Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire 2012 ZDi - Performance Review

Under the hood of the new Swift DZire, you have the same engines that power the current Swift hatchback. Therefore the petrol option comes in the form of the 1.2-litre K-series engine that puts out 87 PS of power an 114 Nm of torque. The diesel variants get the 1.3-litre Fiat Multijet engine, which produces 75 PS of power and 190 Nm of torque. The car you see in the pictures is the top-of-the-line diesel variant, the ZDi. The engine feels breathless under 1,800 RPM, but over that mark the punch is as good as the Swift, thanks to the turbocharger.

The new DZire has a softer suspension setup as compared to the new Swift - which is understood since this sedan will bought for comfort and luxury than sporty handling. So what you get is a smooth ride over bumps and potholes with the trade-off being a generous amount of body roll around corners and bends. The earlier Swift DZire was known to emit a lot of shrieks and thuds after the car had gotten old - so it will be interesting to see how the new one fares now that the quality of plastics has gone up too.

Conclusion 

With a price-tag starting at Rs 4.79-lakh for the base LXi variant and going all the way up to Rs 7.09-lakh for the top of the line ZDi variant (at the time of writing this review) Maruti Suzuki has passed on the tax benefit to the customer. Every variant of the new DZire is cheaper by almost Rs 15,000 as compared to its respective counterpart in the older DZire line-up. 

So if you think about it, Maruti Suzuki has not only passed on the cost benefit to the customer, they have also given a better feature list to the DZire line-up as compared to the earlier model. With such a competitive pricing, the new DZire will not only ensure more bucket-loads of cash in-flow for the carmaker, it will also means more sleepless nights for its competitors like the Toyota Etios, Mahindra Verito and the Tata Indigo CS – the car that kick started the compact-sedan revolution!