If you have followed our Living series over the last year or so, you will notice that most of what we have covered are SUVs—they are, after all, the flavour of the decade. This taste for high-riding vehicles means that, like Thanos' finger snap, they have consumed every other body style ruthlessly. But like the surviving Avengers after the global incident, some lived and continued the fight, and one of those is the sedan body style, of which its chief flag bearer is the new-generation Maruti Suzuki Dzire.

Launched in 2024 as the fourth generation of the compact sedan, and, for the first time, it sports a completely different identity when compared to the Swift, giving it its own series for the first time. But is this new identity just superficial, or has Maruti packaged it well enough to live up to the kind of cult following that its predecessors were able to garner?

One of the hallmarks of the Dzire right from the beginning, even when it was full-sized, was the amount of practicality on offer, and this is not just in terms of usable spaces but also little extras that add value. Up front, you get two smaller cup holders in the front seats, which you can't place tall bottles in - especially if you have the manual variant like the one in our video - because when you go for first gear, it may clash with them. You can also turn off the wireless charger, which frees up additional space. All of these spaces are easy to reach and use, and given that it is a slightly tight cabin, they fall to hand easily. You get a very flat centre console and, in the older models, you got a little storage space between the front passengers, but that has now been taken over by a phone slot and two charging ports. One is USB-C, the other USB-A, but neither is a fast charger.

Moving over to practicality in the second row, you get two cup holders in the centre for the rear occupants. Technically, there's a seat space for three, but if you look at the layout and materials used, you can see that it is essentially a space for two people. The third one will have to be squeezed in because the seat base material is different. The rear seat doesn't fold down, and that is for safety reasons, which is one of the things they had to do to make this a five-star BNCAP-rated car. To achieve this, they had to seal the back, making this the first-ever Maruti in over 40 years that doesn't offer a folding seatback for additional practicality.

The car that we have driven is a top-spec ZXI+ variant with a manual gearbox. Being a ZXI+ means it is loaded with all the bells and whistles that Maruti Suzuki offers for this car. As a part of the deal, you get a single-pane sunroof, climate control with rear vents, and a 9.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Maruti's own OS and a wireless charger.

In fact, these newer Maruti models all come with wireless connectivity and a wireless charger, which is not particularly great and is more of a gimmicky thing because it doesn't have ventilation - the phone heats up very quickly, and this applies to both Android and Apple phones.

You still get a manual instrument cluster, which is very nice-looking and harks back to the way the car's instrument clusters have been in the past. You get two pods and an MID in the middle. It is a colour MID and very useful. It shows mileage, graphics for acceleration and torque, so that if you are someone who likes numbers, it will appeal to you. But the colour MID needs to be bigger, and the car needs a digital instrument cluster. The graphics are nice but slightly dated; these are the same graphics you've been getting since Maruti Suzuki upgraded all its vehicles with colour MIDs a few years ago.

In our real-world fuel efficiency test for this five-speed manual variant, we got the following. It's not too far away from what the AMT offers, but there is a noticeable gap between Maruti's claimed figures and what we achieved.

MT

AMT

Let's look at this in two ways. First, the dimensions. It's compact and easy to judge the edges of the car, making it simple to manoeuvre in traffic. The steering requires less than three turns lock-to-lock, which helps with quick parallel parking and U-turns. However, the steering doesn't weigh up very well, but it is accurate and gets the job done.

Moving on, the 1.2-litre engine is fuel-efficient but needs to be worked, especially if you have driven the older 1.2 four-cylinder engine. You feel the lack of additional torque that necessitates rowing between third and fourth regularly, especially when you're doing city speeds above bumper-to-bumper traffic. You have to row a lot more, especially if you have to slow down and pick up speed.

You do have to work the gearbox. Honestly, the AMT, while a little slow to respond, would actually make things more convenient. It feels like the car was designed with the AMT in mind, with the manual added for markets like India, because almost all manufacturers nowadays have a much larger presence for automatic variants, and the AMT would be your friend if you're going to do a majority of city driving.

The ride is quite flat, and Maruti has done a stellar job achieving this. Bumps, potholes, and imperfections don't unsettle the car, especially considering our proving grounds, Mumbai, that's where we are based out of and it has some of the 'tougher' roads in the country. It settles quickly, even if you run it over a large pothole, but would advise you to exercise some caution as this top-spec model comes with very nice-looking diamond-cut alloys that you wouldn't want to scratch.

One of the other things we want to point out is the LED headlamps. Maruti is one of the best when it comes to making full-LED headlamps—extremely bright, the throw is very good, and you can see everything at the top, so you don't have a problem at all.

We have already spoken about practicality, but how does it feel on a weekend with the gang? We've already said that it's essentially a space for four, but if you bring in a fifth one, it's going to be a squeeze, especially for the middle occupant in the second row, because the seat base differs and there's an AC vent sticking out.

The other big factor during a road trip is boot space, and the Dzire doesn't disappoint. At 427 litres, it is wide, deep, easy to access, and the loading lip is not high. It can be accessed from a button outside or via a knob on the floor near the driver's seat. Finally, there is also a button on the key in the higher-spec variants.

Now, one of the other things we said is that you do get individual USB charging ports in the back, but they are not fast-charging ports, which means that you're going to be connected for a while and in this age of fast-charging ports, that seems a bit unintuitive, right? The rear occupants don't have seatback pockets, which means that if you're putting the phone to charge, it has to sit on the seat beside you, or you have to hold on to it.

One of the things we didn't point out in any of the sections earlier is the beige interiors. It is a popular colour for India, very light, easy on the eyes, but it gets dirty very quickly. You can see from the pictures in our car, which has done 10,000km, that the interiors are already stained. Maruti Suzuki has many seat cover options in its own accessories pack, and honestly, if you are going in for this car, you should budget to just put seat covers on and not stick with these beige interiors.

The 1.2-litre three-cylinder is surprisingly convenient under a full load and will chug along without a struggle, though it does tend to get noisy. You probably can't go as fast as you would say if you are one or two people in the car, and you would have to row a lot more because this engine does not have enough torque.

The Maruti Dzire is offered with a warranty of three years/1 lakh kilometres. The extended warranty package can be purchased for five years/1.4 lakh kilometres (Royal Plan) or six years and 1.6 lakh kilometres (Solitaire Plan).

As you can see from our tests, the Dzire has lived up to most of what's been thrown at it and emerged quite successfully. It's got brand recall value as one of its biggest strengths, but that's not all this time around. The car has got more practical, better features, and a flat ride that will do its occupants a good service on the plethora of roads that dominate our nation.

But one of its less robust links is its 1.2-litre three-pot engine, which works but needs to be worked hard to get the pace you want. The beige interiors are a dust magnet, it doesn't get Level 2 ADAS, and at the time of this review, there was no underbody/split tank option for the CNG variants. The Maruti Dzire ZXI+ MT variant that we have had in our long-term garage was priced at Rs. 8.86 lakh (avg ex-showroom).

Photography: Kaustubh Gandhi