Coming from the Maruti Suzuki stable, the buyers always have high hopes from their cars in respect to performance and most importantly the fuel efficiency factor. Maruti Suzuki has been setting benchmarks when it comes to claiming the km/L for their cars. Maruti Suzuki has been providing their trusted engines i.e 1.2 Lt Petrol and 1.3 Lt Diesel to their line up of cars. So, on this front, you'll find the same engines doing their duty in Ignis as well. Both the engines provided to Ignis are 4 cylinder engines and use the trusted VVT and DDIS technology.
Both these engines are mated to 2 choices of transmission i.e 5 Speed manual box and an AMT. The petrol engines provides 61Kw power and 113 Nm of Torque at 4200 rpm where as the Diesel engine generates 55.2 Kw of Power and 190 Nm of Torque at 2000 rpm. The claimed Fuel Efficiency of both these engines as per the ARAI is, 20.89 Km/L for petrol and 26.8 km/L for diesel respectively. Maruti Suzuki engines are often believed to be reliable and long lasting and as an owner I do vouch at least for this particular aspect. I am sharing here my experience of driving the Ignis Petrol and Diesel with Manual as well as AMT transmissions. At the time of it's launch I went to take a test drive of the AMT Zeta Petrol variant and after driving it I came back with mixed feelings. This time around, I drove first the Manual Transmission Ignis Petrol. To begin with I am impressed with the performance of the engine. The 25 Km drive up and down in this one left me and my chauffeur with a happy face. The NVH levels are well refined even with high revving and the filtering of engine sound to the cabin is well controlled as even the petrol variant gets a under-hood cladding which contributes equally. About the manual transmission, it offered very good response in traffic as well on open roads. The gear shifts in manual transmission are much more precise, refined and in-sync with the engine than the AMT. If I speak about the clutch's performance then yes, what I found was, it was just a bit lacking in refinement. From idle to drive, the clutch lacked in terms of smoothness as my driver drove it and noting the same when I drove the car, it indeed needed a lit bit of effort. However, it is something that can be lived with and definitely shouldn't pose as a deal breaker. Moving ahead with the power and torque delivery of the Petrol engine, I must say, Ignis 1.2 has a happy revving engine and as I drove around the 2000-2500 rpm mark, I could actually sense the power delivery of the engine and linear development of power made the drive much more fun. Talking of the torque delivery, for the car of this size, with a tested and trusted petrol engine, you won't complaint about the torque either. As I drove the petrol engine car, the well balanced pulling power of the engine did surprise me in a pleasant way. Upon seeing me driving, my chauffeur too requested and when he drove, he drove it like a race enthusiast might do. As the engine was again revved to higher rpm levels, the engine's sound did increase but wasn't really a noise to the ears. The pick up and transmission performance were good. We tested the petrol engine between 90-100 km/h and specifically for the engine we did not have any complaints. But if we talk of the steering then it was all together a different story. The feedback from steering at moderate and even high speeds is very poor. It did not give us both the confident feel and a peculiar feature which I noticed was that it did not return to the center when we took a U-turn. The last bit for it to make it to the center has to be done by the driver. Coming to the ride aspect, Well, it was just about average in the petrol spec. The suspension setup (Mc Pherson and Torsion) has more scope of improvement in it. The rear was bouncy in petrol and upon asking I was informed that the air pressure was wrong in tires. This led to a big difference in the ride of the car. At smallest of the breaker, the rear used to jerk and even on the potholes the ride wasn't exactly smooth enough. The brakes however are quite good and the bite point is sufficient enough for bumper to bumper traffic yet upon applying the brakes, the body roll is felt as well. Speaking of the cornering and parking in tight spots, due to it's compact size, it was quite easy for us to take it out from the parking which had limited space near Akshardham temple and turning and cornering it on sharp turns of the Games Village, was easy too but the steering needs constant effort to be kept in center and Maruti Suzuki should work on improving it's response. Speaking of the Tyre, the Ignis comes with 175 section tyres and 15 inch rims. The Tyre size to me looked OK and I did not have issues with them in terms of the road grip offered. The road noise filtering inside the cabin is a shortfall of Ignis though and as Maruti Suzuki hasn't given any inner wheel arc cladding hence the road noise filters in the cabin much more than the engine sound itself. Another thing which I felt is ugly, is the poor design of the alloy rims and the poor wheel-caps fitting.
1.2 Lts Petrol Engine with AMT
The AMT Petrol is not as good as the Manual Transmission Petrol. Though the characteristics of the engine in terms of NVH and the ride in general remains same except that this time AMT TD Car had proper air pressure in Tires which led to a comparatively better rear seat experience during the drive but apart from this, the AMT transmission as a unit deteriorates the overall performance output with sluggish response and ill-placed gear shift intervals. So, in between MT and AMT if I have to pick one, I would still opt either a proper AT or MT Ignis. The torque in petrol AMT is enough for this car. Comparing the Petrol MT and Petrol AMT, many would feel that AMT is better in Petrol engine but to me it wasn't. Accelerator response in AMT is dead poor. In Auto mode, the response from accelerator is delayed and that was big put-off for me. It takes a slight bit of time to develop the pickup and same is the case when overtaking. I practically tested it on a Red Signal and noted the sluggish AMT response in overtaking while my chauffeur drove it. These type of shortcoming, made me loose the interest in the car as MT Ignis was still more fun-to-drive thing than this one. On the other hand, the steering feedback in AMT too wasn't convincing. In the overall 20 Km drive of AMT, not even for a single moment I was as comfortable to drive it as I was with the MT Ignis Petrol.
Here is a video of the 1.2 Ltr Petrol Engine in Maruti Suzuki Ignis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5NRhN-C7Sg
Top
![[lol]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Laugh.gif "Laugh [lol]")
Actually, Why Maruti Suzuki did not give AMT option in top spec variant? So till my next review do enjoy the parting shots of Maruti Suzuki Ignis.
![[thumbsup]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Thumbs%20Up.png "Thumbs Up [thumbsup]")
![[clap]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Clap.gif "Clap [clap]")
. ![[;)]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Wink.gif "Wink [;)]")
![[:D]](https://www.theautomotiveindia.com/forums/images/smilies/Big%20Smile.gif "Big Smile [:D]")
Is there any salesgirls who gave demo of Ignis?