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Matching the value of the car to my heart: My Maruti Suzuki Jimny story

24th September 2024, 17:06 by Kanad Kalasur

As this vehicle is mod friendly, our thought process can continuously be engaged and for me this is a very entertaining vehicle to keep myself busy.

BHPian swami69 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

My Suzuki Jimny Granite Grey Alpha AT

Not a full fledged review, but a short commentary and very little mods I have done to make it convenient.

Why did i buy a Jimny ?

I have been changing cars too often, and I am sure I have lost quite a good amount of money, but that is part of it - buying used, selling it, buying another one etc., - In the recent past, I have owned XUV500, Fortuner, Crysta, Thar Crde etc., which are all quite big and intimidating vehicles. Finally I wanted to buy a cuter car which can be my second car with a proper 4x4 and I ended up with a Jimny, that too only after those discounts (3L) as I wanted to match the value of the car to my heart. I am also a person who like DIY and Jimny is a capable contender for that sort of a stuff.

Ride Quality - It is really good at descent speeds and the suspension is great and I have started loving to go over defective and pot holed roads intentionally - some sort of a fun, which can be described only when driving this little car.

Acceleration - Many people suggested to go for the Throttle Controller, but I hesitated and I am sure, I am getting used to the stock one which is very comfortable to drive in the City. - rev it, take off, upshifts, smooth, cruise. When required, push it, drops down, catch up - Unless we want to overtake a car already moving at 100 kmph - adapt a little, we will love this car - my take at this moment.

Air Conditioning - One Word - Awesome ! It is a chiller and at 25 C, it nicely cools the cabin and great. There is no complaint from rear seat passengers too, as it is a small cabin and pretty efficient.

Front Seats - Great and I have no major complaints, except for the footwell to be a little small to keep my left foot (mine an AT). I am sure we can travel long distances and front seat passengers will not have an issue

Rear Seats - Not that great due to lesser under thigh support and strictly for 2 Adults and possibly only for short distances (say 100-150 kms max) - It could be OK for young kids, then can be considered a single car too. The reclining angle is poor as well, an I am breaking my brain to find out a mod to increase the reclining angle. If there is a way to remove and re-position the twin slots, then it could recline much better. Will have to figure out without spoiling anything.

Boot Space - Since this is not considered as a 4 people long distance tourer, the boot space is adequate for short trips. In case just two people for long journeys, yes, fold the rear seats and you have a much larger space. If that is the case, we can infact make it better - simply remove the rear seat bottom (just 2 bolts from behind), fold the backrest which levels, create a small storage solution (a box lined properly) to match the height of the folded backrest, make it a flat floor and that is it - we will have all the space.

Tires - I am contended to use OE tires for now and have no intentions to upgrade in the near future. This is purely for my use case as I am not going any hardcore off roading and this should be adequate.

Steering - I like the steering little heavy and this suits my taste. The only problem is the turning radius which is little too much for this car. We have to act a little faster for the steering to respond and not react at the last minute like driving an EPS vehicle - again a question of few days to get used to.

Audio - Adequate from a Head Unit perspective with all the features, but not from a speaker perspective. At the same time, since this is a small car, I just do not want to invest too much on an Audio Upgrade. I know a little about Audio and wanted to "just" move to the next level with a least expensive option. Bought a pair of Pioneer 5 1/4 Coaxials @ 2.7 K, bought 4 damping sheets (STP) and did the DIY yesterday.

One sheet per door, minimum damping of Outer skin of the door, Plugged the large and small holes/openings of the inner skin - This is to reduce the resonance of bare metal and I was actually not "sound deadening" the door by doing 2/3/4 layers !

Added a spacer ring, fixed the new Speakers. Cut and remove the terminal from the old speakers (you can just break it), solder the new speaker terminal and the removed adapter terminals using a short wire. Then just plugged the OE wiring harness terminal to this one - No cutting, strapping, simple method as anyway, I am going to throw off the old speaker. While doing this, I remembered to having a pair of Kicker Tweeters lying around, which I connected using a 2uF cap in series and placed it on the door pad close to the rear view mirror.
Just damped the rear doors similar to above and did not change the speakers, may be I will soon with the same set of Pioneers to complete the upgrade.
As sound, looks are all subjective, I do not want to cross reference with anything or anything others do, but I would want to say one thing - For this car, this itself is enough with crisp highs, tight bass, a descent mid-range. I think I can make the mid bass weight even better once I replace the rear speakers as well. I am sure there will be incremental benefits as we move higher up, adding Amplifiers, Sub woofers etc., but not sure whether they will return that much value. I am very happy with what i have achieved with a total of 7K investment, + another 3k for rear speakers to round it off.

Storage - topic beaten to death and I went for the following :