Maruti Jimny Alpha AT test drive: 8 things including highway behaviour

The automatic transmission feels outright lazy, as expected, and makes my 10-year-old Maruti WagonR feel ‘sprightly’ in comparison.

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I have had a Jimny booked since January and now that test drives are available freely at my location, I took two on consecutive days – fairly extended ones, totalling about 30kms over mixed surfaces including inner-city, off-road and open highways. Both were done in an Alpha AT trim and I’d like to present my experience for the rest here as follows:

1. What impresses me immediately and over all kinds of surfaces is the incredible job in the suspension department achieved by MUL engineers. The Jimny displays no road shock at all, irrespective of ruts, pavements and craters of any size. The suspension appears progressive and absorptive at all times and speeds. The car neither crashes nor throws occupants around, displaying a maturity missing in many larger vehicles of the ladder frame class or monocoques. Similarly, the damped steering never wrenches your hands from the desired position at any time. Full marks on that.
2. Much has been spoken about the visibility from the driver’s seat and I can only endorse that fully. Front, through the A-pillars or rear visibility, is peachy and it’s an all-round easy car to manoeuvre.
3. The seats up front are supportive and comfortable even for a six-footer and if I were to point a problem, it would be with a much shorter person feeling the unusually large headrests pressing the neck out at a less than comfortable position – something that will probably require a quality neck pillow available easily aftermarket.
4. NHV is acceptable at city speeds and up to 90 kmph within city limits, the engine feeling unobtrusive but not exactly eager in the AT trim. In fact, the AT feels outright lazy, as I was expecting it to be and makes my 10-year-old WagonR feel ‘sprightly’ in comparison. It transformed my Virtus GT into a Porsche when I switched back. Again, expected.
5. The rear seat angle, something I complained about while trying out the display car months ago, seems fine enough on the move and even the low thigh support is something that can perhaps be overlooked for up to a few hours. The music out of the fairly basic setup, is not exactly tinny, but more of a bass favouring muffled affair that can do at a pinch. But it won’t serve well for a wide variety of tunes.
6. Taking the car out on the expressway on day 2 however, dampened my glee a bit. On open roads, the AT was clearly straining at 100 and while it wasn’t exactly pedal-to-metal at these speeds, the car was clearly not happy. Wind noise rose spectacularly, I had to check a couple of times if I had accidentally activated overdrive-cancel and worse – the thin tires and slab sides came into play.
7. At 100, with a load of 5 people, the car was distinctly shimmying in crosswinds, acting nervous among faster traffic and reducing the confidence I felt only a day before, at an alarming rate. In stock configuration and AT trim, the Jimny would not be my pick of car for inter-city travel. I am hoping the extra cog in my chosen MT trim, would help settle the engine a bit more than the 4AT and I also hope that a slightly wider set of tires can take care of high-speed stability. But I can no longer play a blind card without a proper test drive. Unfortunately, MT aren’t available for trials yet and I’d be grateful for a genuine user review if any available here.
8. Overall, as a proposition, the Jimny in my experience, appears to be more of an inner-city gem with incredible rough road chops once you have access to such terrain. But that makes it a fairly overpriced proposition for a city-based customer like me, who’s not into off-roading as recreation, who has a better cruiser in the garage already and some more years left in my inner-city transport, the ageing WagonR.

I will update this view once I am able to get my hands on an MT. Till then, I don’t think I’ll pester my dealer for delivery. All in sweet time.

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