The Suzuki Ciaz is a long car. It looks ever more so when viewed from the side. In fact I find the side profile of the car the best angle to view it. You can easily mistake it for a luxury sedan from a fancy german maker. The most disappointing view, I feel, is from the rear. And the main culprits for those are the tail lamps. Just a small change to the the design of the tail lamps can make a world of difference to how it looks from the back. I know what changes are required but will need a graphic designer to show you what I mean. Perhaps I will include that in a future edit of this post.
(Update: The new facelift Ciaz 2018 has done exactly what I had in mind for the rear tail lamps. They look stunning now.)
The front looks low and mean. It's a nice looking car from the front as well. The front of the car is low and seems to scrape the ground easily. Coming down or going up a short slope that inclines even a little sharply will have you scraping the front of the bumper. It's happened to me several times even on occasions like driving out from someone's gate on to the road. You now how houses are often build higher than the road level and have a short incline before the gate leading to the driveway? That's where the front of the Suzuki Ciaz scrapes the road.
This is one aspect of the car that make me feel a lot less confident about it. I am unsure at this point of what its ground clearance of 165mm entails. I had the same ground clearance in the Suzuki SWIFT and hardly ever scraped the bumper or the bottom. But then the Suzuki Ciaz has a longer wheel base and a softer suspension. So bumps and undulations seem to be a problem simply because of the poor road features we have to navigate even in our cites. In fact, the car really feels like it is nose diving whenever there is a slightly prominent dip in the road. I am still not used to the feeling.
The headlamp leave a lot to be desired when it comes to illumination. They are just not bright enough. I have seen brighter head lamps on smaller hatch backs. They are also incompetent during cornering. They do not shed any illumination sideways.
Speaking of cornering, this car has major blind spots. I thought the Swift was bad. This is worse. Anyone driving this car, please make it a habit of always moving your head forward and backwards while approaching turns and crossroads.
The car doors need to be closed harder for them to shut properly. This is something to do with the air pressure inside the cabin. If you leave a window open a bit, they shut easily enough. I don’t understand why this should be the case.
The build quality seems good enough. The bonnet of the car is ‘heavy’, much heavier than the Swift I owned as well as many other cars.
The allow wheels of the Zeta look goor although the one on the Alpha model really great. However, the wheels on the Zeta are 15” as opposed to 16” on the Alpha. Smaller wheels means more tire profile and a better ride quality.
The bumpers are pretty solid in their assembly. They seems to be pedestrian friendly and made soft. A biker went into the rear bumper sometime back. He was riding too close (as they mostly do) and had trouble braking in time (as they mostly do). I don’t think it was a hard collision but the bumper went in nice and proper. I took it to the service station the next day. The service guy when down under the car, gave it a couple of pushes from inside and it popped right back out. Since it was the tire that had hit there were no scratches on it. I was quiet amazed. I never though it would come out that perfectly and easily.
So all in all, quiet a good looking car. The new facelift looks even better. I still think it looks great standing in the garage or when it stands gleaming and wet after a rain. It is a pleasure to get into it.
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