Best in its class. Review on Maruti Suzuki Zen - Petrol

I was having a palio and due to the 'heavy' feeling it provides and for a change decided to change my car. the initial options for me (and for any other in india) for a small car would be a zen(p) or a santro. looks wise zen was better and the next thing on mind was customer satisfaction and after sales manitenance and repair costs. zen was obviously the ultimate choice. now coming downn to the good and bad things about this car. to begin with, zen's dashboard and interiors are fine. not so appealing but ok-ok. the plastic used for the interiors/dashboard is really poor. it reminds of a cheap plastic bucket and a branded plastic bucket. it sounds as if maruti people wanted to do cost cutting at this place. santro/palio on the other hand give a much sturdier look. nyways if you want to ignore that, lets move on to performance. the pickup is fine, after all you can't expect more from an engine which is just below 1000cc. the engine works well after the initial 1st gear. the ride is smooth and noiseless. the best part is the suspension, its so much good than any other car. I would say its better than lancer's. there is something irrittaing about the a/c in this car! there are only 3 stages of speed while you find 4 or 5 in other cars. a/c speed at 3 is noisy and provides good cooling. but you get irritated when its noise interferes with the deck volume. the a/c speed at 2 is not so appealing at the starting but is noiseless and the cooling gets better with time. the seating of the car is very low and seating at back will not be comfortable if the front seats are adjusted backwards. tall people will find problems zen. but driving is lot easier even when you compare it to maruti 800. I felt like driving a toy car after drivinig the bulky palio. as for the mileage, you could say this is the best reason to buy a zen. I didnt beleive when I got a mileage of 15.5kmpl just near 1000kms and that too with a/c. then I got 14.5kmpl and then I got 16kmpl. so I could say the mileage averages to 15. safety wise you cant really rely on zen as it is low built and can easily find a place under a truck!! there's nothing to worry anyway as in india these factors are not considered by many people and the manufacturers also dont care much about it, except providing seat belts!! over all zen is good for heavy traffic driving and also if you wanted to find easy way out for parking. the power steering is very smooth and its turning radius is small, which is a lot helpful when taking turns. if you have zen and any other car like alto, wagonR, santro,indica, corsa sail, palio in your mind, I suggest zen is 100 time better than the others when it comes to pricing, looks, performance, mileage, driving comfort, repair costs..etc etc