Maruti Ciaz with company’s brand value and latest gadgets onboard, has the much needed potential to dethrone Honda City. (CarDekho)
India’s largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki introduced its C-segment offering Ciaz in October and it found success after years of failure in trying to force its way into the market place where ‘big boys’ played. Ciaz, as per the numbers, is doing great and is churning a healthy profit for the company unlike its earlier offerings Baleno and SX4.
The sales figures are beating every player in this segment like Hyundai Verna, VW Vento and Honda City to some extent. Out of these cars, Ciaz’s competition with Honda City is very vital in setting a benchmark of quality, comfort and performance.
Honda City has been a segment leader since the very beginning and also due to the fact that the quality and the petrol motor is among the best it offers in the segment. Let’s see how Maruti Ciaz stacks up against Honda City.
Exteriors
The outsides of both the cars are designed keeping different concepts in mind. Maruti Suzuki designed Ciaz with simple lines that lends it a massive feel. On the other hand, Honda City is based on the carmaker’s latest H-design language that makes City look leaner and more aggressive. Ciaz gets subtle shoulder lines running along the length of the body and a front with majestic grill that gets chrome plated horizontal slats. On the Honda’s end, City gets sharp cues with a radical design approach that gives it a sporty image. After all, it has evolved through several designs to reach the present stage.
Interiors:
On the inside, Honda certainly gets an edge in both quality and styling. The dashboard and other interior paneling are carved with Honda’s latest design scheme. Speaking of the upholstery, both Ciaz and City gets good fabric cloth to wrap seats while both gets leather upholstery for the top-of-the-line trims. The Ciaz also gets a large 7-inch infotainment screen with built-in Sat-Nav and is certainly larger than City’s 5-inch screen. For the rear seat comfort, Ciaz is equipped with rear A/C vents while these are absent in City.
Dimensions
Now, Ciaz is straightaway longer and wider than City. Ciaz is 4490mm long, 1730mm wide and 1485mm tall while City is 4400mm long, 1695mm wide and 1495mm tall. These large dimensions lend the insides of the Ciaz generous amount of legroom and headroom, certainly more than Honda City.
Powering Mills
Under the hood, Honda gets the ever popular 1.5 litre i-VTEC petrol engine that is proven and also by far the best petrol motor in C-segment. It is a performance oriented mill that puts out a tremendous 117.3 out-horse-powering Ciaz’s 90.7bhp. While the 1.5 Earth-Dream i-DTEC diesel of Honda City belts out 10 horses more than Ciaz’s 88.5bhp. On the mileage front, Ciaz delivers slightly better than Honda City. The 1.3 DDiS diesel engine from Maruti Suzuki gives a segment best fuel economy of 26.3kmpl better than Honda’s 26kmpl. May be this could be another reason why a good number of people are opting for Ciaz and yes, they should because it’s a good product.
Price:
Ciaz was launched with an initial price tag of INR 6.99 lacs for the base petrol variant while the base variant of Honda City stands at INR 7.19 lacs, a bit more. Though this is not a big difference when considering that Honda offers ABS/EBD and driver side airbag as standard features which are absent in Ciaz. On the bright side, the top variant ZDi is priced at 9.80 lacs that is around 1.20 lacs cheaper than City’s top variant XVMT that costs 11.05 lacs. (All prices Ex-showroom Delhi)
Lastly, looking at the sales of these two cars, Honda City is back on its throne after lagging for a while. In the month of October, Maruti retailed 6,345 units of Ciaz compared to 5,120 units of Honda City while in November, the latter bounced back with 7,251 units compared to Ciaz’s 5232 units. So, currently Honda leads the race but its been just a two months of time, Maruti Ciaz with company’s brand value and latest gadgets onboard, has the much needed potential to dethrone Honda City.
