Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara AllGrip: Fun is back!
The Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara (GV henceforth for this review) is the lovechild born out of the Suzuki-Toyota love story. A match made in heaven if you ask me. This product had to work, especially for Maruti as since a very long time, the Creta had been ruling this segment singlehandedly. To make matters worse, Kia came in with the Seltos and made the Korean moat around this segment even stronger. So can the Japanese duo of Suzuki and Toyota break into the Korean fortress with the GV (and the Hyryder)? Lets find out.
We need to note that essentially there are 4 main engine-drivetrain combinations that the GV comes in and each one feels like a different car to drive. The car we're driving today is the all wheel drive or as Suzuki calls it, the AllGrip version that comes with the K15 mild hybrid engine mated to a 5 speed manual gearbox. Is it any good? Is it any fun? Lets find out.
The GV AllGrip comes in only one variant: the top end Alpha. That means it gets all the goodie features like the 360 degree camera, auto dimming IRVM, auto folding ORVMs, leather upholstery for the seats, soft touch leather for the dashboard and door trims and the highlight: a MASSIVE panoramic sunroof which serves no practical purpose but Maruti put it there to silence the critics once and for all. Talking about Maruti critics, the Alpha variant comes with 6 airbags and is designed on Suzuki's Global C platform, which also underpins the Vitara and the S-Cross that Suzuki sells in global markets. Any guesses for the crash safety ratings for those cars? Full 5 stars. So any doubts you have about Maruti's build quality and safety ratings, you may safely throw them right out the window. The GV AllGrip also gets active vehicle safety features like traction control, ESP, hill hold, hill descent control, all four disc brakes and...... Sport Mode! Wait.. Is sport mode really a safety feature? Read on to find out.
The AllGrip system is a software driven all wheel drive system that senses wheel slippage and sends power to the wheels which have the grip and traction to get you out of a situation. The situation may not always be off road. Yes, you are more likely to face wheel slippage off road but lets say you get a bit too enthusiastic on tarmac mid corner with the accelerator pedal? The AllGrip will sense the slippage in the front wheels and send power to the rear wheels to bring you back in line. Lets say you get further enthusiastic and take the system for granted? The ESP will cut in and slow you down so you can take the corner safely. This so called "tin ka dabba" does well to avoid a collision in the first place. And if there is one, it's got you covered there too. The AllGrip drive comes with four modes: Auto, Sport, Snow and Lock. Auto is the default, every day driving mode where the car is predominantly front wheel driven for maximising fuel economy and the AWD system cuts in only when necessary. With Sport mode, you make your intention clear to the AWD system beforehand and that is to maximise fun. It transfers more power to the rear wheels in this mode than in auto. The throttle response gets crisp and the car in general feels eager to go, whether in a straight line or around bends. In Snow mode, the AWD's priority is to maximise traction and minimise slippage. Throttle response gets dulled down and AllGrip will get you out of sticky, or rather, slippery conditions. While in Snow mode, you also get the Lock mode which sends equal power to all 4 wheels. If one wheel faces slippage, it uses a brake locking differential to cut power from that wheel and send it to the other 3 wheels which have traction. This is the closest you can come to a 4 wheel drive set up on an all wheel drive vehicle. If auto journalists who have eperienced the GV in extreme terrain are to be believed, these modes work. They may not get you doing extreme weekend off roading but they sure will get you out of a situation where most front wheel driven so called "SUVs" would get stuck. So that's AllGrip for you. What about every day life?
Get into the GV's cabin and you are welcomed with a feeling of serene plushness. The soft touch leather all around, the panoramic sunroof, the leatherette seats, the aircraft style control switches, the quality, the fit and finish of everything you touch, see or listen to is just so Japanese. Shut the door close and you are cut out from the external din and chaos of every day life. It just takes you to that state of Zen. If there's one word to describe the GV's cabin, it would be "cozy". Not the most spacious but it wraps its arms around you like a soft quilt on a chilly winter night. You can sit in those seats forever. Talking about sitting, you sit up high in the driver's seat and get a great view of your bonnet and the world around you. The A pillar blindspot is minimal to non existent. This is not a very tall car and yet the view from behind the wheel is very SUVish. The ORVMs are large and placed perfectly. The auto dimming IRVM is a boon at night in a country obsessed with high beams. The rear glass is kind of smallish and the view behind isn't the best but the 360 degrees camera's got you covered there. The rear seats are spacious and you get three point seatbelts for all three passengers at the rear. You get rear ac vents behind the driver's armrest and you get the amazing view and heat from that gigantic sunroof making the cabin feel bright and airy. The boot is flat and deep and though on paper, the capacity doesn't sound all that great, it can gobble up more than enough luggage for 5 people out on a road trip.
On paper, the Suzuki 1.5 litre, mild hybrid K15C engine of the GV puts out a maximum power output of 102 BHP and a maximum torque output of 136.8 NM. On paper, Monaco is a country, bitcoin a currency and I am Santa Claus. Start the engine and you can barely notice that it's running. You need to look at the analogue RPM needle to confirm that the car is indeed on. Once you're sure that the engine is running, put it into Sport mode, slot it into 1st gear, give it the revs and release the clutch and.... As an anticlimax to this build up, there's no big turbo torque hit that pushes you back in your seat. Instead, there's an initial electric motor torque that gets you off feom standstill and then you get a torque curve that is linear, and an engine that loves to rev and rev higher in every gear. There's something special about a naturally aspirated engine paired to a slick shifting manual gearbox with tall ratios. Apart from always bringing a smile on my face, it brings back memories. Simple, happy memories of simple, happy families driving around in simple, happy cars. In this era of turbo chargers, hybrid powertrains and automatic gearboxes, this little pony feels like a breath of fresh air. Like the petrichor of fresh rain in a world full of aerosol based room fresheners. It's not incapable in any way. It just involves you as a driver a lot more in the whole driving experience. Thank you Maruti. Thank you for keeping this experience so pure, so organic and yet so entertaining.
Taking the entertainment quotient higher are the dynamics of this car. When it comes to the chassis, the GV feels over engineered. It can take a much, much more powerful engine. That also means that with it's current mill, you can push it to its limits and beyond and it won't unsettle the car in any way. The steering is pretty direct and point and shoot in its application. The ride quality is supple. The suspension does its job quietly and very little suspension noise filters into the cabin. Unless you take the car through some really bad potholes at higher than normal speeds. In that case, you will bottom out the suspension and the GV will remind you that this is a monocoque chassis and there's only so much abuse that it can take. The brakes are on the money with discs all around. What really impresses me about the GV is how cohesively the engine, the transmission, the chassis, the suspension, the steering, the brakes and even the AWD system how they all come together to form this complete package that you would have zero complaints about. Yes, it could have done with more power but look around you, none of the owners are complaining. More power comes at the cost of fuel economy and that is a compromise not everyone may be willing to make. And besides, like I said, this car doesn't lack power. It's just that the power is not compressed within a very short RPM band and is rather spread out wide across the rev range.
The verdict. There are various buyers for whom the different variants of the Grand Vitara make sense. The manual is for the budget conscious, the automatic is for the oldies and the Hybrid is for the daily city commuters. The AllGrip though, is for a completely different breed of buyer. It is the ultimate toy for someone who is young and aspiring. Someone who wants to explore the length and breadth of this beautiful country with his family on four wheels. Someone who enjoys the pure driving pleasure above everything else and doesn't want to be limited by his car's ability in choosing the direction of his next road trip. So if you want a car that is safe, immensely capable, feels premium, is nice and spacious, keeps everyone in the family happy, comes with bullet proof reliability, has an insanely large service network and most importantly, a car that will always plant a smile on your face every time you drive it, do consider taking a the Grand Vitara AllGrip for a test drive. You might just find a bit of yourself in this car's character.
Drive hard. Drive safe!
