Maruti Vitara Brezza long term review, second report

The Vitara Brezza has been holding its head high, of late. Due, in part, to the accolades heaped on it during our Car of the Year awards, where it took honours in three categories. Our Brezza, however, has also been standing tall because of a substantial feature upgrade done via Maruti’s i-Create web pages. 

The experience with the Maruti Genuine Accessories site has been a bit of a mixed bag, though.   

First, the good bits. The Brezza certainly looks a tad nicer on the outside. The integrated ‘bull bar’-like garnish (Maruti calls it an extender) we added gives it a bit of an upmarket look, and the rear skid plate works quite well too, making our Brezza stand out nicely in a crowd. A bit of subtle individuality always seems to work well.

We added a lot more on the inside. The enhancements to the audio system were expensive but clearly worth it. We chose to go down the amp and speaker path – it’s what works best with modern integrated touchscreen units – and the result was greater depth and considerably more punch, especially when high-quality audio files are played. And there’s a big jump in clarity at higher volumes too, again due to the more effortless power delivered by the 50W x 4 ‘Hertz’ amp and the HCX 690 three-way speakers.

The other new bits we added, however, didn’t really work out as well. The leather seats turned out to be just covers placed on top of the seats, and these have turned Maruti’s once fabulously comfortable seats into not-so-comfortable ones. Like all seat covers, the ones we got on our car add a thickish layer to both the seat and the seatback, and that, of course, means you now sit ‘on’ the seat rather than ‘in’ it. However, they look a lot better compared to the drab grey cloth covers.  This entire list of accessories amounted to Rs 43,245, with taxes extra.

Otherwise, the Brezza is the same easy-to-drive mile muncher it’s always been. The ride is a bit stiff over rough patches and a bit more power from the engine would have been nice on the highway, but I absolutely love how well-balanced and at ease it feels in corners. Combine that and its ability to run over rough patches without getting tossed around and you have an SUV that’s well-suited to Indian roads.