Sharing my experience with a 2019 Celerio AMT; 6 key points of note!

I think the best part of Celerio is its fuel efficiency. For a light foot driver like me, I easily extract 22 km/l on the highway.

BHPian logicalguy recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

I have been driving a Maruti Celerio petrol AMT since 2019 and clocked 35k kms recently (15k kms in last 1 year). I am sharing my experience with the car below.

• Decision to buy: I was looking for a small car back then within 6 lac. Automatic (obviously in this budget AMT was the only availability) was a preference as I would mostly drive in city traffic of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
• Narrowing down: We visited 3 showrooms, Maruti, Tata and Hyundai to have a look at Celerio, WagonR, Tiago and Santro.
  Rejected WagonR because of its looks, Tiago because of the behaviour of the sales person, Santro because of the fuel efficiency.
• Experience of AMT: AMT cost me around 50k more than the manual, but it is worth, considering the city drive i have been through these 5 years. I think I got every penny back for the extra cost paid over the manual.
• Maintenance: Parts changed/repaired so far:
  Front and rear bumper - i was a new driver, so they got damaged within 1 year. They got replaced under warranty.
  Battery - It was replaced after 2 years.
  Antenna base - Water leakage issue
  Good experience with service center with all of these cases
  Maruti stood on its reputation of low maintenance cost.
• Drive experience: Good for city driving, easy to maneuver. Not so good on highways ( Did not expect much at this budget). There is noticeable lag in the AMT gearbox, but I am used to that now. You can feel the lag while pressing the padle hard during overtaking. Otherwise the AMT does its job quite well. I have taken it till 120 kmph on highway, but I did not feel confident as it was not stable at this speed. 80-90 kmph is ideal on a highway for this car. Suspension is ok-ok, you can feel the small potholes in the city and the uneasiness while going over speed breaker.
• Best part: I think the best part of celerio is its fuel efficiency. For a light foot driver which I am, I easily extract 22 kmpl on highways and 18 kmpl in city.
  Note: my daily driving has 30% highway and 70% city and city traffic is a mix of bumper to bumper and free flowing traffic and i extract 19-20 kmpl every time.

Conclusion: Till now it is a nice experience with this car. People who want a budget car with highest fuel efficiency and comfort of AMT can consider this. If you are not worried about the boot space, go for the CNG and enjoy savings every drive.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.