Maruti Ciaz: Good Riddance
I test-drove the Nexa Ciaz (torque converter, top model, petrol) in both the city and on the highway, and evaluated it against my requirements. Based on this, my conclusion is that this car sets a new low in performance, worse than my 2013 Ritz: when I floor it at 20 kph, the acceleration is insufficient, whereas I can make my Ritz rocket forward at 20 kph. The Ciaz generates more noise than acceleration. In addition to being noisy, the 1.5-liter naturally aspirated engine is not refined, to the extent that I wondered if it’s a 3-cylinder, but it’s 4-. It reminded me of driving a diesel, where there was also a lot of noise but little acceleration, and in that the acceleration is binary: it either accelerates slowly, or not at all.
A sticker on the dash proudly says it’s a hybrid. If it is, it’s the worst hybrid ever, because the electric motor + petrol engine perform worse than my Ritz’s petrol engine. The Ciaz has just a four-speed gearbox, a torque converter.
Read on for my full review:
± No auto hold.
± Manual parking brake.
± Rear drum brakes. I think these should be fine since the rear brakes can’t brake strongly due to weight transfer.
- The steering wheel is wrapped in animal leather which I don’t prefer, to avoid cruelty to animals.
± Front and rear defoggers, which work by heating the glass.
± No ADAS
± No auto wipers
± Cruise control, not adaptive
+ There’s a small pocket for a key next to the power window controls in all four doors. Even cars that cost much more often miss this.
- Everything in the car feels cheap, whether the steering wheel, pedals or gear lever.
+ The boot is deep, and it opens and closes easily compared to a hatchback or a crossover, as is the norm for a sedan boot.
Comfort
+ Manually adjustable front / back, recline and up / down. It doesn’t use a dial, so it’s hard to precisely adjust. This is a problem if you have back pain.
+ The seat is higher than many sedans even at its lowest position, which makes it comfortable, rather than pressing my stomach.
± If the seat is raised, too much of the view is of the roof and the header bar, so I have to lower it at least partway for a natural view ahead.
+ The headroom is excellent for a sedan.
+ The legroom is good.
- The dash is shoulder-level, so the windshield feels a little cramped, but then even a 1.9-crore sedan has this problem.
- The headrest is hard.
- When stopped in park, the engine keeps revving up and down every few seconds as the AC keeps turning on and off. It happens in my Ritz, too, but in the Ciaz, it’s more annoying.
- The suspension is rough.
- The steering wheel is hard.
- There’s a blue arc-shaped light at the top of the dash that can’t be turned off.
- It’s hard to honk with one finger.
Driving
+ The car handled a deep speed bump at 20 kph, which is impressive for a sedan, and not bad for any car.
+ 170mm ground clearance
- I can’t see whether the car is in D, R, N, etc, because the wheel blocks that part of the display.
- The dash doesn’t show the current gear like D2 or D3. As a geek, I like to understand what the automatic transmission is doing internally.
+ The car is small, so it’s easy to maneuver in traffic.
- There’s an overdrive toggle on the gear lever. If overdrive is on, the transmission prefers to use the 3rd and 4th gear to save fuel at the cost of acceleration. If off, you get more acceleration at the cost of fuel efficiency. But the acceleration was terrible whether or not overdrive was on. Besides, I can indicate how much acceleration I want by how much I press the accelerator, so this button is redundant and just adds confusion.
+ No modes like eco or sport, which keeps it simple.
Cooling
+ The door holds my Thermos flask and a 1-liter Bisleri bottle at once.
+ The AC vents are at a height, which is good since the head and upper body are the most heat-sensitive parts.
+ There are two center bottle-holders.
- There’s no remote AC start.
- The glovebox is not cooled.
- No rear window sunshades.
- The rear windshield has a sunshade that has to be manually applied or removed, which isn’t possible when driving. I know it’s not realistic to expect it to be electrical considering the price, but the problem of not being adjust it while driving remains nevertheless.
- My googles don’t fit in the sunglass holder.
+ Each of the four AC vents can be turned on or off or opened to any desired extent. Using this, you can simulate a dual-zone AC.
+ The AC controls are intuitive, but rotating the temperature knob sometimes adjusts it by half a degree and sometimes by a degree, even when I rotate it carefully and gently.
- 3 of 4 voice commands I gave resulted in an error.
± You should turn off the idle start / stop system, because otherwise the AC loses effectiveness soon after stopping at a signal.
Digital
- No USB-C port
+ USB-A
+ 12V 120W port whose power is shared with the A port.
- The infotainment screen is barely wider than my phone in landscape; its diagonal is only 6.5 inches! It should have been bigger to add value over using my phone’s screen.
- The dash settings are controlled using two long cheap-looking sticks. This kind of UI belongs in 2013, not 2025.
- The infotainment system’s UI is ugly, like a 10-year-old Android tablet.
- The music quality is bad.
- The volume control on my phone doesn’t work in CarPlay (but then it doesn’t in most or all cars).
- I can’t pause music playback except by using the touchscreen, which is less safe.
Front passenger seat
- Only moves forward / backward and reclines; doesn’t raise or lower
- The recline mechanism was making a noise as the seat caught the ratchet repeatedly.
- I couldn’t stretch my legs
+ The headroom is excellent for a sedan.
Rear seat
- I couldn’t stretch my legs in the rear seat.
+ The headroom is good for a sedan.
- The window isn’t panoramic either in width or in height, but that’s typical for a sedan.
- The headrest is hard.
- There’s no USB port, whether -C or -A.
+ 12V socket
+ Each of the rear passengers can independently adjust their AC vent direction (up / down / left / right) and how open it is. The vent is flimsy, though. I don’t know if it will last the life of the car.