I don't Dzire it
I test-drove the Maruti Arena Dzire AMT petrol, both in the city and on the highway, and evaluated it against my requirements. I won’t be buying it, since I don’t find it worth the 13 lakh it costs. I’d rather buy the Wagon R for 9 lakh. Or, for the same price of 13 lakhs, I’d buy the Baleno, which is much better.
Here’s my assessment of each aspect of the car:
+ All four doors have a pocket for a key, near the window controls.
± The gear lever doesn’t have a P position, which eliminates redundancy with the parking brake.
- The seats are a light beige, close to white — they’ll get dirty soon.
- Both the front seat belts were twisted — there was a kink in the belt — because the clip was attached the wrong way around.
- The inner rear-view mirror is hazy. This is unpleasant and could even be a safety risk.
± Since it’s a 4m sedan, the boot is shorter than (say) the Verna.
- When I released the handbrake on a very gentle slope in D, the car rolled back a bit. The salesman claimed it’s because of the idle start / stop, but after turning that off, it still rolled back.
- The boot is small, not significantly bigger than my Ritz’s. It’s slightly longer, but much shorter. If I’m taking two people to the airport for a long international trip, their luggage won’t fit in the boot.
4-meter sedans are the worst of both worlds
The ideal length of a car is 4.4 - 4.6m. They’re the most spacious and comfortable, like the Verna.
Cars longer than that are unwieldy to drive, park, make tight turns, or make U-turns.
4-meter cars have insufficient length. If I’m buying one, I’d rather buy a crossover like the Kiger — it at least has more headroom. The seats are set higher off the floor, so my legs are below me. By contrast, in a 4-meter sedan like the Dzire, the headroom is poor, and the seats are set low, requiring me to put my legs ahead of me. But it doesn’t have horizontal space, so legroom is bad. Put differently, crossovers do well on vertical space and 4.4-4.6-meter cars do well on horizontal space, and 4-meter sedans do well on neither. They’re the worst of both worlds.
The same goes for the boot — 4.4-4.6-meter sedans like the Verna have long boots, and crossovers have high boots, both of which accommodate enough luggage. A 4-meter sedan is the worst of both worlds, with neither a long nor a tall boot.
Comfort
- Manual seat adjustment. This is a problem since I can’t adjust it precisely. It’s also unsafe to operate while driving since the seat slides or reclines out of control when I unlock it to adjust it a little.
± 3-way adjustment: front / back, recline and height.
+ Great legroom
+ Good headroom for a sedan
± The steering wheel tilts but doesn’t telescope.
- No auto hold, so driving in stop-and-go traffic is slightly more strenuous.
- The engine is noisy, since it revs a lot (it has to, since it’s anaemic).
- The engine is only a 3-cylinder, so it’s harsh and whiny, unlike my Ritz, which isn’t grating.
- When the engine is idling and the front door is open, it vibrates visibly!
- The suspension is firm compared to the Verna.
- Since it’s an AMT, gear changes come with jerks and sudden deceleration even with a steady throttle.
- The engine lugs (along with the associated vibration) in gears 1 and 2. This isn’t an automatic transmission but a hack.
+ Since it’s a sedan, it has no body roll when turning and then immediately changing lanes in the opposite direction to the turn.
Performance
- Even flooring it leads to sluggish acceleration.
- 17 seconds for 0-100. I find that <10 makes it fun to drive.
- Only 61 KW power. 98 is required for a good driving experience.
- 1.2-liter naturally-aspirated engine. A 1.5 turbo is required for a good driving experience.
+ The peak power is produced at 5700 RPM, and when floored, it upshifts at around 5400-5700 RPM, so there’s no room for optimisation there.
- I don’t get the wonderful driving dynamics of a sedan because it’s underpowered. In other words, if you were told to get a sedan because they drive wonderfully, that doesn’t hold for the Dzire. Get a Verna instead.
± No driving modes like eco or sport.
+ The AMT shows the current gear, like D3. As a geek, I like to look into an automatic system and understand what it’s doing.
- Only 5 gears.
Digital
+ CarPlay works wired
- … but via USB-A
+ 12V port
- The infotainment screen is small, dim and reflective — I couldn’t see it clearly with or without goggles
- Ugly infotainment UI theme, like a 12-year-old Android tablet.
+ Between the front two seats are a USB-C and the second -A port. Both the front and rear passengers can use it.
- The music quality is bad, but no car at this price sounds better.
Cooling
+ All four bottle holders accommodate my 4xx ml Thermos or a 1-liter Bisleri.
- The two center bottle holders can’t be used, since that comes in the way of the USB-A port and the wireless charger (which I use when charging wired, too, just as a place to put my phone).
- No cooled glovebox
- No ventilated seats
- No remote AC start
- No rear window sunshades
Front passenger seat
+ Only two adjustments: front / back and recline.
- I can’t stretch my legs
+ Headroom fine for a sedan.
Rear seat
Terrible rear seat:
- My head scrapes against the roof as well as the top-left.
- The noise isolation is the worst of all cars I’ve experienced: I can hear the sound of the tyres spinning and air flowing.
- The window is cramped, both in height (common for sedans) and width.
- I can’t stretch my legs1.
- The AC vent is flimsy. Both passengers can independently adjust it left/right, and jointly up / down.
+ The vent can also be opened, partially opened or closed.
But I can’t in much costlier cars, either.