While Maruti Suzuki has distanced itself from diesel powertrains altogether, its total yearly sales in 2019 shows that Indian buyers will surely miss diesel Maruti Suzuki cars to some extent. Cars with petrol powertrains continued to have a much higher sale than diesel cars overall, but some diesel cars performed almost as good as their petrol counterparts.
One such car is the Dzire, 1,98,904 units of which were sold in 2019. Out of those, 82,498 were diesel, while the rest 1,16,406 were powered by a petrol motor. This shows that the diesel engine was preferred by 41% of Dzire buyers, which means that a good percentage of the people looking for a diesel sub-4m sedan, will have to look elsewhere once the BS6 emission norms come into effect.
Maruti Suzuki recently launched a mid-life facelift for the Dzire, and the car now comes with a new BS6-compliant 1.2-litre DualJet petrol engine that puts out 90 PS of maximum power along with 113 Nm of peak torque, and can be had with either a 5-speed manual or an optional automatic gearbox. The BS4 1.3-litre DDiS engine that made 74 PS power and 190 Nm torque, has now been phased out.
With almost 2 lakh units sold in 2019, the Dzire became the highest-selling sub-4m sedan last year, outselling the Honda Amaze, Hyundai Xcent, Volkswagen Ameo, Tata Tigor and the Ford Aspire as well. 62% of sub-compact sedan buyers bought the Dzire last year, but we expect the number to slightly dip this year because of the unavailability of a diesel powertrain.
Talking about the 2020 Dzire facelift, the car comes equipped with features like a 4.2-inch TFT multi-information display for the instrument cluster, a 7.0-inch Smartplay touchscreen infotainment system with smartphone connectivity, cruise control, LED projector headlamps, rear AC vents, automatic climate control, push-button start/stop and more. Maruti Suzuki retails the Dzire facelift at a starting price of Rs 5.89 lakh, which goes up to Rs 8.81 lakh (both prices, ex-showroom).
This website uses cookies.
