Maruti Suzuki Baleno 2016-2021

The interior of the Maruti Suzuki Baleno impresses with its practicality and clean look. The dashboard is made up of hard but fairly high quality of plastic and has a curvaceous form factor that compliments the exterior. The highlight here is the SmartPlay Studio touchscreen infotainment unit that supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Other features that this car offers includes automatic climate control, multi-function steering-wheel, coloured TFT Multi-Information Display, rear parking sensors with camera, rain sensing wipers and automatic headlamps. Sadly, however, there’s no connected car technology as seen on the Hyundai i20. While it would be wrong to say that the cabin of Maruti’s top-seller feels spartan, it’s certainly not as feature-rich as some of its more modern rivals.

On the flip side, where the Baleno clearly excels is the space on offer. There’s ample legroom, shoulder-room and headroom in both rows and in spite of the dark colour theme, one never feels claustrophobic. The front seats are extremely supportive and it doesn’t take much to set the driver’s seat to the best-suited position, especially because of the availability of reach and rake adjustment for the steering wheel. The door pads can hold a 1-litre bottle each and there’s decent storage space below the front armrest. Even the storage space below the aircon controls is quite large and can hold a wallet, a phone, a set of keys and even some more!

The second row is quite spacious and can easily seat two full-grown adults and a kit. You even get adjustable headrests but there is centre arm-rest even on the top-spec Alpha trim. Also, there are no AC vents at the rear but that’s something which can be overlooked as the Baleno comes with a powerful aircon that can quickly cool the cabin even on the hottest of the days. This car even gets a pretty large boot that can hold the luggage of a small family for a quick weekend getaway.

While the Maruti Suzuki Baleno was originally introduced with 1.2-litre K-series petrol and Fiat-sourced 1.3-litre turbo-diesel engine options. However, with the advent of the BS6 emission norms, the Baleno is being sold as a petrol-only model that’s available with two 1.2-litre petrol engine options. The less powerful of these is the K12 motor that outputs 84 PS-115 Nm. It comes mated with a 5-speed manual transmission as standard while a CVT is optional.

It’s a fairly refined unit that delivers strong performance and a high fuel efficiency. One can easily achieve 15 kmpl in city and up to 21 kmpl on expressways, while the good spread of torque makes overtaking fast-moving traffic a breeze. The manual transmission is slightly notchy but the clutch action is very light. The CVT behaves as expected with a rather pronounced rubber-band effect but jerk-free performance. The NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) control should have been a bit tighter.

The other engine on offer is a 1.2-litre DualJet Smart Hybrid engine that produces a maximum power of 89.7 PS and a peak torque of 113 Nm. A 5-speed manual unit is the only transmission it’s offered with. Compared to the less powerful motor, the Dualjet-equipped engine feels a tad smoother and even slightly punchier. Moreover, the micro-hybrid technology helps you with a marginally higher fuel efficiency in spite of the extra horses.

The suspension of the Baleno has been tuned to handle rough roads quite well. It can even gobble up most of the potholes and small seed humps you’ll throw at it. In fact, the ride quality remains quite good irrespective of what seat you’ve occupied but the softness in the suspension has resulted in pretty mediocre cornering prowess. There’s some body-roll when changing directions really fast and while the grip levels from the factory-spec tires is adequate, the steering comes across as a huge let down.

Not only is it totally devoid of weight, it’s also a bit vague towards its dead centre. True, the lightness of the steering helps you easily manoeuvre through tight spaces but things don’t look too boring when you have to take corners at high speeds. While the car feels planted till, say 120-130 kmph, the car starts feeling less stable beyond that. For most driving conditions, however, the suspension setup will impress with the comfortable ride and predictable handling. That said, you would miss the low-slung feel and the well-weighed steering of the Baleno sedan that was on sale till 2007.

The Maruti Suzuki Baleno has often received a lot of flak for poor ‘build quality’, which has been perceived through visuals of the various crashes this car has been involved with. While the India-spec Baleno hasn’t been tested by Global NCAP, the made-in-India export version bagged a 3-star rating in the stricter Euro NCAP tests (4-star with radar-based automatic emergency braking).

Standard safety equipment across the trim range of the Maruti Suzuki Baleno includes dual front airbags, ABS with EBD, rear parking sensors, front seat belt reminder alarm and ISOFIX child seat anchorage. The higher variants even offer a rear parking camera, fog lamps and auto-dimming inside rear view mirror.