800 km / 1 month in my Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara: Top Observations

What is immediately felt different on the road, compared to other smaller cars I have owned, is how the pesky Auto rickshaws, rowdy bikers, and notorious truckers behave more gentlemanly.

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First service/1 Month update (ODO reading 800 kms):

- Ride quality seems to have improved even further. Perhaps its the tyre pressure which I am maintaining at 33-32 psi. I tried some mild offroading on broken tarmac and water logged potholes (although this vehicle is not meant for that), and am impressed with the maturity with which the vehicle carries itself over bad roads. There is minimal suspension noise, no sharp thuds inside the cabin , the body roll is well controlled for the size of the SUV, and minimal lateral movement compared to other cars in the segment. With 210mm GC, and a suspension that is "slightly" on the firmer side, there is very low chance of suspension bottoming out even on worst of roads.

- The city drivability is good. Overtaking slow moving vehicles at speeds < 80kmph requires a downshift from the left paddle shifter or kickdown from tapping the accelerator pedal, and the rest is easy peasy.

- Something that I have noticed in the GV, and not in many other vehicles I have owned. Its the adjustment levels of the Seat height. As far as I could count, there are 25+ steps of adjustment of height on the manual adjust lever. Makes finding perfect driving position easy. For relaxed long drives I prefer lower seating height and for most of the other times and short city drives a I prefer around 80% height adjustment with full bonnet view and commanding road position.

- White color gives a better road presence to this car. What is immediately felt different on the road, compared to other smaller cars I have owned, is how the pesky Auto rickshaws, rowdy bikers (no offence to any biker), and notorious truckers behave more gentlemanly , and not cutting corners or honking incessantly or trying to bully. Perks of having a white SUV in Delhi NCR.

- Auto headlamps is a boon, since my parking is in basement and don't need to bother with manual switching on of headlight as soon as I enter my dark basement from the bright outdoors.

- Sound quality from the stock Arkamys tuned system and overall NVH levels continue to impress. Specially given the fact that this vehicle (mild Hybrid + AT) is best driven sedately, I have began to enjoy sedate driving with quality music more in this car.

- Front driver's door continues to annoy, as it does not close in one attempt. I recall that the other display cars in the showroom had the same issue.

- Idle start/stop is very aggressive, sometimes it even switches off the engine while going over a steep speedbreaker. But the transition / switching time is quite low, so not much of an irritant, getting used to it.

- The 6 speed torque convertor is very conservative at high speeds, most of the time the RPM is kept below 1800 rpm, heck, I even saw it at 1200 rpm a couple of times for some time. I think this car needs a "Sport" mode where the engine will hold on to RPMs for longer.

- Steering has good amount of weight. Naysayers will say that it weighs a bit too much compared to the competition, but I think the weight on the steering adds to its driving characteristics even more.

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