Maruti Suzuki Ritz Review

Catch the review of Ritz exteriors here http://www.vicky.in/blog/maruti-suzuki-ritz-test-drive/

Pictorial Review of Maruti Suzuki Ritz – Interiors

Maruti Suzuki Ritz: Ritz is based on swift platform and but with a shorter wheelbase (30 mm lesser than the Swift). However it is roomy with sufficient legroom for adults on all seats. The magic lies with the Ritz high roofline which makes the cabin feel more spacious than it actually is. The overall height of Ritz is 1620mm which enabled Maruti engineers to raise the seating position by 54mm in the front and 47mm in the rear. While the headroom is overwhelming,  the legroom at the rear is quiet decent. The rear seat is set higher than the front seats so all occupants get a good view but at the rear claustrophobic feel remains. But the high roofline and seating postion makes the ingress and egress easy

Pictures of Maruti Suzuki Ritz

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Maruti Suzuki Ritz: The tall build of the Ritz necessites the taut suspension to lean over in corners but its not stiff as in the swift. Maruti Suzuki has carried forward the suspension setup – Mcpherson strut at the front and torison beam at the rear from the swift. But the spring rates are tuned to suit the 1.5tonne Ritz. Result, the ride is composed and superior to swift but it gets unsettled on rough surfaces..Overall, Ritz which is geared for comfort has a sporty undertone. I believe Maruti Suzuki engineers has got the good blend of ride and handling with the Ritz.

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Maruti Suzuki Ritz: The ergonomics is good, the dash is not too high mounted as in the A-star. The windshield has been placed extremely far forward enabling excellent overall view.  The centre control panel is nicely designed, the gearlever sits high on the dash and the driver seat is too high, even at its lowest setting. The steering and driver seat are height adjustable.  The interiors are pleasant and is clarely best of the Maruti lot. But the problem with sharing of components between cars makes you less exciting. Steering wheel, gear lever, control knobs and music player are carried forward from the swift.

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Maruti Suzuki Ritz: The large speedo that sits straight ahead of the driver and circled by warning lamps is simple and easy to read. The retro tacho pod sits on the dash left side of the steering wheel. Cabin storage is good, there are lot of stowage spaces but i wish few of them could have non-slip inserts. The 178litre 236 litre boot is only just adequate for the weekly supermarket shop but with the flat folding 60:40 rear seat can amplify it to voluminous 537litres.

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Maruti Suzuki Ritz: The ritz petrol is available in three variants – Lxi,Vxi and Zxi and the diesel variant in Ldi and Vdi. Maruti’s exciting new Ritz packs in all the equipment you wish. 60:40 foldable rear seats, anti-glare mirror, rear fog lamp,digital clock,power steering, dual tone interiors, under-seat tray and coin holder. The top of the varaint – ritz Zxi gets built-in music player, ABS airbags,rear window defogger,rear wiper, alloy wheels,steering  wheel mounted audio controls and tiltable steering. The diesel top end lacks few of the above listed features like CD player. Maruti says a diesel customer is very price sensitive and hence these features are offered as optional.

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Verdict:Overall we are very impressed with the Maruti Suzuki’s Ritz. It’s roomy, practical and drives good. To put in simple words, Ritz is the family avatar of swift. We expect the Ritz to follow the footsteps of swift and set the sales chart on fire.

Honda jazz 1.2L VTEC

The competetion is becoming intense! especially in the premium hatchback segment. 5 days from now we will see Maruti Suzuki will roll out its roomy hatch Ritz. Today Honda has come up more details on its upcoming Jazz which is due on next month. Honda might have perfectly timed the announcement of 1.2L VTEC engine exclusively made for India. Honda says that the 1.2 L i-VTEC engine is specially developed for the Indian Market. Honda’s 1.2L VTEC powertrain is a four – cylinder, 1198 cc engine featuring Programmed Fuel Injection delivering class – leading Power of 90 PS (66 kW) at 6,200 rpm and Torque of 110 Nm (11.2 kg-m) at 4800 rpm while giving impressive fuel economy of 16.1 km/l as per ARAI test data. In line with Honda’s mission to reduce its environmental footprint, the new engine is E10 compatible and has Euro IV emission levels.

Picture of Honda Jazz 1.2L VTEC engine

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ENGINE SPECIFICATIONS

Cylinder

4 Cylinders, In-line

Fuel Type

Petrol

Capacity

1198cc

Fuel Efficiency

16.1 km/l

Maximum Power

90 PS @ 6200 rpm

Maximum Torque

110 Nm @ 4800 rpm

Hyundai to launch facelifted Santro by 2009 end

Hyundai reiterated its stand to facelift its decade old but most successful small car santro. While Hyundai phased out the santro following the introducion of i10, but continue to sell the santro on account of good response. To further augment its sales, Hyundai will launch the facelifted santro before the end of 2009. However the changes will be limited to styling which means the same engine will power the santro. Since its launch in India in September 1998, Hyundai has sold 9,84,418 units in the domestic market. The price new santro might remain the same.

Toyota to launch LandCruiser diesel in June

Toyota is all set to unleash its diesel monster – LandCruiser diesel in India. Powered by a 4litre,V8 diesel engine which pumps out 286PS of peak power at 3600rpm and a massive 650Nm of torque at 1600rpm. A 6-speed automatic transmission and 4WD (four wheel drive) is sure to increase its appeal. However, the excise duty structure for CBU will make the costiliest toyota in India more pricier. LandCruiser diesel might be priced around Rs80 lakh and compete with the likes of Audi Q7, BMW X5 and Mercedes M-Class. Will the buyer favour Toyota over these luxury brands is yet to be seen!

Bajaj – KTM to unveil bikes at 2010 Delhi Auto Expo

Bajaj – KTM which signed an agreement in November 2007 to produce motorcycles displaceing between 125cc to 250cc has said that the first produce of the joint venture will be showcased at 2010 Delhi auto expo. These bikes is expected to signify the rebirth of Bajaj Auto in Indian motorcycle industry. Bajaj has been losing sales to Honda duo in the commuter segment and advent of Yamaha in the performance segment. Bajaj auto which has bought 32% stake in KTM will showcase these products at the Delhi auto show but before that KTM will present these models at Milan international bike show. Bajaj will kickstart mass production of the the bikes is expected at the Chakan facility in 2010. The bikes are expected to come with liquid cooled engines.

Bajaj earlier said that it will assemble high perfomance bikes – 690 Supermoto, 690 Dukeand the 990 Superduke in India and sell it through its probiking showroom. But due to economic slowdown, the company postponed the launches. It seems like Bajaj – KTM will launch the superbikes in second half of 2009. However, Bajaj has not revealed anything on the launch of much expected kawasaki Ninja 250cc

Hyundai to launch i20 diesel

Hyundai today said that it would launch a diesel variant of i20 hatchback before the end of 2009. “Hyundai plans to introduce at least two new products in the Indian market annually for the next couple of years. The i20 diesel variant would be the next in line with launch scheduled for later in 2009.”  With the success of i10 an i20, Hyundai also hopes to grab larger market share in the burgeoning Indian car market. “We currently have a 20.4 per cent market share. For the year ending 2009 we will look at growing our market share further by three per cent,” Hyundai Motor Senior Vice-President (Asia & Pacific Division) Young-Kil Chun said.

Hot news update on Cervo,Omni,SX4 diesel and Kizashi

Maruti Suzuki’s managing director Shinzo Nakanishi has spelled out his company’s roadmap for the future.  He indicated the company’s plan to launch a 600cc small car. “The Suzuki 660 cc car is a good car for the Indian market, but it will take some years to launch it here.” But the cost recovery could be one of the main issue hampering cervo prospects in India. Maruti Suzuki recently commissioned an engine plant for the K-series engine, which powers the A-star and upcoming Ritz. “We have to recover this investment first. Once that happens, we’ll focus on the 660 cc car,” said Nakanishi.  “Thirdly, the 660 cc engine needs to be upgraded to meet Bharat 4 norms, which push up the cost of the car,” said Nakanishi.

Contrary to earlier media reports, Nakanishi said Maruti Suzuki will not phase out its popular model Omni. Instead it will work on the engine and upgrade it to comply the upcoming Bharat IV emission norms. However, he admitted that 800 will be phased out from 11 major cities. He further stated, the Maruti Suzuki engineers tried but failed to make the cut. “Every month, we sell about 7,000 units of the Omni on an average. That’s a good number and we would not like to let go of it. Our engineers are working to upgrade the Omni’s engine to meet the new emission norms, so the Omni will not be phased out,” he said.  “We have had no progress on the Maruti 800,” Nakanishi added.

On the sagging sales of SX4 due to the advent of new models like Fiat Linea and Honda new City, Nakanishi said
“the company is weighing various options to increase sales of SX4”. “One of the solutions is to bring a diesel SX4 but we don’t have a big engine as 1.3 litre engine (used in DZiRE) that we have is too small for the SX4,” he added.

On the various conflicting reports on Kizashi coming to India,Nakanishi said Suzuki is scaling down development of large cars following preference of smaller vehicles in the global auto market. “The market has changed and SMC has now stopped developing such big engines. Now they are developing a 2 litre engine,” Nakanishi said. He further stateed that the if Suzuki launches the Kizashi in Japan then it would make it to India.”If SMC launches Kizashi this year in Japan we will think of bringing it in India. Otherwise, SX4 will be our biggest car here.”

Tata receives 2 lakh bookings

Finally the number are out, Tata Motors has said that it has received at least 203,000 bookings for the Nano. The bookings represent about 17 percent of the 1.22 million passenger cars sold in India. Out of the total bookings, 70% were financed and the rest were on application through cash payment.  The bookings amount to almost Rs2500 crores. Significantly,  4,000 cash bookings were made online through www.tatanano.com. The Tata Nano website recorded 30 million hits from the date of launch of the car to the closure of the booking period (25 April, 2009), receiving nearly 1 million hits a day. About 14 lakh people walked into Tata Motors’ showrooms, Croma and Westside stores across the country, the company statement said.  Out of the total bookings, the base version accounted for 20% of the bookings, followed by the CX variant at 30% while the remaining 50% were for the top-end LX variant. Tata will begin deliveries in July 2009 and are expected to be completed in the last quarter of 2010.

Toyota to launch Lexus cars

As Indian auto market shows signs of recovery, Toyota plans to follow the footsteps of bigger luxury car makers like BMW,Mercedes and Audi. The much expected Lexus brand will foray into the indian market soon. The luxury car market seen a growth of 22% last year. “We are very much looking at introducing Lexus, based on the feedback of our dealers and distributors, but are yet to decide on a final timeframe to launch it in India,” Toyota Kirlosakar Motors, MD Hiroshi Nakagawa said.

Toyota also plans to hike its production as the market back on track. Toyota is now producing around 3500 units a month at its Karanataka plant and plans to ramp it up to 5000 (to its full capacity) by July. “On the basis of the market’s performance last year, we cut our output, but since in the last four months the market is coming back on track, we will increase the production of our vehicles from May,” Toyota Kirlosakar Motors, Deputy Managing Director (Marketing) Sandeep Singh said.

Bajaj new pulsar 150cc

As part of 2009 pulsar series, Bajaj will launch a new upgraded version of pulsar 150cc. The changes are cosmetic and it comes with the same 150cc engine. The new pulsar gets tank scoops borrowed from the pulsar 200cc and all black theme. Also the headlight now gets power directly from the battery.

Picture of new pulsar 150cc

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Thanks Bike India