Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara price, long term review, comfort, equipment, practicality, fuel economy and features – Introduction

Early morning begin to catch an early morning flight. I go away a bit early, anticipating a pleasant relaxed morning drive, however up forward is a jam. Yeah, at 4:30 am! It’s resulting from a nakabandi and it appears to take endlessly. Ten minutes later, I’m via; however I’m additionally 10 minutes behind on a 20-minute drive. No extra making an attempt to maintain the gasoline economic system quantity on the sprint above 19kpl; time for some flat-out acceleration. 

Take away the parcel tray and you may match fairly a bit.

The Grand Vitara with the robust hybrid engine, as ever, responds effectively. Acceleration is delivered the moment I put my foot down and the robust push from the electrical motor initially feels nice. Nevertheless, as soon as out on open roads, that preliminary burst of acceleration doesn’t final. The speed of acceleration flattens, I’ve to attend for the facility to come back in and since there’s no conventional gearbox, I can’t even go down a gear. Nonetheless, as soon as up to the mark, we make good time, and what’s good is that my press-on driving fashion doesn’t appear to have made too giant a dent in my gasoline economic system numbers. 

The centre button on the steering wheel is raised; can be utilized with out trying down.

On the best way into the tight car parking zone, I’m actually blissful this automobile has a 360-degree digicam. It isn’t the sharpest or the perfect in low gentle, but it surely does assist me park with extra confidence and velocity and delivers loads of peace of thoughts.

The opposite function I’ve solely not too long ago began utilizing, as summer time is effectively and actually right here, is the cooled seats. They’re particularly efficient after the black seats have been absorbing the solar and provide loads of respite. And also you don’t want them as soon as the cabin has cooled.

Blowers on the cooled seats work effectively; drop the temperature of the seats rapidly

What’s additionally inflicting fairly a little bit of summer time misery is the truth that the sunroof’s shroud or sunshade, which insulates the cabin from the recent glass, is just too skinny and permits an excessive amount of gentle in. Extra in keeping with those utilized in Europe, the place it doesn’t get fairly as sizzling, massive sunroofs are new for Maruti and from what we hear, the corporate is correcting this. One other niggle on this automobile is one thing fairly surprising. The doorways don’t shut simply; they usually bounce open once you shut them, midway between totally closed and the ‘cease’ that retains them barely ajar. So it’s a must to open the door, and shut it once more with extra pressure. 

Mild doorways don’t shut simply, you want to push tougher for them to shut totally.

Of late, I’ve additionally been actually exploiting the fast responses of the Grand Vitara in Sport. It truly is fast to reply in visitors and the fast change in tempo means you might be previous your ‘quarry’ earlier than you count on. Gas economic system, nonetheless, hasn’t dipped beneath 16.9kpl regardless of this. A 1.5 turbo-petrol pushed on this method would wrestle to get into double digits. Have to like the strong-hybrid tech, particularly the truth that you should use extra efficiency and not using a corresponding dip within the economic system.

Additionally see: 

Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara long run evaluation, 6,500km report