My Silky Silver Celerio VXI AMT

[Vishi]

Hello Guys,

I was in a bad need for an automatic car as handling the maddening Bangalore traffic with my Linea was simply too tiring and irritating. Also wanted my wife to start driving. I did want a new car as I am planning to keep it for a min of 7 years and hence did not opt for second hand. The choices were limited and so was the budget.

Cars considered

1. Tata Nano XTA
2. Maruti Alto K10 VXI AMT
3. Maruti Celerio VXI AMT

TATA Nano
Both me and my wife did not like the looks of the car but at 3.5lakh on road no one can beat this price for an automatic.
The major let down for me was that there is no disc break in the front (common tata even bikes have it). Hence rejected it and also the waiting period mentioned to me was 4 months for XTA

Maruti Alto K10 VXI AMT
I was fully inclined towards the new Alto K10 AMT as it was cheaper and yet better than Tata nano AMT in engine and breaking aspect. Took a test drive and came out disappointed for the following reasons and hence rejected it

• NVH is very bad. Engine noise is very prominent inside the cabin and looks like there is no damping done at all.
• Traffic noise creeping inside. Will quote the talks between me and the SA on this during the TD of the car
  
  Me: Too much traffic noise getting inside the cabin, Can you close all the windows
  SA: Sir all the windows are already closed
  Me: Shocked.
  ​
• Cramped up front and rear space. I am 5.8 and a bit built on my tummy. Now when I try to turn the steering left my right hand hits the window and when I turn the steering right my left hands hits the co passenger. The front and rear seat base is very small. Under thigh support is also compromised here. For my seating position in the front I was barely able to fit myself in the rear
• Plastic material used are of very low quality compared to Celerio. Only one bottle holder available

Overall these negative points did not make me happy even though the drive was peppy

Maruti Celerio VXI AMT

• Now all the negatives of Alto are positives in Celerio.
• Start the car and you will barely hear the engine noise
• Seating position is tall and the driver has overall good visibility. You feel like seated in a chair
• Excellent under thigh support and the seat base is good
• Rear space is abundant even after setting the front seat to my driving position which is big plus
• Get inside the car and the interior quality will give a big smile as its comparable to swift.
• 14inch wheels compared to 13inch.

The on road price difference between Alto and Celerio is 80k. Thought for a while and deiced to go for Celerio as again I want to keep this car for a long time to come and hence needed it to be more comfortable.

Booking experience
Booked the car with Bimal Maruti and I should say the SA and the manager were very cooperative in getting things done. I initially booked Blue color and later at the last minute changed it to Silver as some of the blue color which I saw in the roads were a little dull if not maintained and polished well. The delivery was done at the promised date and time. Absolutely no discounts available for this car right now. Celerio Manual gear has discounts.

Accessories added

• MGA Reverse parking sensors
• MGA Remote lock
• MGA Alloy wheels (The stock ones found in ZXI Celerio)
• Tyre upgrade done from 165/70/R14 to Michelin Energy XM2 185/65/R14
• Under Chassis coating along with wheel arches
• Osram Unlimited Night + bulbs (H4)
• Pioneer DEH - X6600BT Head Unit
• JBL - CX 62SI - 6.5 Inches 2-Way Coaxial Speakers in Rear
• JBL - CS 6C - 6.5 inch Component Speakers (150 W) in Front

Driving Experience
Completed around 2000 kms and I should say I am thoroughly impressed with the performance of this car and I am very happy with my choice. My biggest problem of handling traffic stress has been reduced by 90%. It's like finally I have taken revenge of Bangalore traffic . I get out of the car as fresh as I got in even after 1 hour of hectic traffic. I think my BP is definitely reduced now when driving
To start the car you need to keep the gear in neutral and press the brake. One needs to get used to this pattern as sometimes in signal when I stop the car and when I need to start back I get confused and people start honking. Gear shifts can be felt and you will hear a small tick sound with each gear shift. Since this is my first automatic car I am not finding it annoying nor difficult to bear. The gear upshifts are very fast and with no time you will see that you are in 4th gear with speed of just 40kms. This will help in fuel efficiency. Right now I am getting 13.7kmpl with complete city drive and 90% AC on. Hope to get more mileage after service. Even with AC on I did not find the drive to be sluggish and there is no difference in drive when AC or OFF which is a big plus.

Ride quality & handling
Ride quality is good. I wouldn’t say the best but acceptable. Since this is a new car the suspension is yet to get settled. Hopefully after 5K in the ODO it may get even better. But the Michelin's have enhanced the ride overall compared to the stock JK's. There is some amount of pitch and bounce when the car goes over big pot holes but nothing to worry about so much. The car did once reach 120kmph for a very small time and to my surprise it felt stable and the steering weighed well. The engine noise at 120kmph was very less. I am yet to take it on a highway, will do it soon and post my experience.

Let downs
Now coming to the negatives

• Vibrations are felt when the car is in Idle. You can feel it more when the AC is off. I just opened the bonnet when the car was in idle and to my surprise the entire engine is shaking badly. Checked with service guys and they said its normal. The Idle RPM is 800 due to which there are vibrations. When it crosses beyond 1K the vibrations are not felt.
• The belt sound in the engine is heard inside when the environment in very calm like in an apartment parking area. Confirmed with SA that its normal
• Maruti should have given this car with ABS & Dual airbags which I would have definitely opted for safety reasons. An opportunity missed I should say as it would have been right with competition of Honda Brio & Micra CVT who offer ABS & Dual airbags in automatic versions.
• No music system in VXI but Alto K10 VXI gets one.
• The material used for under carpet is very thin and looks like it will tear if we do not have a good floor mat. Planning to add noodle mat
• The fabric material used in the seat is very thin. Need to add seat covers soon.
• The integrated neck rest is a joke. It does not provide any support and your neck will start paining. Added an aftermarket neck rest

Issues Faced

• Pungent smell coming in from the AC duct when the car reaches above 60kmph. Issue still exists.
• Glove box lock was loose and hence it would open by itself when ran over potholes. Fixed in first service

 

[ss80]

Hi Vishi,
Congrats on your buy. Its a good color you have chosen and I agree with most of your observations about the car. It is a much better choice than K10 (old and not that great in terms of space). Good that you upgraded your tyres, makes a lot of difference in handling and stability on high speeds. The K10 is nice engine, except for the vibrations, for which you can slightly tweak the idle setting (if it is still cable operated) and keep the idling close to 1000RPM.

How is the braking, since yours is non-ABS + Automatic? I guess skidding would occur at high speeds. So please do drive patiently till you get used to the actual braking distance etc

All the best!

 

[Vishi]

Thanks @ss80.
Breaking is much better than what I expected. Had 2 or 3 situation inside city where had to do hard breaking and it all went fine. Surely the tyres upgrade has helped on the breaking. Will be going this weekend for a long drive. Will share the details once I am back on highway driving dynamics.

 

[Ambylovers]

Hi,
Congratulations on your new Celerio. Wishes to clock many more miles without issues.
How do you feel on this AMT.

 

[Vishi]

Hi,
Congratulations on your new Celerio. Wishes to clock many more miles without issues.
How do you feel on this AMT.

Thanks Ambylovers
AMT is not the traditional Automatic and one can feel the gear changes. But its still a breeze to drive in city traffic. In no time the car reaches 5th gear (40kmph).
Maruti has rightly tuned the AMT for Indian road conditions. I have test driven TATA Zest AMT and let me tell you the Celerio AMT is much better when gear shifts happen.
In TATA Zest you can feel the jerk more for each and every gear be it upshift or downshift.
The best thing I liked is when the car is in 5th gear and when there is a sudden brake or slow down the car reaches the right gear without shuddering.
When you want to overtake press the pedal and the gear will downshift.
Crawl feature is enabled and it helps you a lot when moving in stop go traffic as you no need to press the pedal just release the brake and the car will slowly move forward.

Coming to the manual option. You can move to the manual at any given time when the car is running. When in manual the upshifts are totally based on your input and the downshift automatically happens if the car reaches very low RPM for the desired gear. You can also downshift if needed.

 

[Razor]

Well congratulations on your buy! My car has done well above 14k kms in 1 yr 4 months and running smoothly so far!
You are right about the integrated neck rest..it doesnt give any rest to the neck at all. Better add car neck pillows to avoid neck pains.
I am not happy with my Pioneer head unit though. There are a few problems with it ..not getting a proper FM reception where a MGA head unit catches it clearly. MGA one (fitted in ZXI) comes for around 14k and looks in sync with the dash too.

And get foglamps fitted too! Its pretty useful.

 

[Varunvelavan]

Hello bro,
Congratulations on your new ride. AMT is the way to go for city driving, its makes the commute comfortable. I wish you all the very best for clocking many more miles on this baby...

 

[avidhoni]

Congrats on your new ride sir.
Celerio looks great in Silver colour.
Breaking in celerio is too good even on the stock tyres.
Our celerio amt mileage is not crossing 14.3kmpl. Recently i reset the Odometer and at one point mileage surged to 18 but reduced to 14 again. We drove for 1600 kms in 1 year.
Here is our celerio.

 

[generalmax]

Congratulations on your new purchase. As a fellow Celerio Owner (MT) I am surprised to hear that breaking is good.Are the tyres on JK or MRF? Have you tried breaking at 60/70 Kmph on wet roads? This is a mileage king and you will be surprised on long rides,even with AC,how good the mileage is.What about the light throw with stock headlights? It would be nice if you can put the prices here for the accessories.

 

[rajesh_nk22]

How Celerio AMT behaves in stop go traffic on steep inclines / slopes ?
Also, is there any rollback on hill start ?

 

[gen2prot]

Maruti Celerio AGS Transmission Performance

Hello All,
I am thinking of purchasing the Maruti Celerio VXI Automatic. I had some questions and was wondering if some of the forum users can shed some light.
1) I read in some technical reviews that while the AGS is great on city roads with all the traffic, it is not so good on the highways. It sounded like "If you are using AGS and overtaking on the highway, do it at your own risk" I wanted to get some more people opinion.
2) I also read that the gear shift in the AGS mode, during acceleration is not smooth and is extremely jerky. I wanted to know how bad is it. Like will the gear change feel like knocking your head back like a whiplash or something lesser than that. I could not understand from the reviews.
3) This car will mostly be used by my wife on a regular basis, in the city. What kind of mileage I can expect. Technical experts say anything between 15 to 20 kmpl.
I am planning to purchase within the next 2 weeks, so would appreciate some answers quickly. Thank you all.
-Abhijit

 

[Vishi]

Hello All,

Thanks for all the wonderful wishes. Last week was very busy for me as I became Uncle (My sis delivered baby boy )

Well congratulations on your buy! My car has done well above 14k kms in 1 yr 4 months and running smoothly so far!]
You are right about the integrated neck rest..it doesnt give any rest to the neck at all. Better add car neck pillows to avoid neck pains.
I am not happy with my Pioneer head unit though. There are a few problems with it ..not getting a proper FM reception where a MGA head unit catches it clearly. MGA one (fitted in ZXI) comes for around 14k and looks in sync with the dash too.

And get foglamps fitted too! Its pretty useful.

Thanks @Razor. Yes I have already added a neck rest. Even my Pioneer unit is crappy. Bluetooth connection has some issues. I think JVC is much better but not so common with Accessory dealers. Fog lamps is planned when I give the car for next service

Hello bro,
Congratulations on your new ride. AMT is the way to go for city driving, its makes the commute comfortable. I wish you all the very best for clocking many more miles on this baby...

Thanks @Varunvelavan.

Congrats on your new ride sir.
Celerio looks great in Silver colour.
Breaking in celerio is too good even on the stock tyres.
Our celerio amt mileage is not crossing 14.3kmpl. Recently i reset the Odometer and at one point mileage surged to 18 but reduced to 14 again. We drove for 1600 kms in 1 year.
Here is our celerio.

Congrats @avidhoni on your new buy. White looks very elegant on Celerio. 1600 kms for 1 year . Or is it one month? Yes with bumper to bumper traffic the mileage does reduce. Try not to rev the engine too hard.

Congratulations on your new purchase. As a fellow Celerio Owner (MT) I am surprised to hear that breaking is good.Are the tyres on JK or MRF? Have you tried breaking at 60/70 Kmph on wet roads? This is a mileage king and you will be surprised on long rides,even with AC,how good the mileage is.What about the light throw with stock headlights? It would be nice if you can put the prices here for the accessories.

Thanks @generalmax, I have upgraded the tyres from the stock JK 165/70/R14 to Michelin Energy XM2 185/65/R14. May be that's one of the reasons I am finding breaking to be good. Again I cannot compare it with Linea but for this segment I find it to be good. Regarding headlights, after changing it to Osram its better but still I am not satisfied with the high beam. Low beam is good. I need to recollect the info on the prices. Will post them soon.

How Celerio AMT behaves in stop go traffic on steep inclines / slopes ?
Also, is there any rollback on hill start ?

In Steep inclines you need to move the gear to manual and stay in 1st gear. Since there is no hill assist control as such you need to use the handbrake and break to control the car not to go down. This is just a matter of getting used once you know there is no problem in handling the car.

 

[Vishi]

Re: Maruti Celerio AGS Transmission Performance

Hello All,
I am thinking of purchasing the Maruti Celerio VXI Automatic. I had some questions and was wondering if some of the forum users can shed some light.
1) I read in some technical reviews that while the AGS is great on city roads with all the traffic, it is not so good on the highways. It sounded like "If you are using AGS and overtaking on the highway, do it at your own risk" I wanted to get some more people opinion.

Overtaking with any car needs some proper planning and thought. Since these are Naturally aspirated engine and not turbo charged which gives you the extra thrust one need to be careful. I have not yet taken to highway but I have done 110-120 in an empty road and the car handles with ease. Its better to use trip tronic (manual mode) in highways rather than Auto

2) I also read that the gear shift in the AGS mode, during acceleration is not smooth and is extremely jerky. I wanted to know how bad is it. Like will the gear change feel like knocking your head back like a whiplash or something lesser than that. I could not understand from the reviews.

No not at all in fact I feel the gear shifts to be very precise and not jerky as I mentioned there will be a minor click sound when the gear changes but nothing that the driver or passenger will complain about. I suggest you take the car for a longer test drive both in traffic and in empty roads to judge.

3) This car will mostly be used by my wife on a regular basis, in the city. What kind of mileage I can expect. Technical experts say anything between 15 to 20 kmpl.
I am planning to purchase within the next 2 weeks, so would appreciate some answers quickly. Thank you all.
-Abhijit

You can expect 13kmpl on very dense traffic. If not expect 15 in city. Again all these numbers are with 100% AC on. In highways you should definitely get 19 - 20kmpl.
Maruti has plans to release Celerio VXI(o) AMT model which will come with airbag and ABS. I would suggest you to wait for that model

 

[gen2prot]

Thank you Vishi. Your insight was very informative. What is the VXI(o) model, and is AMT same as AGS?

Thanks
Abhijit

 

[Vishi]

Thank you Vishi. Your insight was very informative. What is the VXI(o) model, and is AMT same as AGS?

Thanks
Abhijit

Yes AGS & AMT are all the same. VXI (o) model will come with Dual Airbags and ABS which are the most essential safety features missing in the normal VXI model. You can check with the dealer on this.