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-   -   Maruti Baleno : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/171209-maruti-baleno-official-review-4.html)

Is it just me or does the driver-seat headrest look reversed in the first few images? lol: Kudos team on the review! Very detailed just like one has come to expect from the mods :)

Good car no doubts about that, hope the whole Nexa thing along with these new models, also usher-in a new era for Maruti to stop diluting or compromising structural safety of Suzuki vehicles. Earlier if you saw a Grand Vitara or Kizashi that bore no mention of Maruti, no logos and even used SGP parts for oil filter, you knew that the product was not messed around with by our folks at Maruti hope the lack of Maruti logos means the same in their newer "premium" products. Dashing car and I find it odd that no one has mentioned the impressive colour options. With most cars, one chooses a colour because the car looks nasty in other shades but with this you have a trendy orange, tasty red, two shades of blue, a rich looking silver, a luscious white and a serious looking gray apart from the gray, I would be in a dilemma if I were to choose a colour for the car, they all look vibrant yet smart

After seeing the pictures of the Jalandhar accident which claimed the lives of 4 occupants on spot and the other 2 in very critical condition, I am very skeptical about this car.

Thanks for a fine review. It seems a very well-priced car which delivers on the "more car per car" tagline of the erstwhile Tata. The looks could not be more contrasting than both - the Jazz and the i20. The Baleno looks more understated than either which is not necessarily a bad thing. The interiors are a bit of a hit and miss - they look premium but don't feel premium. All in all, it seems a very competent product which ticks all the boxes that Indian consumers desire.

Excellent review Aditya. Rated 5 for the detailed review. This surely clears up most of our doubts.

Information about the following "gimmicks" are not present in the review. So, are these features missing in Baleno? If any of these are present, would you please update the review with relevant details.

- Speed sensing auto door lock
- Impact sensing auto door unlock
- Key off reminder
- Auto folding ORMV
- Lane change indicator

One more concern that other members had was the rear sagging issue when 5 people are on board. Please do share your opinion this also.

Superlative review as always !!!

The Baleno looks super and I am pretty sure that we have a chart-topper in our midst.

The dummy panel beside the hazard light would be for passenger airbag de-activation

Thanks for the lovely review once again :thumbs up

Finally the review I have been personally waiting for, a very well compiled review. Great job, Aditya.

From what is being said and is amply visible this car has all it takes to be the next cash cow for MS or Suzuki (since it is being sold through the NEXA route).

I am in the market for a large hatchback and the Baleno ticks all the right boxes for me.

Great review. Finally the most important review of Baleno in India is out .

The Baleno looks great. Personally,I didn't feel the cabin quality to be inferior compared to the Elite. I really would have loved to see the Black colour option in India as I am sure it's available for international markets. Being a "Premium" product, they could have offered the 4 disc setup similar to S-Cross.

One thing I find odd is in the Silver Petrol, the Engine compartment appears to be White (not painted to match the exterior colour):


In comparison the Red Diesel has the colour matched Engine Compartment:

Again a big kudos to Team-BHP for the Review which truly made my day. clap:

Excellent review !
What is feel is that by pricing this car so competitively, it has created problems not for Hyundai i20 but for the other cars as it can also be seen from the car sales figures for November. Figo, Polo (not the GT), Zest and Jazz have fallen in sales, even the Punto sales have declined (by a hundred which must be a considerable amount for Fiat) !

Goes on to show how much trust this brand Maruti Suzuki has amongst Indians ! Although there is nothing 'premium' about this car, people have considered it as premium and this Nexa thing has succeeded to some extent as it has brought in a change of mentality. Every other day I see a new Baleno on the roads of Pune.

Off topic: I see a paradigm shift. Ford/Honda making cars which score less on build quality as their own models couple of years before (Aspire vs first Figo, Amaze/City vs older City) whereas Maruti fighting it out to improve the quality of their products though it is still a long way to go. Only Hyundai is as consistent as Rahul Dravid stupid:

I think Suzuki is not trying to be a BMW or a Mercedes through the Nexa offering. They are just trying to build a brand which doesn't have a "Maruti" tag in it. Has decent plastics, nice looking interiors, best safety features across the levels, and service network (which they already have).

Excellent review! the car looks really premium from outside. Also it looks a size bigger than it actually is. My vote for interiors will still go to the Ei20. Very good design from MSIL though.. HArdly any -ves seen, that too are pretty silly ones. I am nitpicking for sure :D

1. no plastic cladding on the Fuel filler area
2. Front head rests look real odd
3. No protective plate under P engine.
4. Alloy not to my liking.
5. Lousy hood release switch


I have a Liva, and I always feel like traveling in a feather-light carton when I sit in it. Moreover, since we added a Punto few months back, Liva feels even more Tin cannish and unsafe. Wonder how a car lighter than the uber light Liva would feel :) I know 'feels' unsafe doesn't necessarily translate to unsafe, but cant help the comparo.

Excellent review as always! The pricing is VFM considering the amount of features and ICE is really nice. Coming to the negatives the interiors do not look premium enough for a supposedly premium hatchback, but my major concern remains safety no matter what Maruti says. The car is just too light inspite of being the largest in its class. A high tensile strength steel will not weigh the same as an aluminium or a carbon fibre, it remains steel and it is going to weigh the same as regular steel. I cannot fathom how they were able to make it so light and claim that it is safe as well.

Excellent review of an excellent car !!! Rated 5 Stars !! clap:

That power to weight ratio is to watch out for. Initially when the Baleno was being discussed and the engine details were coming out, I used to think whether the same engines in the similar tune as in the swift will be able to do justice to this bigger hatch or not. But all said and done, thanks to the exceptionally low kerb weight its right up there with the competition in the performance department. Fingers crossed on the safety front

That has been my confusion from a long time.

How does the manufacturer decide/analyze whether a product launched in the vicinity of its already existing product will, negatively, cannibalize the sales or will, positively, have the customer to stay under the roof ? :confused:

Phew!! After reading the review my decision to go for a VW Polo last month is justified. An excellently written review that tells me even the minutest of things I need to know. No where else do I find such detailed reviews, kudos Aditya and Team BHP, you guys are the Apple of car reviews. Coming to the car itself, I took a test drive as soon as it was available for it and was thoroughly dissapointed, it just didn't feel right, add to that I reached the nexa showrrom after test driving the aspire and the polo so I knew what to look for. And the NEXA experience was thoroughly dissapointing, expect the yummy cookies on offer nothing else was special, no one cared that I was interested in the car and when I reputedly asked for a broucher and a price list I got some pathetic photocopied ones, that signed me off of nexa , maybe forever, the RM's too were nothing special and were particularly snobbish. Maruti will sell this car in huge numbers but there premium experience experiment is certainly not working.

They are! So many official review indicate that.

Both are just under 4 m in length and are comparable in certain aspects.

In the case of the Dzire vs Baleno:

Dzire is simply the weakest.

• It's extremely cramped
• It's got a very small boot
• It doesn't get the premium features the Baleno does

One thing to note is that the Baleno, i20 and the Jazz are wider than their sedan counterparts, hence the rear seat is comfortable to 3 people. The compact sedans don't have this width.

From the Official reviews:
You're entitled to your own opinion, but I think that we shouldn't comment on the car's integrity until we know accident conditions. If the driver was doing very high speeds, I guess most cars in the segment would have suffered the same fate.

What will you say if the Indian version Baleno scores a good score in the Euro NCAP?

Excellent Review. Is it just me or does anybody else feel that the touch screen unit looks like an add-on. It does not look well integrated at all.