Maruti Suzuki Ertiga: What else can you buy?

The Maruti Suzuki Ertiga is here in its new avatar. It is an all-new car with a fresh upmarket look and is larger than before. Along with more space inside, it also gets a new interior, which is premium especially with that wooden garnish and the new tablet screen on the dashboard. The new Ertiga also gets a new 1.5-litre petrol engine and it starts at Rs 7.44 lakh ex-showroom while the diesel price tags begin at just over Rs 9 lakh. While the Ertiga in its new avatar is a great package, here is a list of cars that are also available for the money the Ertiga demands.

To start with, at about Rs 7.5 lakh there are a bunch of fully loaded petrol hatchbacks available from the Hyundai Grand i10 Asta or the Sportz AT, the Maruti Suzuki Swift ZXI AT and of course, the Ford Freestyle Titanium Plus petrol. These are smaller cars, but fully loaded ones at that with a touchscreen display, electric mirrors, all four power windows et al. 

Moving on to the next bracket of about Rs 8 lakh to Rs 8.5 lakh brings the choice of a fully loaded compact sedan or a premium hatchback. Among compact sedans is Maruti Dzire, Hyundai Xcent, Honda Amaze, Ford Aspire, Volkswagen Ameo and the Tata Tigor. The compact sedans offer the aspirational quotient of a three-box car with a dedicated boot and top-spec trims in almost all cases. Among premium hatchbacks, the choice is between the spacious Honda Jazz, the Maruti Suzuki Baleno, the Hyundai Elite i20 and the Volkswagen Polo.

The next set of prices, about Rs 9 lakh ex-showroom, are for the entry-level diesel trim of the Ertiga. For this amount of money, you could go for the petrol-powered full-size C-segment sedans like the Hyundai Verna, the Honda City, Skoda Rapid, Volkswagen Vento and Maruti Suzuki Ciaz. Or you could opt for diesel versions of the premium hatchbacks and compact sedans that we have mentioned before.

For the price of the mid-trim Maruti Suzuki Ertiga VDI, you could also opt for the compact sub-four metre SUVs like the Tata Nexon, the Ford Ecosport, Honda WR-V, Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza along with the Mahindra TUV300. For the price of the top-spec diesel Maruti Ertiga, the likes of the Mahindra Scorpio or the petrol mid-trim of the Hyundai Creta or the Renault Duster are a pretty close match. But none of these, except for the TUV300 Plus, will offer you seven seats whenever you want.