I recently bought a Swift ZXi

I recently bought a Swift ZXi at Trivandrum. The car is good for the money. It comes decently kitted with airbags, ABS, climate control and electric windows all around. The climate control is excellent with a solar sensor and it keeps the interior temperature comfortable automatically at all times. It even cycles between fresh air and recirculate automatically to keep the air quality good.
The paint finish of the car is also very good. Well done Maruti.
The Swift drives well and is easy to drive with good driving position. It handles well too. However, there is no left footrest to keep the left foot on long highway drives. Although this is not so much of a problem due to the high driving position as one can rest the left foot on the floorboard. (I found this a bad problem in my previuos car, a 1998 Zen, which has sporty low driving position, but no left footrest!)
Coming to the all important mileage issue, I got around 10 kpl in the city with climate control on, all the time. Bear in mind that one hardly ever gets past the 3rd gear in the bumper to bumper extremely potholed traffic at Trivandrum. I did take it for a long trip as well, but unfortunately there were road works all the way on my trip, so that didnt help either, I clocked about 12kpl on this trip.
The downsides: A built in stereo and electrically adjustable ORVMs as standard would have been good. The interior plastic quality could have been better. There is also a lac of cubby holes on the dashboard to stick those essential gadgets like mobile phones. The rubber beading around the outside of the windows also looked patched up!
And the service received from dealer wasnt brilliant. The sales executives didnt know anything about the car at all! Maruti really needs to address this isuue. They would be loosing valuable customers otherwise!
Overall, I think it is a good car. I paid 5.5 lakhs on the road for this car in TVM, and for the money it gives good amount of safety and comfort and I believe it is a good buy. No other car around that price range offers what the Swift ZXi offers. (The VDi would have been a good car, had it offered ABS, airbabs and alloy wheels, at least as options).
Well done Maruti, for now, but I am sure the competition is catching up, so keep improving. Remember Maruti, the Indian consumer expects the best now!