[djkher]

Guys, I have a 2016 Nov S-Cross. My question is around A/C servicing. I never had to do any A/C servicing like gas top-up etc as the A/C is working perfectly fine. However it's 4+ years now. Should I go for a pro-active A/C service anyway?

[BoneCollector]

Originally Posted by djkher

Guys, I have a 2016 Nov S-Cross. My question is around A/C servicing. I never had to do any A/C servicing like gas top-up etc as the A/C is working perfectly fine. However it's 4+ years now. Should I go for a pro-active A/C service anyway?

If it ain't broken , why fix it?

Do not ask the service center to fiddle with AC till the time there is some genuine issue. And when some genuine issue crops up, take help of a professional car AC mechanic rather than service center.

Our Wagon R had poor cooling which couldn't be resolved by the service center even after 3 visits. They were asking for a compressor change. It was fixed by a local car AC mechanic for Rs. 200/- , fault was with some valve. And it's been holding on for last 1 year.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by djkher

Guys, I have a 2016 Nov S-Cross. My question is around A/C servicing. I never had to do any A/C servicing like gas top-up etc as the A/C is working perfectly fine. However it's 4+ years now. Should I go for a pro-active A/C service anyway?

I havent touched the AC of my SX4 from the last 12 years of use and it is still running fine. Dont mess with it when there is no need.

[naadopaasaka]

This is a long-term ownership review of a 2017 Pearl Arctic White Maruti S-Cross Sigma powered by the then ubiquitous 1.3-litre 4-cylinder Fiat diesel engine. We bought the car in April 2017. With the help of Team-BHP’s guide, I discovered from the chassis number that the car was manufactured in March, 2017. It has, thus far, done about 31,800 kilometres. Most of the driving has been within the city of Bengaluru, including through some of its more infamous bottlenecks like Old Madras Road regularly. The average is roughly 15 km per day within the city. It accumulates mileage only on long drives. I have taken it on multiple long drives too including to Madurai and Chennai (both many times), Tirunelveli, Mysuru, Gudalur/ Ooty, Trichy, Kumbakonam, Coorg, and Palakkad. No abnormal/ special use or driving styles.

Likes & Dislikes Summary
1. Likes
(a) Handling - responsive and compliant steering, negligible body roll
(b) Rear seat comfort
(c) Low running cost - high mileage and Maruti cost of spares & service
(d) Ride quality - smooth ride, feels safe

2. Dislikes
(a) Turbo lag
(b) Headlights are very poor
(c) Tyres - noisy and let down the chassis, low traction in wet conditions
(d) Vibration levels in the car

Alternatives Considered
3. I did as much research as my knowledge levels then (in 2017) would permit. I realise now that I didn't know enough. We zeroed in on the Ciaz. I am not a fan of Hyundais or Hondas. Tata didn't have the great cars it has now. We wanted to pick a large, easily accessible manufacturer. And in our budget of ₹8-12 lakh, Maruti had a couple of good options. We wanted a sedan, and an upgrade from an Indigo CS. The Ciaz seemed a reasonable choice. But the rear seats of that car did not satisfy us. We saw the S-Cross in the showroom, sat in it, test drove it a few days later, and then test drove it again. We actually never test drove the Ciaz. And we bought the S-Cross. Honestly, it was mostly just good luck. I don't think it was a particularly educated choice at the time.

Booking Experience
4. Again, at the time, we weren't educated buyers. We didn't negotiate on the price at all. We bought the car from what was then Garuda Autocraft's Nexa showroom near Horamavu junction in Bengaluru. The salesman associated with us didn't seem particularly keen to sell us the car. There was another salesman who spoke to us who seemed more interested. On the date of delivery, our salesman happened to be on leave.

5. We bought Maruti's own insurance, which in retrospect might have been a rip off. We have since shifted out of Maruti's insurance-brokers.

6. What was disappointing was the extras. The accessories salesman seemed ready to lie through his teeth. He made promises which he never kept. We followed up with him on our seat covers for a month and finally gave in and bought them at another showroom.

The on-road price worked out to roughly ₹10,25,000.

Maruti Suzuki offered a three-year warranty. Kalyani Motors offers three more years. However, we chose not to opt for that.

Looks
7. This isn’t a new car. Everybody is probably familiar with what it looks like. I’m no expert. I haven’t ever been too concerned about looks. The S-Cross presently available has a different look to some extent. So, I’m not going to deal with this in detail. Suffice it to state that looks aren’t a major selling point of the car. One thing I do like about how it looks is that it is understated and formal. I am not a big fan of loud cars with a lot of character. I don't like outlandish looks either. I like driving a car that looks sedate which nobody notices too much, and which generally tends to slip under the radar. On the inside, the fit and finish of the materials is generally very good. There has not been too much deterioration over the period of use – only the normal wear and tear you’d expect like the markings atop the gear lever are now less clear and the indicator/ headlight buttons are shiny, both because of the friction/ wear arising from normal use. I like the all-black interiors. I think even from an aesthetic standpoint, the interiors still look reasonably current. A large portion of the dashboard has soft-touch plastics. However, only the higher trims have chrome-finish door handles and gear knobs. On the outside, I am not particularly impressed with the paint quality. There are a few stains which don't go away.

Driving
8. The cars I drove regularly before this were the rather sluggish and disappointing Tata Indigo CS (2009) and a Maruti WagonR (2011). The 1.3-litre S-Cross engine therefore was a big step up for me. However, having better understood cars and powertrains now, I can say that the performance of this powertrain is but sufficient. I wanted to say good, but then I adjusted for ownership-bias. It isn’t outstanding or exciting. It isn’t poor either. There is a quite a bit of turbo lag. The turbo seems to want to kick in at around 1,700 RPM (the growl begins here), but really only gives you the boost at around 2,250 RPM. While that boost is quite sharp, it doesn’t last long either. It cools down again at around 3,000 RPM. But if the car isn’t heavily loaded with people/ luggage, that boost can actually push you back in your seat. In other words, low-range torque is disappointing, mid-range torque is good, and high-range torque is okay. Note, however, that I have never taken the car past 4,000 RPM. I’m no sportsman and don’t really like hearing the engine being pushed to its limits in a non-sports car.

9. One positive is that the low-range performance is good: That is, you can creep/ cruise at 1,000-1,250 RPM without too much trouble and, on a day on which you’re tired, go over a large speed-breaker with a little clutch-throttle manipulation on the 2nd gear. While the ratio between the first and second gears could have been better (you’re sometimes forced to downshift to the first gear), it is still better than many other cars. Driving within the city is not a problem at all. The third gear has impressive range.

10. The 5-speed manual transmission is impressive. It’s smooth but not lifeless. You get mild vibrations from the engine on the gear lever. Nothing to complain about though. Personally, I actually quite like it that way – gives me that schoolboy-ish thrill of having a connection with the raw engineering and machinery that the demands of luxury hide from us. 120 kmph in 5th gear is roughly 3,000 RPM. I would have loved a 6th gear because the platform and the rest of the powertrain really would support cruising at higher speeds where the roads and the laws permit. Getting onto reverse gear sometimes requires de-clutching and re-clutching, particularly if you do so right after starting the engine. Gear throws are not long at all and the lever is rather willing to get into the slots.

11. The clutch itself is light and smooth. The biting point is ready to be identified easily. I have a good relationship with the clutch. There is no sign of the clutch getting any harder with time. However, I have noticed some shuddering on the clutch and the car in general when moving off in first gear on some days. It only happens in that half-clutch position when you’re in the process of releasing the clutch but haven’t completed the process because traffic around you doesn’t permit you to freely accelerate. I haven’t been able to discover a pattern to this yet. Happens on some arbitrary occasions but not even every time you do; not even it on the same day/ in the same drive. It feels like the clutch plates aren’t fully co-operating with each other and there’s some low-frequency friction between them. Will be happy to have some experts make sense out of this. If you gently give it a little throttle and release the clutch, it settles down doesn’t recur on the same drive if you stop and start moving off again. Maybe the clutch isn’t in good condition? I don’t know. But I don’t have any other symptoms of the clutch malfunctioning – no racing (isn’t that word for disproportionately high engine speeds with little effect on the rest of the powertrain), no heat, no smell, etc. I have also read some much more serious complaints about clutches from this and earlier generations of the S-Cross.

12. The most disappointing thing about the clutch (actually the floor of the car) is that when the clutch is fully depressed, the base of the pedal rests on the floor about an inch or two deeper than where the heel of your left foot (with shoe on) is placed. In other words, there is a depression in the floor of the car beginning just underneath the clutch and going upwards. This means that when the clutch is fully depressed, the top surface of the pedal on which your foot rests is even or in line with the floor below it. This, coupled with the vertical height of the clutch from the bottom of the car means the whole of your foot actually has to move upwards and forwards a little to fully depress the clutch. Consequently, if you are somebody who likes to use the clutch like the accelerator while resting your heel on the floor (I am that kind of person), you can’t do that because of this. For reference, my shoe size is ~9-10 and I’m a smidge under 5’ 9” in height. This sometimes annoys me when I drive within the city. I also think the accelerator pedal is, relative to the clutch, too close to me. When I’m gently depressing the accelerator and not pushing pedal to metal, my ankle/ shin isn’t comfortable at all. This causes pain on some days. This is because my foot has to be bent upwards towards my shin much more than comfortable. I’m not able to find a comfortable position because moving the seat makes the clutch difficult to deal with. But since I have the sigma variant, the seats aren’t height-adjustable. If the seat were a tad higher, I’d have been very happy with the footwell. The footwell also comes equipped with a wide, comfortable, luxurious dead pedal – a real pleasure and relief on long drives, and useful even in medium traffic.

13. Braking is sufficient, but doesn’t give you as much confidence as you’d like on a car like this. I also believe that there has been some deterioration in braking quality over a period of time. After about two years of use, the rear brakes started becoming noisy. Initially, the service centre attributed it to water in the drums. But this was clearly incorrect. I couldn’t correlate it to the car being washed or wet weather. On my last service, the service centre sorted out the problem – I think he said something about cleaning the drum and the shoe and replacing the brake fluid – but I apologise for I have forgotten what exactly it was. No problem now. The noise was only a mild annoyance and did not affect brake performance.

14. The hand-brake (parking brake) is mediocre. I think there is marked deterioration over time though. After three years, it is not reliable when parked on steep slopes.

15. The tyres are noisy and disappointing. Our tyre guy tells us to change this original set after 35,000 km. Noise levels of the car as a whole are higher than you’d expect at highway speeds. At city speeds, the car is comfortably quiet. Vibration levels are satisfactory, but oddly, the IRVM actually vibrates so you don’t get a clear image from it. But still, the noise and vibration levels from the engine per se are so low that some not-so-keen ears could presume (and have presumed) it to be a petrol. On concrete the tyres are very very noisy. The tyres also have scarily low traction on wet surfaces.

16. The steering is impressive. Conveniently loose at low speeds, nice weight/ heft at high speeds. Good feedback too. Not like some lifeless steerings from other brands. It is a lot of fun to drive on the highway and on curves particularly because of the steering behaviour. The car really loves diving nose-first into curves even if pushed a little aggressively. Of course, that aggression is mitigated by the tyres.

17. Suspension and handling are good too. Unfortunately, after two years or so, the suspension, particularly on the front, started to become somewhat noisy on bumps – hard thuds. The same thing happened in our earlier WagonR. I’m not sure if it is a Maruti Suzuki thing or a secular issue. Ride quality is good but could have been a tad better. Based on your tyre pressure, if you’re driving with up to three people, you either feel just a little short on momentum or just a little rough on the ride. There’s no perfect middle. Handling is very good. There is almost no body roll. At high speeds, the handling is mighty impressive. I once had to dodge a dog on my lane at about 75 kmph with a car fast approaching from behind me on the next lane. I did a really quick manoeuvre and discovered the true capabilities of this car. It hugs the road, stays low and doesn’t panic in drastic/ quick manoeuvres. Again, I can’t say this enough. The steering and the handling make it a real pleasure on the highway. There is a great sense of safety and assuredness.

18. A note on the ground-clearance. The unladen ground-clearance is 180 mm which is sufficient. The difficulty, however, is that the front overhang is rather long. Therefore, one must exercise caution while approaching steep slopes on the front (typically the ramps that lead into buildings/ parking spaces).

Seating and Comfort
19. Since I’ve dealt with the ergonomics a little already (foot-well), I might as well get that done with fully now. The rear seats are extremely comfortable, luxurious even. Good under-thigh support, good support for the lower back, not too hard, not too soft (but certainly on the firmer side), good recline-angle. Since it is a wide car, three people {even three well-furnished people (Wodehouse’s usage, not mine)} can be seated comfortably. There are acres of leg room too. I imagine this is a fabulous driver-driven car. The drive shaft does make its presence felt on the floor, but it isn’t too high. A shorter person could even find it convenient.

20. No rear AC vents, no rear charging sockets of any kind. I think this is a criticism against the car even in its newer versions and higher trims. Ample room for all of this though! Enough storage space – 1 litre bottles can fit in all four doors. The arm-rests have cushioning on them too.

21. The front seats are not as comfortable as the rear seats. Personally, I find lower back/ lumbar support insufficient. On long drives, the lower back gets tired for the driver. Leg-room in the front is more than sufficient. Ample storage space too. Since we installed a 1-DIN music system without Bluetooth connectivity, a touch screen and all that, the other half of the slot becomes storage space too. There’s a small space to the right of the steering wheel behind the ignition key cylinder presumably for the soon-to-be-extinct toll receipts and small-change. Not big enough for the average smart phone though, and it doesn't slope inwards so things can slide out and fall down. There are two cup holders between the driver and the hand-brake lever which are very conveniently shaped for your average eversilver tumbler. You can put half a cup of filter coffee in it and place the tumbler in the holder, if you're the coffee-tea kind.

Features
22. ABS and airbags were standard across all trims even when we bought the car. So besides these things, it was a bare shell. The rear parcel tray, the wheel caps, the sound system and the reverse parking sensors were all add-ons. The parcel tray is not of great quality. I bought it from the dealership. The thin ropes that you use to get it to open up with the tailgate are a few centimetres shorter than I’d like. There’s a hinge halfway through the tray at which point the tray folds upwards when connected to the tailgate. The short ropes mean that whenever I open the tailgate, the hinges detach themselves from their slots on the car. And then the parcel tray rattles whenever the engine is on unless you slot the hinges back each time.

23. The boot is sufficiently sized and well-shaped. Nothing much to complain about. There are two useful storage slots - one on either side - for things like old newspapers, grocery bags, waste cloth, or, as in my case, a tyre-inflator.

24. Power windows are standard across all trims. While there is central locking, there is no security system. There is an immobiliser. There is a door-open indicator, but on the lowest trim, it does not show you which particular door is open. The MID is actually rather useful and there are a bunch of useful settings.

25. The AC is good but not great. We aren’t particularly demanding of cold so we haven’t had any problems. The blower can be a little noisy at the higher blower-speeds. No automatic climate control in the Sigma variant.

26. Fit and finish inside the car is mostly very impressive! Visibility is also good, because of quarter glasses both near the A-pillar and at the back in front of the C-pillar. The IRVM (as I have said elsewhere) vibrates a little, but the reasonably wide and big rear winshield permits a clear enough view. The ORVMs are perfeclty sized - large enough to give you enough reassurance, but not so large as to disrupt visibility around them.

Maintenance/ Complaints
27. Service, typical to Maruti is comfortable and cheap. I have done all my services through the Nexa authorised service stations. It typically costs somewhere between ₹4,000 and ₹6,000, but the odd service costs more. The ordinary inefficiencies you find in almost every service provider for everything are, of course, present. Services are once every 10,000 km or 1 year. Maruti keeps calling about “general check-ups” ever 5,000 km or 6 months. While I realise that could be prudent, there’s nothing about this in the owner’s manual so I have done this only once – before the first long journey after the lockdown.

28. I haven’t had a few maintenance issues, though nothing major. The car has generally behaved well. No major changes in parts either. Nothing beyond wiper blades, anyway.
(a) A couple of months ago, the MID said “WARNING PRE HEAT SYSTEM.” I called the service station and they diagnosed it as a failure of a glow plug. This diagnosis was correct and the glow plug was quickly replaced. No difficulty. Very cheap.
(b) At one point I lost a key. As a measure of abundant precaution, we were forced to replace the key fobs and also the lock cylinders in case our key was in somebody else’s hand. This process is a nightmare and I wouldn’t wish it upon any Maruti Suzuki owner. They needed then to place an order with Maruti Suzuki in Manesar. Once the order is placed, the keys are supposed to take two weeks to arrive, but they took a month. Once they arrive, they are to be configured locally. This failed and we had to place a second, and eventually a third order until they got it right. Not sure if the process has been streamlined now.
(c) Once, somewhere between Sriperumbudur and Vellore on the Bengaluru-Chennai highway, I seemed to lose throttle completely despite pressing the accelerator pedal. I stopped the car safely on the shoulder of the road and tried again to no avail. Eventually, the engine speed dropped below the normal idling RPM and the car stalled/ turned off. I switched off the AC and the ignition fully, pulled out the key, checked for any other symptoms like leaking fluids, engine overheating and any warning lights in the instrument cluster, and then started the car. It has functioned perfectly ever since. This must have been some two years ago. I took it to the service station later and they seemed to think it could have been some chip-related failure – I presume he meant something to do with an ECU. In any case, they couldn’t identify any problem and the problem has never recurred.

29. The halogen headlamps are very disappointing. In low beam, they are as good as off. The range of the light is narrow and short. In high beam, the intensity (is that the word?) of the light is sufficient, but since it is high beam, it doesn’t shed enough light closer to the car.

30. I don’t really have any other complaints with the car. There are probably some tiny things – like if the car is parked on a slope going side-to-side, sometimes, the door won’t shut properly or exactly in the slot unless manipulated because its weight causes it to move downwards a few millimetres to a position not entirely aligned with the rest of the body. (But you'll like the thud.)

31. My apologies for not having brought out precise service or other costs. I honestly don’t remember them more precisely than I have brought out. I get roughly 13 kmpl in terrible Bengaluru traffic, an average of 15 kmpl in the city, and anywhere between 17 and 24 kmpl on the highway depending on the number of people travelling.

Also, if this gets past review, this will be my first post! Very happy to be on this forum.

[arnavpaitandy]

Someone please advise, where to buy a bootliner for 2019 SCross. I live in Gurgaon.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by naadopaasaka

(b) At one point I lost a key. As a measure of abundant precaution, we were forced to replace the key fobs and also the lock cylinders in case our key was in somebody else’s hand. This process is a nightmare and I wouldn’t wish it upon any Maruti Suzuki owner. They needed then to place an order with Maruti Suzuki in Manesar. Once the order is placed, the keys are supposed to take two weeks to arrive, but they took a month. Once they arrive, they are to be configured locally. This failed and we had to place a second, and eventually a third order until they got it right. Not sure if the process has been streamlined now.

Thank you for the detailed review. How much did the key replacement cost you?

[naadopaasaka]

Originally Posted by Eddy

How much did the key replacement cost you?

You're welcome. The replacement of two key fobs plus the key cylinders as a part of the ignition system and on the driver's door cost ₹8,870 in all. The key fobs are sold only in pairs. I understand that a pair of fobs alone costs about ₹2,500. But we had to replace the cylinder too since it was a case of loss and not merely malfunction.

[govigov]

The trio of books are now complete.

2 volumes of Service Manual
1 Parts Manual. (This is the latest addition)

[CrossLife]

Originally Posted by govigov

The trio of books are now complete.

Hi Govigov, from where did you source it? These are not available as PDF.

[govigov]

Originally Posted by CrossLife

Hi Govigov, from where did you source it? These are not available as PDF.

Boodmo. Search with the part number. The service manual I got from them about a year back. The parts manual was a recent addition.

FYI - if you are looking for the FL version of s-cross, you also need to get the additional supplemental service manual in addition to these 3 books.

Here -> https://boodmo.com/catalog/4054-cata...rvice_manuals/

Things to buy- >

1. Service Manual - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-serv...ross-40559598/
2. Supplementary Manual (for FL folks) - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-supp...cros-38403732/
3. Parts Catalogue - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-9900...0954-36628020/

[abhijitrpatil]

Originally Posted by govigov

Boodmo. Search with the part number. The service manual I got from them about a year back. The parts manual was a recent addition.

FYI - if you are looking for the FL version of s-cross, you also need to get the additional supplemental service manual in addition to these 3 books.

Here -> https://boodmo.com/catalog/4054-cata...rvice_manuals/

Things to buy- >

1. Service Manual - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-serv...ross-40559598/
2. Supplementary Manual (for FL folks) - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-supp...cros-38403732/
3. Parts Catalogue - https://boodmo.com/catalog/part-9900...0954-36628020/

hey, the service manuals aren't available anymore. any ideas where to source them from? thanks

[lamborghini]

Originally Posted by naadopaasaka

2. Dislikes
(b) Headlights are very poor
(c) Tyres - noisy and let down the chassis, low traction in wet conditions

13. Braking is sufficient, but doesn’t give you as much confidence as you’d like on a car like this. I also believe that there has been some deterioration in braking quality over a period of time.

15. The tyres are noisy and disappointing. Our tyre guy tells us to change this original set after 35,000 km.

17. Suspension and handling are good too. Unfortunately, after two years or so, the suspension, particularly on the front, started to become somewhat noisy on bumps – hard thuds. The same thing happened in our earlier WagonR. I’m not sure if it is a Maruti Suzuki thing or a secular issue. Ride quality is good but could have been a tad better. Based on your tyre pressure, if you’re driving with up to three people, you either feel just a little short on momentum or just a little rough on the ride. There’s no perfect middle.

Also, if this gets past review, this will be my first post! Very happy to be on this forum.

Welcome to the forum! A brilliant first post!

I hope to pen down a short 5 year summary of our 1.6 soon as well.

Going through your posts, some upgrades would go a long way in solving some of these issues:

1) Since your model doesn't come with the even worse projector headlight options, you can opt for a simple bulb upgrade which should go a long way in improving visibility.
There are several threads in the 'Modifications & Accessories' sub-forum.

2) Your tyre guy is right! The stock tyres are absolutely horrible, and even though they will last really long : a change is highly recommended.
We preemptively changed ours to Michelin P4ST at around a similar mileage as yours and it has made a world of a difference.
A good set will improve your wet handling, ride, dry handling + reduced torque steer when the turbo kicks, and also improve NVH.
Some recommended all rounder options are Continental UC6, Yokohama BlueEarth, Michelin P4ST.

3) Similarly, brakes aren't great either; but there are several options for better braking such as an upgrade to EBC Pads for the front & back. I hope to upgrade my Discs too when a change is due.

4) Please have the front suspension noise checked out at a trusted dealership.

[naadopaasaka]

Originally Posted by lamborghini

Welcome to the forum! A brilliant first post!

Thank you. Both for the welcome and for the kind words.

I hope to pen down a short 5 year summary of our 1.6 soon as well.

I look forward to it. I've always been curious. I presume you've driven the 1.3 too. How different does it feel? Is the 1.6 obviously more torquey? How's the lag?

I have noted all your other suggestions with thanks. I am grateful. _/\_

[CountryDriver]

Hello BHPians,

My 2015 S-Cross zeta alloys are scratched and requires a repaint. I was thinking about painting them gloss black. My car is a granite grey coloured one. Has anyone painted the stock alloys to black? How does it look? If anyone has done this, can you please post a few pictures of the same?

[Sree73]

Originally Posted by CountryDriver

Has anyone painted the stock alloys to black? How does it look? If anyone has done this, can you please post a few pictures of the same?

Did not paint it black, but used carbon fiber stickers on the alloy spokes. (Had the sticker for all spokes, but used on alternate big ones). Just have a look.
By the by, I also own a 2015 Granite Grey.