Maruti Suzuki XL6 has been our long term companion for 60 days or 2 months now and I picked it up on October 31st from Bunny Punia. This XL6 is the top of the line Alpha variant and comes with a sole 1.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine. The good thing was that ours was equipped with a 5-speed manual gearbox.
Date of Arrival - 27th September 2020
Odo at Arrival - 13819
Odo currently - 15914
I have been using the XL6 as my daily drive for a month now and have clocked 1000 km just like I did in the pre-corona times. Needless to say, I am impressed with the way it looks and how supremely spacious this is from the inside. One can actually move into a house with this one. Well, I actually did stuff in my cycle, mattresses, carpets and still, there was a bit of space left for more cargo.
Bunny has described how this one looks and the link to that is right here but I will not mention anything about its design but some shortcomings which are quite visible to the naked eyes. The 15-inch wheel size with 185/65 R15 dimension looks small on this huge car. Just an inch more and the car would have looked awesome.
The second thing, in my opinion, is the disproportionate body cladding on the side profile and lower portions of doors. One look at the rear door from either side and you notice the huge panel gap which does not give away a superior look from the Ertiga on which it is based.
Jumping inside and you notice the all-black interiors which really gives it a plush look. To be honest, I am not a fan of beige and black interiors so I was quite happy to ditch my Grand i10 and use this as my daily driver. Yes, it missed the torque like the diesel but hey, it does get Smart Hybrid.
Driving Pleasure
Coming straight to the driving part and how it drives then the 1.5-litre petrol is suitable for the city and for highway usage. It produces 103 bhp with 138 Nm of peak torque and the 5-speed manual is light to use and it delivered me a pretty decent mileage.
Honestly, I drove it with an extremely light foot which sure can be tiring for some but hey, it delivered me above 20 km/l in my 100 km daily run. But when the mood was right and I used the longer route to work, I experienced the motor in an extremely raw manner. By that I mean, it revs easily till 6200-6300 RPM and god it gets noisy.
Another thing which I liked is that because of the mid flat range, you can easily engage the 5th gear when doing between 40 and 50 and there will be no lag when you are using the throttle gently. That is how good this engine is. Also, the NVH levels are adequate and the engine is supremely refined.
In common man's world and when you are not doing FE tests, once can easily achieve between 15-18 km/l which is quite good for a car of this size. The car feels comfortable at triple digits and even though the steering feels on a heavier side for city usage, out on the open roads it really gives you confidence.
One interesting and the most helpful bit I found was Maruti's Smart Hybrid system. Here, the ISG is paired with a lithium-ion and a lead-acid battery which regenerates the braking energy and provides with torque assist. This is quite helpful in the city runs when you need that torque boost to move out of the jam. Another is the idle start/stop which can be annoying at times because the car automatically stops when you put it in neutral and gets On when you press the clutch. For those wondering if they can turn this feature off then yes, you can!
Another thing is that the smart hybrid works at a certain speed for every gear. Suppose you are cruising at 70 km/h at 5th gear and you need to slow down. Now when you reach 41 km/h at 5th gear, till that time the regenerative system works and below that, it stops. That means now you need to engage in 4th gear and simultaneously adjust the gear ratios to the speed in order to work the motor which then feeds to the battery. To be honest, it seemed fair.
While doing this you can observe how the motor works in absorbing the energy in the MID and can see how many green bars are present. You get a total of five bars and this system gets activated at 3 or more bars only. Similarly, when you push the pedal hard then the motor provides you with that torque assist and you can very well see that in the throttle response as well in the MID that how the smart hybrid system works.
Maruti XL6 Long Term Review
I used the driver's seat so had no idea what was in like the rear seats, but my family and friends sat in both the rows and they were completely satisfied with the comfort. However, one thing which we all complained was the suspension and for the person sitting in the last row, it gets real rough when you have to travel on bad roads. As for the other two roads, it is okayish. You do hear the noise of large potholes though.
This Maruti XL6 will be our long term car for another month and if you have any questions regarding that, do let us know in the comment section below. We will surely answer to it and will present to you a fuel economy test run also.
So what are your thoughts on the Maruti XL6 and are you planning to buy this premium MPV or you already have yours in store? Do let us know in the comment section below and share your thoughts on this one. Also, subscribe to our 91Wheels YouTube channel where we bring you latest two and four-wheeler videos.
