It’s been a month since the new-gen Maruti Suzuki Celerio joined the CarWale Long Term Garage. It being a frugal runabout, with a convenience of an automatic, decently long features list, along with being peppy and comfortable behind the wheel has brewed quite a demand for the Celerio’s keys in the office. But while comparing notes, we noticed that the new Celerio has gotten a seemingly expensive over the older one.
According to the last recorded price of the previous-gen Celerio, the ZXI (O) AMT was Rs 5.58 lakh ex-showroom. Meanwhile, our Celerio ZXI Plus AMT’s ex-showroom price is now Rs 7.00 lakh ex-showroom. That’s a hike of around Rs 1.42 lakh. But understandably a major chunk of this price increment has gone behind the new K10C engine; so the new Celerio in fact does offer a lot of bang for its buck. So we have decided to take a look at the features and equipment it has on offer in this report.
We particularly love this Caffeine Brown paint on our Celerio, which is incidentally the same as the S-Cross 1.6 owned by colleague Siddharth. Speaking of which, our parking attendant couldn’t differentiate between the two. And I am a huge fan of blacked-out alloy wheels, and the Celerio’s wheel does go well with its tall-boyish stance.
The large bulbous headlamps and provision of fog lamps have proved to be useful in the torrential rains we have received over the past month when no sun shone and mid-day felt like late evening. And it might not seem a big deal at first, but the turn indicators (and blinkers) on the ORVMs do come in handy.
At first, the keyless entry button looked odd to me, placed oddly next to the door handles and with a bright chrome-finished key insert. But using the request button has proved to be a convenience which is usually reserved for more expensive cars. Especially, since you get the keyless entry button on both front doors so the passengers don’t need to wait outside if the key is in the vicinity – saving them from getting drenched running up towards the car on the pavement.
Another useful feature on the Celerio is the electric folding ORVMs. It also gets an electric adjustment on the right below the steering next to the engine start/stop button. It also has electric folding and is a surprisingly good feature to have because we have seen a few expensive cars on which the ORVMs don’t fold automatically when locked.
In terms of practicality, the Celerio has two cupholders in the centre console, and each door pad gets a space large enough to fit a one-litre bottle easily. There’s some space in the centre console as well but it’s not particularly useful to place your phone. So you’d either need to put it away in one of the cup holders or keep it awkwardly stacked in the little place below the circular space for the USB/12Volt ports.
Placed oddly at the top of the centre dash is the seven-inch touchscreen infotainment screen. It has all the necessities covered in terms of connectivity and information on display. Even the touch response is smooth and without any delay. However, sometimes I found the USB port causing connection issues when using Android Auto, especially when the phone was kept oddly with the wire connected. This needs to be looked into closely, so more on it in the next report.
Lastly, we come to the one feature that has gotten our goat – the dashboard-mounted switches for the windows and central locking. Firstly, the central locking doesn’t unlock the car when the engine is switched off. And so you’d find yourself opening the door after turning off the engine only to find the door lock ineffective. Then you’ll search for the unlock button on the door but it’s not there. After which you will finally you’ll have to search among the five buttons on the centre console to unlock the door. All of this could have been avoided easily. There are conventional switches in the Wagon, why not in the Celerio?
Secondly, the switches for the rear windows are placed between the seats a little behind the handbrake. It’s another inconvenience where you’ll have to scour through to find the buttons while driving. Now consider the fact that this Celerio now comes at a cost where a few years ago, you could have gotten yourself a decked-up Swift (with its conventionally placed switches). So the placement of the switch in the centre console doesn’t cut it anymore.
Our Celerio long termer might be one of the budget segment hatchbacks, but it has got many such small yet useful features that make living with it a comfortable affair. In the next report, we’ll be seeing how it performs in city commutes. We’ll be taking a closer look at its fuel efficiency as well since it’s claimed to be powered by ‘India’s most fuel-efficient petrol engine’. And we’ll also see how the passenger experience of the new Celerio is.
Pictures by Kaustubh Gandhi
Product Details
Make: Maruti Suzuki
Model: Celerio
Version: ZXI Plus Automatic
Kilometres on the Odo: 3,035km
Price: Rs 8.15 lakh (on-road Mumbai, when tested)
Keyword: Maruti Suzuki Celerio ZXI Plus AMT Long Term: Features and Equipment