[Maverick Avi]

@audioholic,

Did you manage to drive or ride facelift Wagon R? If yes, then can you comment on the NVH levels and overall comparison. Does the latest Wagon R manage to better the experience than the pre facelift? I am out to buy an automatic with Celerio and Wagon R being the only contenders. Leaning towards Wagon R 1.2 Vxi AGS.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Maverick Avi

@audioholic,

Did you manage to drive or ride facelift Wagon R? If yes, then can you comment on the NVH levels and overall comparison. Does the latest Wagon R manage to better the experience than the pre facelift? I am out to buy an automatic with Celerio and Wagon R being the only contenders. Leaning towards Wagon R 1.2 Vxi AGS.

Unfortunately not, I havent driven or even sat in the new WagonR. I believe its a bigger car and with some extra features. Sorry for the late reply, somehow has got mixed. The K12 engine option in wagonR is definitely a big plus point since it will be well powered for a car especially if you are using it as a primary car and will have higher occupancy. For me, I hate the Celerio or WagonR K10 when it is loaded since the engine always needs to be kept in boil. In the AMT the effect is negated by the transmission doing that job for you but if you drive the K10 manual, you will dread the performance under load and need to keep shifting gears.

In other news, my Celerio is now exclusively being used by my mother as her office commute now and is chauffeured all the time. Due to me working from home and having two other cars at my disposal, I rarely get to drive the Celerio. Except while maybe parking and stuff. I was so disconnected with the car that I missed seeing it cross the 40k kms mark. I only got to know about it 600 kms later when I had asked the driver to take snapshots of the ODO for insurance renewal. The last time I remember was in May when I sent it for annual service with 38k odd kms on the odo.

The biggest surprise for me is the change in average FE after my driver took over. It steadily stands at ~15kmpl no matter what. I initially thought it was due to lesser once lockdown was over but it is more or less consistent over the days traffic increased. Either me and my dad are horrible drivers, or my driver is really easy with the car. When I used to drive it to office the avg would be 11-12kmpl.




Overall, the 40k kms have been pretty uneventful except for the initial niggles with the clutch. The third and last clutch change was done before 20k kms and until now, the 20k kms have been free of judders which used to crop up earlier within 5k kms. The AMT in itself has been pretty reliable and has withstood abuse of driving in heavy traffic all the time, frequent shifts due to hard driving and what not. The engine has been a tremendous improvement over my earlier K10 WagonR and I like the NVH and refinement especially when idle. I am not exaggerating, but during warm idle, the only sound that can be heard is a light clatter of the timing chain and nothing else. Even inside the cabin, the NVH is pretty controlled and with music, its absolutely nil.

Next up is the tyre change in maybe a few more weeks. I had plans of switching tyres or upsizing. However, with an assignment abroad thats coming up for me, I am not sure if I will ever be the sole user of the car compared to earlier. That also means I have to sit with dad and reorganize the garage to optimize the usage patterns that will come up in my absence. Hence, I have kept any further work on the car on hold. But in general, I see that the suspension is in good shape, with no issues. Electronics are perfectly working. Tyres still have life and I was itching to upgrade only if I was going to use the car. Body has some dents and stuff due to the absolutely horrible skin thickness of the panels. In a few weeks I will decide if the car goes down as a beater, or gets transformed into a sleeper depending upon my personal plans.

[lifebuoy]

Originally Posted by audioholic

1. The biggest surprise for me is the change in average FE after my driver took over. When I used to drive it to office the avg would be 11-12kmpl.
2. The AMT in itself has been pretty reliable and has withstood abuse of driving in heavy traffic all the time, frequent shifts due to hard driving and what not.

3. The engine has been a tremendous improvement over my earlier K10 WagonR and I like the NVH and refinement especially when idle. I am not exaggerating, but during warm idle, the only sound that can be heard is a light clatter of the timing chain and nothing else. Even inside the cabin, the NVH is pretty controlled and with music, its absolutely nil.

4. Body has some dents and stuff due to the absolutely horrible skin thickness of the panels.

1. Well, I have been getting a consistent 15+ kpl in Delhi traffic. Maybe better traffic conditions than Mumbai as stated, but 11-12 is unexplained.

2. +1 to that. The AMT is a wonderful unit, butter smooth in operation. The head nod does occur at times with a very light foot on the throttle. Done about 20K kms now.

3. NVH is horrendous, all noises filter into the cabin. Engine is dead quiet, though.

4. Body and indoor panels are horribily thin, flex at finger input. I'm scared when I drive it and slow down even for two wheelers to have their way...

[audioholic]

5 years and 50,000kms update:
Earlier this month, the Celerio completed five years and 50k kms on the odo. The last service was done last year at 39k kms and since I was out of country until now as well as the lockdown, we werent able to get the service done. However, in spite of the lockdown, the car crossed 10k kms of running from the past year due to regular commute to office by my mother. Similarly our other cars have also seen pretty higher amount of usage due to Dads office commute and frequent trips to Kolar.

Also a few months ago, the Celerio got tyres replaced with Continental CC5. Initially I wanted to upsize the tyres but I was not in country and had asked Dad to get it done at Madhus. Due to this I did not want to upsize without even getting to use the car. The staff at Madhus are known well to me and they co-ordinated things well and got the tyres replaced.

Issues to be addressed:

• Rear suspension was weak and car was getting bouncy.
• Left taillight assemby was broken and needed replacement.
• Rear wiper blade was making a jarring noise

Point of service - The ex-Works manager who was in the dealership I would visit had quit his job, and got a load of staff along with him to create their own garage called MYCAR, in Kanakapura road. Due to my car already being out of warranty, I decided to hand over my car to them since they were pretty well versed with Maruti cars as well as my taste. They did a good job on the vehicle.

The service cost came up to Rs. 12,226. In this, the rear suspension dampers were replaced which itself costed 4k for a pair. The replacement of tail lamp was another 1k rupees. The complete wiper blade set of three was 900 and the rest of the cost was for the periodic service.

The labour is on the higher side compared to where I get my SX4 serviced, but here it is as professional as a Maruti dealer and the costs are also similar, except that I did not have to deal with value added services.

The car performs pretty good but my only grouse is that the quality or durability of components have come down drastically compared to my SX4 experience. The rear suspension of my SX4 is still left untouched after 72k kms and 12 years of usage. However, contrary to views, my Celerio does not rattle and neither does my SX4. The front suspension of the Celerio is still in good condition without needing any attention in spite of me driving it hard.

[Sparky]

5.5 years, 50,000 kms update:

Replaced the OE JK Vectra tyres with Bridgestone B290 at 51,340 kms, costing Rs.3,350 each. The JK tyres were giving silght wobble in steering, tyre person said its the air bulge in the tyres. So replaced all four of them. Checked Apollo Amazer 4G, Yokohama Earth1, Ceat MileageX3, but decided to go with tried and trusted Bridgestone. The price is almost near to each other in the range of 3000-3500 each.

As the judder issue cropped up again at 49,500 kms, replaced the clutch set at 49,500 kms. Flywheel Face also needed to be grinded as replacing the clutch set alone did not solved the issue. All of it costed around Rs.7,000 including the labour. The judder is gone now, hopefully for next 25k kms. The repair work was done at local mechanic who is experienced with maruti cars. I could have asked for this free of cost from company service center, but preferred not to take the pain of explaining them and putting the car 2-3 times at their center. They never do correct first time, and after they realize issue is still unsolved, they start scratching their head and starts listening.

Also, replaced the pins for brake pad calipers, they were giving lot of noise giving the impression that the jumpers are gone. If anyone experiences noise/disturbance from the underbody side like wheels are noisy on rough roads, please check the pins first. I am feeling thankful that jumpers are still fine saving expense for me. The bridgestone tyre person diagnosed it right away when taking the car for alignment, felt so lucky.

The car is running all well now, with new tyres, new caliper pins, and new clutch set. The yearly service is due in Sep that will include Oil, Coolant, Brake Fluid change. I will update if anything comes up in between, till then happy revving..!

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by Sparky

5.5 years, 50,000 kms update:

As the judder issue cropped up again at 49,500 kms, replaced the clutch set at 49,500 kms. Flywheel Face also needed to be grinded as replacing the clutch set alone did not solved the issue. All of it costed around Rs.7,000 including the labour. The judder is gone now, hopefully for next 25k kms. ..!

In my case the judder issue seems to have gotten better. Last clutch change was done at 19k kms IIRC and after this even till date there is very slight judder and nothing like before. This in spite of heavy abuse in traffic compared to earlier when I would also use it on the highway. But from the last 20k kms, the car has hardly seen the highway.

[audioholic]

And its time to pull curtains down on the Celerio ownership

After a bit more than seven years and 77k kms later, we bid goodbye to the Celerio today. The car has had a stellar run and has taken all the traffic abuse Bengaluru could give it, and yet survived it unscathed mechanically, even though the body has taken all the abuse with no resistance.

The AMT is widely criticised by every Tom, Dick and Harry. But considering this was the first implementation by Maruti, the hardware has been trouble free. The clutch itself is a different topic and that's a wear and tear issue but it's a cheap item to replace, which I paid 6k once apart from the two times it was replaced free of cost. This is much lighter on the pocket than say, a DSG or multi clutch failure. And even though this was the first car that Maruti launched with the AMT, they got the reliability aspect right.

• Front suspension still in good shape, rear damper replaced sometime ago since it was a bit weak
• Tyres still have decent life in them, no alignment issues
• Mechanically in excellent condition and no issues with the powertrain
• Electricals in perfect working condition
• No fading or wear out of interior or exterior parts
• Interiors have been regularly washed every few months and spotless
• Only periodic service carried out, with AMT oil proactively replaced and wear and tear parts replaced when needed

Motivation to sell:
Considering how much the Celerio used to run, I had planned to hit the 1L kms mark on it and then consider a replacement - Mostly an EV from Maruti/Toyota. However, a friends relative had put up a Honda Jazz VX CVT on sale which was only 3 years old and had run only 14k kms. He had seen the car and the car was clean with excellent service history and not a single panel that was replaced or repainted. The car was almost scratch free. The owner was upgrading to a Brezza and had got a quote from Maruti True Value and was not looking for a better offer.

Discussed this idea with my parents since my Mom had been the primary user of the Celerio since the last few years and she was actually looking for a car with bigger space and comfort. They were initially hesitant about the idea of a used car since we have always brought new cars. But I explained 14k kms is like nothing for a Japanese car and the car is clean. And since the price quoted + excellent resale value of the Celerio meant we had to pay a small amount of money for this upgrade, we sealed the deal with the owner of the Jazz.

Even though I had finalised the buy in July, the Brezza delivery got delayed and the seller was not sure if we would wait until his car was delivered but I was okay since I had lot of time to sell the Celerio. Hence after a rather long wait for him as well as me, we got the deal going last week.

Sale of the Celerio
Had to wait till Pitrupaksha season here to really get some enquiries since people here don't cut any deals during this time, and then there is a sudden rush to get stuff done by the end of Dasara. However, the seller of the Jazz was getting his new car home just after Pitrupaksha and he couldn't keep the Jazz longer due to parking limitation. Hence I brought the Jazz home last Sunday and also invited various companies to evaluate the car. There were a few personal buyers who enquired but no one wanted to visit the car and then negotiate. I had quoted a price which was less than the average listings online for Celeries in various platforms and yet all I did was to get absurd offers.

I had Cars24, Spinny and Olx Auto evaluate the car and while Olx Autos quoted an absurd 3.1L, Cars24 at 3.65L and Spinny at 3.82L. Just look at the difference. Considering the distance driven and the various body related issue and repaint done I was not in a position to demand too much of a premium from an individual buyer and hence decided to go ahead with Spinny. They were extremely detailed with their inspection and yet offered a good price. Imagine retaining more than 60% of the value of the car even after 7 years and 77k kms of use. That's just amazing.

Twist in the story came when a personal buyer approached me one day before handing over the car to Spinny. He was supposed to inspect the car earlier but could not do so for various reasons and hence only contacted me one day prior to handover of the car. I was not really sure if this deal would go through and hence asked him to inspect the car and then decide. Due to the time pressure for me as well as him, he had to make some last minute arrangements and rush to my house to take a look at the car. All the while I was pretty unsure given that the car was not in the perfect condition I would have expected(especially if I can keep the Jazz as a benchmark).

However he was okay with the car and agreed to buy it. But this made me somewhat anxious or rather defensive because - 1. Spinny has made a detailed inspection, they know in and out of the car and I have already set up the sale with them and 2. Because the buyer is making this discussion in a short time window and might have second thoughts later, which might turn bad for both of us. Hence I had refused to sell the car to him but changed my mind a few minutes later, cancelled the pickup by Spinny and handed over the car to this family.









Final ODO:

Attachment 2519833

And the replacement:

[CodeEvo]

Thank you for accommodating the last-minute request. The Celerio is perfect for my FIL who is now retired and usually drives around the city and I wanted to make sure he gets an automatic

The Jazz looks amazing

[Joe367]

Originally Posted by audioholic

And its time to pull curtains down on the Celerio ownership

However, a friends relative had put up a Honda Jazz VX CVT on sale which was only 3 years old and had run only 14k kms

Oh I wish my friends or family had such good cars put on sale. 😅
How is your experience with CVT switching from AMT car?
Is it worth the extra premium for someone considering to upgrade to an entry-level automatic car?

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by CodeEvo

Thank you for accommodating the last-minute request. The Celerio is perfect for my FIL who is now retired and usually drives around the city and I wanted to make sure he gets an automatic

The Jazz looks amazing

Thank you! Glad it worked well for both of us. And wish your FIL a good time with the car.

Originally Posted by Joe367

How is your experience with CVT switching from AMT car?
Is it worth the extra premium for someone considering to upgrade to an entry-level automatic car?

I actually am not the primary driver of the Jazz. However I have had only automatics in the house and have had AMT Celerio, TC Innova, DSG Salvia and now a CVT Jazz. I have driven both the Glanza CVT and the Jazz CVT and hence have experience with all sorts of automatic transmissions.

If you purely look at the AMT to CVT transition, there is a hit on performance in the CVT, and in return you get refinement and smoothness of shifts. I would still pick an AMT over a CVT any day and the CVT will suit very sedate driving. The Celerio would launch forward once its shift was over and you had a direct response without any CVT or TC lag and would accelerate as good as a manual transmission. However the CVT while shifts are so smooth and unrecognisable, takes its own time during hard acceleration. Only respite is that Honda has given paddle shifters which try to hold ratios pretty well so in case one needs to overcome the CVT lag they could use the paddles to hold ratios.

So paying premium for CVT for better refinement and smoothness of driving is worth it, but one should be aware of the loss in performance.

[115]

Originally Posted by audioholic

And its time to pull curtains down on the Celerio ownership
.....

Originally Posted by CodeEvo

Thank you for accommodating the last-minute request. The Celerio is perfect for my FIL who is now retired and usually drives around the city and I wanted to make sure he gets an automatic
....

Looking for your suggestions for MASS/reliable FNG to get regular service done for my Celerio MT with 60k kms on odo. Till date the service was always done at ABT MASS when I went to my home town. Any suggestions in and around south Bangalore will be helpful.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by 115

Looking for your suggestions for MASS/reliable FNG to get regular service done for my Celerio MT with 60k kms on odo. Till date the service was always done at ABT MASS when I went to my home town. Any suggestions in and around south Bangalore will be helpful.

To be honest, most FNGs suffer with attrition of staff and the work quality keeps changing. I last got the Celerios service done by a place called Mycar Multi brand. This FNG was set up by ex staff of the MASS I used to visit. Since they are well versed with Maruti I used to get the work done there including a clutch replacement of the AMT which they executed successfully. You can give it a shot.

Apart from that near begur theres a place called Swastikaa which is again ex Maruti owner. But cant vouch for the latest on either places since workmanship depends on the present mechanics who keep changing places often.