hood is a letdown. Illumination could have been brighter.

•Back stop light could have been more prominent, they are very small and not bright enough during the night

•Absence of mileage meter on the dash board which show how many kilometer you can expect with the remaining fuel in the car

•Temperature meter in the car is not accurate or consistent

•Back of the car is high;prevents you from have a good view at the back, cause’s problem while reversing, having parking sensors will help

•The big front quarter glass on “A” pillar is a problem, it prevents your sight on the right side, you need to get used to it

•Audio controls on the steering wheel are of little discomfort for people who are not keen in music

•Due to the audio control on the steering wheel the sleeve of the horn is reduced, this forces you to stretch your thumb to operate the horn which is harder then Santro horn.

•Gears are little hard, was told my service center it will get good as used

•Engine response at low speed is not good especially when you do a stop and go in city limits;demo car don’t have this problem.(my view is that in city traffic condition a car should have a good safe pickup under 1500 rpm, to make your driving smooth and effort less, santro in that sense scores well and is pepi car).Not sure if the new VVT engine is better in this regards

•Car sometimes develops vibrations on the dash board, though this gets fixed when it goes to the service center

•People at Maruti are not technically sound to solve problems.

•All or most of this or know with Suzuki as such, so do not expect a master piece from them, this is a practical car which you can used without much tension. If it is a master piece you will be much tensed when every something happens to it;as most of them will not know how to fix it with same precision.

•Car engine is not refined

•Due to the car length parking it in the city limits is a challenge

•Driving car at low speed is not much fun(20-30 km);may be the new SX4 is better.

•There is only one reverse parking light on the left of the car, the right is for the fog lap.

•All the door sills are prone to scratch when every you get in and get out of the car this will spoil the look of the car after some time or you may have to get only that portion painted

•Window for the back doors rolls down only to around 75%, though this is not a major disadvantage; I was not aware of this before buying the car

•Inside of the car becomes warmer when compared to Santro that’s my observation, My SX4 uses nanoluxSunfilm and Santro uses3M;maybe that is the difference

•Due to high instance of the car, there is a bit of body roll

•It would have been better if it had foldable back seats like that of Honda Jazz

•Car has some design issues, if you park under a tree for long no. of days, few small leaves gets into the AC fan and keeps making noise

You can expect mileage of around 10+ with AC in city limits and around 13-14 in high way with AC with average speed of around 70-80 KMPH in highway. I have got 12.5km with speeds touching to around 130 KMPH at times with AC and normal fuel;I do not use any kind of power fuel.Quality of the car is average but value for money, I can say it is sedan for people who want to pay calibrated price and want to have peaceful/carefree driving

I had considered CITI ZX(high end)but it was Rs.1080000/ during aug08, due to its ground clearance and bad experience with sales at Bangalore, I had to drop it. The new CITI today with the same VTEC engine is far cheaper under 10lks on road(manual transmission)(sx4 has forced them to drop prices;I guess NoOneSpeakOnThis)

You may consider these points on Petrol or Diesel

You Pay 1 to 1.5 LK more for either a city or other Disl car;this would approximately take you around 2.5 to 3 yrs(disl)around 5+ yrs(city)to recover with below number

Daily average of 50 km(assuming you will use 24 day in a month)

Ptrl cost at 58perliter. Disl cost at 36perliter, SX4 car giving you 10km perliter, Disl car giving you 15km perliter, City giving 12km perliter(I am not sure if NewCITY gives that much)

Disl in India is subsidized by the government for public transport I would not prefer to consume this for our private transport.By doing so;sooner or later this concept of diesel at low price will be gone

If you are paying upfront 1LK more for a disl car means you are sending a large part of that 1 LK out of India, because most of the car manufactures are multinationals;think about it

WhyDidIBuyThisCAR:I wanted a car with good BootSpace, GoodPower, decent mileage, less maintains and hassles, good services center who will respect your money and time, runs on petrol and can be drive in city/highway and can make a bold statement, which I guess SX4 in India is able to do it.I test drove(FordFiesta, Verna, Scorpio and City [Gxi, VTec]). .Sathya