Maruti Vitara Brezza Long Term Review

The Maruti Vitara Brezza is one of the highest selling UVs in the Indian market. This compact SUV has been developed in-house by the automaker in India and has been a very good success story thanks to its performance, efficiency and good equipment list. The Maruti Vitara Brezza is a durable performer on our city roads as well as highways, writes Indian automotive website MotorBeam.com.

 

Maruti has this iCreate platform for Vitara Brezza owners where customers can customise their cars by adding accessories to the exteriors and interiors. Our test car was already customised by Maruti before we got it. Hence, it comes with some additional chrome on the outside, stickers on the body and roof, additional body cladding, new seat covers and plastic trims on the door panels and dashboard.

 

The Vitara Brezza has functional and practical interiors. The dashboard carries a simple layout and most of the parts feel familiar. The steering wheel and switches are shared with the Swift, while the SmartPlay infotainment system is shared with the Baleno, S-Cross, Ciaz, Ertiga, Ignis, etc. Quality on the inside is just about decent. Fit and finish feels good but our test model is making a couple of annoying rattling sounds. 

 

Under the hood of this compact SUV is the tried and tested 1.3-litre DDiS mill which is offered in the 90 PS tune. This engine comes mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. Thanks to the Ciaz using the same powertrain, we are quite familiar with this motor and gearbox combo, so much so that we exactly know how to drive to extract the most fuel efficiency and what RPM band to keep the compact SUV in to extract the most power.

 

 

The oil burner is noisy and some of the clatter filters inside the cabin. The clutch feels light and the powerplant gets going with light throttle inputs. Turbo lag is present in abundance but once you cross that, the Brezza just takes off with a very strong surge all the way to almost 4000 RPM. I like the way the turbo kicks in and all of a sudden the pace of the vehicle increases.

 

The gearbox is smooth and the throws are short. The drivetrain feels very good on the highways and touching triple digit speeds isn't a problem at all. In fact, the Vitara feels extremely stable on almost all type of road conditions and I am particularly in love with the stiff suspension set-up which makes the car feel planted, robust and even fun to drive. The Apollo Alnac 4G tyres offer very good grip and the high ground clearance helps a lot when you want to tread off the road. 

 

Monsoons in Mumbai have been pretty harsh last month and we had to drive through some flooded areas for a couple of kms and we were extremely surprised and impressed by how the Vitara took everything in its stride. We even drove to the hills last weekend and the vehicle easily climbed up on broken patches without much sweat. 

 

The Maruti Vitara Brezza comes with some really useful features like keyless-go, automatic headlamps and wipers, etc. and the vehicle has strong mechanicals, offering a very good drive. Yes, the steering feels a bit heavy at city speeds but otherwise there are hardly any complaints about the way this car drives. 

Source: MotorBeam.com