The Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara is Maruti’s version of the Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder, which also happens to be among the most expensive Maruti cars currently on sale in the Indian market. Should you invest this much money on a Maruti? Here are the top Maruti grand Vitara pros & cons that we suggest you should consider before making that decision.
Apart from the Toyota Hyryder, the Grand Vitara is the only car in its segment that gets an all-wheel drive system. It further gets four driving modes to choose from — Snow, Sport, Lock, and Auto. But there’s a catch. The Grand Vitara AWD can only be specced with a manual transmission and not an automatic.
The Grand Vitara hybrid has a claimed fuel economy of 27.97kmpl, which is brilliant for a car its size. The non-hybrid variants aren’t bad either, with claimed figures of 26.6km/kg for the CNG variants, 21.11kmpl for the petrol-manual variants, 20.58kmpl for the petrol-automatic variants, and 19.38kmpl for the all-wheel drive variants.
Maruti Suzuki and Toyota are both known for making super reliable cars, and when they come together, the reliability factor only gets stronger. The petrol variants get Suzuki’s tried and tested K-Series engine and the hybrid variants get Toyota’s hybrid system, and you can’t really go wrong with that.
The petrol and CNG variants of the SUV feel quite underpowered and are low on torque when put against other popular rivals such as the Hyundai Creta and the Skoda Kushaq. The Vitara is a significantly-sized car too, further alleviating this issue.
The Grand Vitara lacks space in the second row, especially when compared to other similar cars. The boot space isn’t great either, and on the hybrid variants, it’s even worse given the placement of the battery pack. By the way, there's a seven-seater Grand Vitara coming up soon.
The hybrid system on the respective Grand Vitara variants is sourced from Toyota and thus, the Toyota Hyryder hybrid variants are priced lower as compared to the Grand Vitara hybrid variants. This makes the Hyryder a more appealing choice if you’re going for a hybrid option.