India’s Suzuki Dzire has ASEAN ambitions and a 5-star safety rating.
Most Malaysians may not have heard of the Suzuki Dzire, but this has been a rather popular compact sedan in India, a bit like our Perodua Bezza in terms of size and market positioning. To put it in perspective, they’ve sold 2.7 million units of the Dzire in India since 2008. Now Suzuki’s Indian subsidiary, Maruti Suzuki, is preparing for the launch of a new generation Suzuki Dzire and the key selling point seems to be safety.
This is apparent to us as they company submitted not just their all-new Dzire, but also their outgoing model to Global NCAP for crash testing around the same time. The result is that we have a direct comparison between the outgoing model and the new one to see just how far improved this model is. Here are both videos:
As you can see, the Dzire goes from being a 2-star car to a 5 star car in one generation thanks in no small part to the introduction of ESP and 6 airbags as standard. It’s a really ingenious strategy that simultaneously gets existing owners ‘itchy’ for an upgrade and gives potential customers the confidence to get the new car.
What’s also interesting is that Maruti Suzuki are interested in marketing this new Dzire in ASEAN, which means Naza Eastern Motors may be importing this to serve as an upgrade path for existing Perodua Bezza owners who like the small size and low running costs but want something with better equipment with solid safety results.
That being said, the powertrain option here may not be suited to our market’s expectations.
There’s a 5-speed manual, which is still a popular option in India, but also a 5-speed automated manual which serves as the ‘automatic’ option. This automated manual, known as “Auto Gear Shift” or AGS, has been in Suzuki vehicles since 2014 and uses a shift control actuator operated by the transmission ECU for automatic clutch operation and gear shifts. We have not experienced it ourselves, but chances are it will not be as smooth a shifter as the typical autoboxes we’re used to here.
Another issue is the 3-cylinder Z-Series 1.2L naturally-aspirated engine, which is not an upgrade over the Perodua Bezza’s 1.3L 4-cylinder.
Dimensions are as follows: Overall length 3,995mm x Overall width 1,735mm x Overall height 1,525mm
