Not worth the price you pay

Exterior Front looks rather dull, however the rear styling gives the car a classy look.

Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Space is good. Seats are comfortable and upholstery is good. Shock Absorbers are fine and absorb a lot of bumps that other cars of this segment except City dont do as good.

Ride Quality & Handling This is where the car completely fails. I have owned and driven a number of cars of this segment, and Ciaz is the worst of all.

The Petrol Automatic Version: the Engine noise inside the cabin is way too much. Its almost as if you are driving a diesel Engine car.

The Handling is not just bad, but rather dangerous. Its for this reason I would not recommend buying this car. The steering of the car is way too swift and does not self-center. This is a simple and basic feature a car of this segment should have. I own a Honmda City and an Elantra,and the self-centering of the steeering in these two cars is perfect, With any speed and any angle of turn ,the steering orients itself to the centre to make for safe and easy driving.

However in the Ciaz, if you take a turn, as simple as a lane change, the steering tends to stay in the position of the turn and does not self centre. You have to pull it back manually to the centre position. This greatly affect the straight line stability of the car and not only makes for very uncomfortable but also dangerous driving at any speed and in traffic.

This was pointed out to the guys at Spectra Motors the very next day after taking the delivery of the car. They however responded after 3 weeks and that too only after I complained to Maruti Helpline.

Their technician came and took a  test drive of the car, and said that probably the problem lies with the with the model itself. I had test driven the Ciaz before buying and the problem wasnt to be seen in the test car. So we drove the test car again with the salesman of Spectra Motors and  technician Mr. Sujit of Spectra. Mr. Sujit after that was of the opinion(after driving my car when he too could not control it well after a slight lane change kind of turn and would have banged the car into the side walk) that there is a issue that needs to be addressed. They took the car to the showroom and did some repair work, and returned the car after 3 days. When I rode the car again, I only felt a slight improvement in the performance, with the steering self centering at higher sppeds but not below 60, which still made for dangerous driving.

This was then pointed out to Mr. Dhumal (workshop manager) of Spectra and Mr. Sujit, who recommened that this is the way any car works. I then showed him my Honda City with a perfect Self-Centering steering and he said I should compare a "Maruti to a Maruti". So we test drove a very old Wagon R of a neighbour, the Self Centering of which was much better and made for a safe driving. Upon this Mr. Sujit said that they have repaired the car as per Maruti Specs and there is nothing more they can do. If the car does not self-center, then maybe thats how it is designed.

They also showed the car to one Mr. Akbar from Maruti who said that the car is fine. They in fact told me that may be the problem is only with this specific model of Ciaz as no one else is complaining.  So if there is a model specific problem, does that make it OK and isnt it your job to resolve it???

This is not my first car, but definitely the last one from Maruti. Not only is this car a bad design, but also the attitude of Maruti is the typical "chalta hain types" where in I end up being the loser. My use of this car will end up being limited only in the city where I neways wont be able to drive at high speeds because it would be very dangerous to drive the car at high speeds and Maruti is not interested in repairing it.

Final Words Do not buy this car. Its not safe to handle. Note that there is another review on this forum which has mentioned that the car has a self centering problem. I hope Maruti is listening and would do something about this.

Areas of improvement Engine Performance and Handling, and attitude of authorised dealers and workshops. Some ownership of a mistake would do good for the company.

Interiors space and comfortEverything Else