Maruti Vitara Brezza Long Term Review – First Report

Maruti Vitara Brezza Long Term Review

The Maruti Vitara Brezza impresses with its performance, efficiency & robust nature

I am not a fan of compact SUVs because they are not true-blue SUVs and just don’t have that go-anywhere feel. Before the Maruti Vitara Brezza entered our long term fleet, I had driven the Maruti Ciaz for 6 months as my daily drive and I sort of started liking the car a lot because it was really comfortable, loaded with a lot of features and the 1.3-litre DDiS engine was quite fuel efficient. So, I was quite happy to have the Brezza as my new daily drive.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of how this car looks. The design feels rather plain and simple to me. Not that it looks bad, but it doesn’t look exciting either. Maruti has this iCreate platform for Vitara Brezza owners where customers can customise their cars by adding accessories to the exteriors and interiors. Our test car was already customised by Maruti before we got it. Hence, it comes with some additional chrome on the outside, cheesy looking stickers on the body and roof, additional body cladding, new seat covers and plastic trims on the door panels and dashboard.

The Vitara Brezza has functional and practical interiors. The dashboard carries a simple layout and most of the parts feel familiar. The steering wheel and switches shared with the Swift, while the SmartPlay infotainment system is shared with the Baleno, S-Cross, Ciaz, Ertiga, Ignis, etc. Quality on the inside is just about decent. Fit and finish feels good but our test car is making a couple of annoying rattling sounds. The first one was coming from the metal number plate at the rear and I sort of fixed the rattle by sticking a thick double-sided cello tape behind the number plate. The second rattle is coming from the left side of the parcel shelf and it makes a constant noise whenever the car goes over a pothole, speed-breaker or broken road.

I had driven the Vitara Brezza last year when it was launched and loved the fact that the cabin has so many cubby holes and bottle holders. There are so many storage spaces and I can comfortably keep my phone, wallet, keys, etc. in different spots. I’ve dedicated one storage area just for keeping coins. All the doors have bottle holders and space to keep other nitty-gritties while you also get bag-holders behind the front seats, which come in really useful when you’re carrying some take-away food. I had loved the large and comfortable seats of the Brezza earlier but now our long-termer has got new seat covers made of a thick material and while they look really good, the support from the seats has been completely robbed off and I’m considering going back to the stock seats.

The engine has a very powerful surge once the turbo starts spooling

Under the hood of this compact SUV is the tried and tested 1.3-litre DDiS mill which is offered in the 90 PS tune. This engine comes mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. Thanks to my previous Ciaz, I’m quite familiar with this motor and gearbox combo, so much so that I exactly know how to drive to extract the most fuel efficiency and what RPM band to keep the car in to extract the most power. The oil burner is noisy and some of the clatter filters inside the cabin. The clutch feels light and the powerplant gets going with light throttle inputs. Turbo lag is present in abundance but once you cross that, the Brezza just takes off with a very strong surge all the way to almost 4000 RPM. I like the way the turbo kicks in and all of a sudden the pace of the vehicle increases.

The gearbox is smooth and the throws are short. The powertrain feels very good on the highways and touching triple digit speeds isn’t a problem at all. In fact, the Vitara feels extremely stable on almost all type of road conditions and I am particularly in love with the stiff suspension set-up which makes the car feel planted, robust and even fun to drive. The Apollo Alnac 4G tyres offer very good grip and the high ground clearance helps a lot when you want to tread off the road. Sure, you cannot do hardcore off-roading but for soft-roading, the Brezza works really well. Monsoons in Mumbai have been pretty harsh last month and I had to drive through some flooded areas for a couple of kms and I was extremely surprised and impressed by how the Vitara took everything in its stride. I even drove to the hills last weekend and the car easily climbed up on broken patches without much sweat. However, our tester has done around 13,500 kms and the brake pads are already on their last legs and I think I’ll have to send the car for servicing very soon, to get the brakes checked.

The Maruti Vitara Brezza comes with some really useful features like keyless-go, automatic headlamps and wipers, etc. and the vehicle has strong mechanicals, offering a very good drive. Yes, the steering feels a bit heavy at city speeds but otherwise there are hardly any complaints about the way this car drives. Most of the issues that I have with the Brezza are limited to this particular car, especially the seat covers, and won’t really be a major negative point but in all honesty, I’m liking the robust nature of this Maruti and the commanding driving position that it offers just adds that wee bit to the SUV-like feel.

Further Reading –

Maruti Vitara Brezza Video Review
Maruti Vitara Brezza Review