“A year and a half ago, that’s when you last visited.” That’s my dentist chuckling away as she prepares the grinders and assorted medieval torture chamber tools. But she has a point. We only go to the dentist when something dreadful like a chipped tooth lands us horizontal in the chair staring at the bright light and on the receiving end of wonderful news. Two root canals! If only we went in for regular and scheduled tooth maintenance, like we do for our cars.
Anyways, how does this connect with the Wagon R? My dentist is kind enough to arrange for parking for me in the building, but the parking spot is a severe test of reversing skills. The cars I use daily just won’t fit and so I’ve been borrowing Vishal’s Wagon R for my dentist appointments and first impressions — it’s a very nice city car.
The other day I was following Vishal on our way back from the office and the thing that strikes you is the car is as tall as the Tiguan I am driving. The Tiguan is a proper SUV. The Maruti Suzuki Wagon R is a hatchback. And yet it does not get dwarfed by the SUV! My god the Wagon R has grown! The upside is that you walk in and out of the car. The H-point is very high and for the older folk this is brilliant, delivering fantastic ease of ingress and egress. It also delivers great visibility making it really easy to drive in the city and squeeze through gaps in traffic. And it has got a phenomenal amount of space. For its footprint the space is just, wow!
Our car has the AMT which is again great in terms of convenience, especially with the traffic becoming a hundred times worse with the rains. That said this isn’t a very smooth AMT and you regularly get jerks and jolts if you don’t drive it smartly, lifting off just before an upshift to smooth off the shift shock. That’s something I can adapt to. What I cannot is the steering that is amazingly lifeless and doesn’t even self-centre. Considering this is the same platform as the Swift I wonder why the Wagon R’s is so terrible, and that banishes any thoughts you may have had of taking it out on the highway.
In the city though you forget about the steering after a while, especially when it wows you over bad roads. The ride quality is also exceptionally good for a hatchback. And most of all when you’re a little woozy from all the anaesthesia, not to mention embarrassed from crying like a baby in the dentist’s chair, the Wagon R is the easiest, most relaxed, most effortless car to take you to the deli for an ice cream.