மாருதி எர்டிகா

This is my short review of my Ertiga which I bought 1 year ago. This is not going to be a long review with all details and loads of photos as we already have a T-BHP review for that. I am going to focus on a short and crisp review along with why I love Maruti cars and buy them again and again. This is my 3rd new Maruti in the last 12 years. First was Dzire Vxi which I bought in June 2009, it's still in the family with more than 75K kms and running absolutely fine. In October 2016, I got Ertiga Vdi (1 gen but new model). After using it for more than 4.5 years & 51K kms, I sold it last year for a great deal to Cars24. I had bought it for 9.8 Lakhs OTR and when I sold it after 4.5 years, it was due for tire change, battery change, wiper change & a couple of small things. Please note that it was running absolutely fine and had no issues. I never spent more than 7-8 K per year (around 30 K max I spent on service bills in 4.5 years) on that and used to get great mileage with the diesel motor. I was expecting around 6.5 Lakhs but Cars24 offered me 7.5 Lakhs. I was very much surprised and happily gave it. I was very happy with it but sold it for some personal reason. After 4 months, I was looking for a new car & checked cars like Honda City, Creta, Seltos, Innova, Harrier, Safari etc. City was good but quite low and mainly has the capacity of 4+1 people. Frankly, I didn't like the 5th gen much and I find the 4th gen better, strictly my personal view so don't jump on me. New Creta's looks I didn't like at all, Hyundai designs have been crazy for the last few years for sure. Again my personal opinion. Seltos was good but I found it to be costly for what it offers for that kind of money. I was not interested in Nexon, Brezza, Kiger, Sonet, etc. after using Ertiga which is a very spacious car for 5 people & carries more in case of need for short distances. I liked Safari and Harrier both but the price was 23+ lakhs for the models I was looking for. Safari is good but not a proper 7-seater after giving so much money. So we kept it on hold. I also checked Innova. Test drive was done and it was good. When asked about prices, I was blown away completely as the base diesel model was 23 Lakhs, mid-model for 27 Lakhs and the top end was almost 30 Lakhs for manual OTR. Also with all rows up, there is no space for luggage. Plus when you drive Innova, you get the feeling that you are driving an MPV and not a car. Gear lever shakes like old Jeeps when you start the car which is very surprising. It's a little big for city use as well and has a cab-like image too.