Design Overview. Review on Maruti Suzuki Wagon R

Taking a test drive and driving a car once you've bought it are twovery different experiences; I bought the Wagon-R Vxi 20 days ago, and though it israther premature to do a review on the maintenance of the car, Ithought I'd list my design likes and dislikes, and the problems I'vefaced so far:

Likes:

1. Dashboard:probably the most convenient thing about the Wagon-R's design is theDashboard - lots of spaces for keeping keys, chewing gum, mobile phone,organiser, spare glasses etc. There's also a cup holder on the driversside if you want to drink while driving (though I don't recommend it).It's a major improvement over the old zen Lxi that I switched from,where I was forever seeking a place for my mobile phone. There's also ahook in the dashboard, in case you're carrying plastic packets and needa hook to hang them around. This is a clear indication of the length towhich Maruti went to make this care driver-friendly.

2. Magazine/Newspaper racks on all doors

1. Reclining seats:All four seats can recline, and almost fully. In fact, I've devised away by which the seats can be re-positioned to make a bed, in caseyou're on a long trip and there's no hotel in sight: Push the frontseat right in front, remove the headrest and recline it (correctgrammar?). Then recline the back seat fully, and you have a slightlyuncomfortable bed ready.

4. Extra dumping spaceunderneath the front two seats:Something I didn't notice before I bought the car. The space under thefront seats is slightly lowered so you can keep even a laptop easily.Useful if you want to hide something from the parkingwallah, or thieves.

5. Back windows are not electronic:Well, some can look at this as a disadvantage, but given a fewinstances of the central locking and power windows getting jammed, Ithink it's quite useful to have manual windows at the back in case of asimilar emergency.

6. Low turning radius:or should it be high turning radius? Anyway, the car turns quite sharply, a necessity in the city and its cramped parking.

7. Seatbelts at the back:I don't know about you, but I now feel uncomfortable in cars without aseatbelt. It's almost instinctive for me to reach for a seatbelt when Isit in a car.

Now to the post purchase dissonance bit; the things I did not like:

1. Unreliable electronics:If at a traffic light, I've to stop for more than a minute, I switchthe car off. Maruti has a key reminder feature that emits a beep whenyou leave the key inside and open the door. Unfortunately in my case,for some unexplainable reason, the beep is emitted even when the dooris closed and the car is switched off. I went back to the dealer andthere was no such problem with the demo car, so it's an electronicsproblem with the piece that I received. I'd have accepted this as aminor irritant and a design mistake, but since it happensinconsistently (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), so Iconsider it an electronics malfunction. More on the service advisorlater in this post.

2. Power Steering:Frankly, WHAT POWER STEERING? Maruti's power steering is designed suchthat it reduces in strength as your speed increases to preventaccidents in case you execute a sharp turn at high speeds by mistake.Unfortunately, the power steering seems non-existent to me. Thesteering is only a fraction easier than the Zen, and lacks as muchpower at slow speeds as at high. It's almost not there. Or maybe it'san electronics problem with the car I've got.

3. Unlocking is injurious:I like to rest my elbow on the window, and its rather irritating thatthe knobs are next to where the window comes up from, and not lower inthe door, ala the Zen. What's worse, the moment you switch the car off(I do regularly at traffic lights) the car unlocks automatically andthe lock jabs you in the arm. Very very irritating.

1. Auto windows:There's a switch next to the door on the drivers side for 'auto' windowlowering and raising. What the salesman doesn't tell you (didn't tellme) is that it is only for auto down, and not for automatically raisingthe window. Not too much of a problem, but I think it should have beenclarified.

5. Childproof rear windows:Like I've mentioned above, I like to rest my elbow on the window. Onthe only occasion that I've sat at the rear, I've been uncomfortablebecause the rear windows do not lower fully. Their minimum limit isaround 2 inches above the base of the window, in order to make them'childproof'. I don't know how Maruti does their research, but therecan be people in this country who don't have kids, and who might like afully lowered window to rest their elbow on. I'd have preferred abutton for switching between the childproof and the childless options.The moment the front seat became empty, I switched.

6. WHERE DO MY SPEAKERS GO?I honestly don't know. There's space for the tweeters in front, but nospace for the speakers at the back. What Maruti offers you is a flimsy,seemingly breakable, board that you've to attach at the back. Theproblem - your back seats can't recline because of the board that restsbetween the seat and the boot. So, there's so space for speakers at theback, unless you want to put two large boxes of speakers in the boot,which you can't fix anyway without cutting the interiors of the car.

7. Useless side view mirrors:They're high instead of being long, so you can't really assess thetraffic at either side. Very difficult to drive without a long sideview mirror in Delhi, though a majority of the people don't care enoughto use them.

No driving problems so far, though reversing can be a pain because of the rear view mirrors.

crossposted with modifications, at https://mixedbag.blogspot.com/2006/06/car-review-wagon-r.html