Maruti Suzuki Jimny

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Overview

The fourth-generation three-door Jimny is in high demand around the globe and buyers just can’t get enough of this charming, pint-sized SUV, not only for its serious off-road ability but also for its inexpensiveness. For India, however, Maruti followed a different approach and re-engineered the Jimny, since rear doors and more cabin space were deemed necessary to widen its appeal here. Expectedly, the five-door version is more practical and useable than the three-door sold internationally. It also fulfils the company’s export ambitions, because India is the sole producer of the five-door version, which will also be shipped to Latin American, ASEAN and some African markets.

The five-door Maruti Jimny gets a 105hp, 1.5-litre, four-cylinder petrol engine with either a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic transmission, in four-wheel-drive guise only. With prices ranging between Rs 12.74 lakh-14.89 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi), it is at par with the Mahindra Thar 2WD and numerous other monocoque SUVs. Question is, does the Jimny strike a balance between being a hardy, recreational SUV and a comfy, practical family car? We put it through our instrumented tests to get an answer.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Design & Engineering

The Jimny sports a classic off-roader stance with its boxy, slab-sided and squared-edged styling. Several design cues link its ties with earlier generations of the Jimny. For example, its round headlamps with independent indicators are inspired by those in the first-gen, five vertical slats on the grille are similar to the third-gen, and the clamshell bonnet and twin horizontal slits on its side take inspiration from the second-gen. This five-door version doesn’t look unnaturally stretched, and even its thick wheel cladding and vertical C-pillar glass are neatly executed. At the rear, the spare tyre takes pride of place with the horizontally oriented lights positioned low down on the unpainted bumper.

Clockwise from left: Nifty washers clean the lamps well; All-season Highway Terrain (H/T) instead of All Terrain (A/T) tyres; Door handle, keyhole, request sensor execution very old-school; Powered wing mirrors fold in various stages; very handy off-road.

Old-school styling elements are beautifully amalgamated with modern touches, and this, along with its humble dimensions, brings a smile on the faces of on-lookers. The Jimny is a compact SUV as it measures 3,985mm in length (including the tail-mounted spare tyre). However, with the petrol engine breaching the 1.2-litre limit, it does not qualify for the lower tax slab. Compared to the three-door model sold abroad, the stretch is at the wheelbase, which is lengthened by 340mm to enhance rear passenger space, accommodate rear doors and enhance boot space. At 1,645mm, the Jimny is narrower than an average midsize hatchback and with a 1,720mm height, it doesn’t tower over other road users like other imposing SUVs either.

Clockwise from left: Absence of side-step means ingress and egress is not easy; Toggle-type switches are easy to reach; Small rear window opening; Solid front and rear axles ensure impressive axle articulation.

Underpinning the Jimny is a ladder-frame, with 3-link rigid front and rear axles with coil springs, a welcome departure from the Gypsy’s leaf-spring setup. Maruti hasn’t tweaked other aspects of the Jimny compared to the international iteration, so its front and rear track are identical at 1,395mm and 1,405mm, respectively, and even its ground clearance is unchanged at 210mm. Its steering rack is identical, too, but because its wheelbase is much longer than the three-door version, the five-door’s turning radius is huge at 5.7m, as against 4.9m for the three-door. It also features Maruti’s AllGrip Pro, a four-wheel-drive system with a low-range gear (more on that later).

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Interiors

The Jimny’s cabin is quite high above the ground, and in the absence of a side step, ingress and egress isn’t as easy as walking into a similarly priced compact SUV. However, once you’ve climbed inside its cube-like cabin, its upright walls certainly feel special. Like on the outside, there are several design elements in the cabin – such as the exposed faux bolts, fixed grab handle on the passenger side, and the twin pod-like instrument cluster with orange backlighting that are reminiscent of earlier generations of the Jimny. The design is nice, but the quality of plastics in many places isn’t, though it isn’t something Jimny buyers will find a reason to complain about.

Clockwise from left: 4-speed auto can be limited to second or third gear for steep descents/ascents; Backlit analogue dials draw inspiration from the Gypsy’s; Gets a proper 4-wheel-drive low range. Design is a clever mix of retro-cool and utilitarian bits.

The driver gets limited adjustment – the steering doesn’t adjust for reach and the seat can’t be raised or lowered either. But thanks to the dashboard, which is pushed all the way to the front, and the upright glass area, visibility outside is excellent. Seats are comfy, but the soft cushioning isn’t ideal for long drives.

Knee, head room is surprisingly good, but it’s a certified four seater only.

Some might find the rear door aperture a bit small, and the door sill high. The seat itself is spacious enough for two average-sized adults. But adults will brush their elbows with each other because of the car’s narrow width. To note, there are only seat belts for two at the rear and the Jimny is thus certified as a four-seater. Annoyingly, the company hasn’t included load sensors in the rear seat, so the rear seat-belt alarm will trigger for around 90 seconds, irrespective of whether the back seat is occupied or not. To circumvent this, you must keep the rear seat belts buckled in at all times.

Lacks driver’s seat height adjustment. Cushioning is soft on all seats.

Storage areas are limited: the glove box is small, there are only two cupholders for the entire cabin, and the door bins can’t hold anything more than a couple of magazines.

Thankfully, there is a slot to stow your smartphone in front of the gear lever, and the front seatback pockets are quite handy for knick-knacks. Impressively, with the rear seats in place, there’s room for a couple of medium-sized suitcases. To accommodate even more cargo, the backseat can be folded down in a 50:50 ratio.

Boxy boot makes it more accommodating than 219L number suggests.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Equipment and safety

Maruti has loaded the Jimny with safety kit like six airbags, ABS with EBD, ESP, brake locking differential, hill-start assist, hill-descent control and a reversing camera, among the notable features. In addition, it gets auto LED headlamps with headlamp washers, fog lamps, 15-inch alloys, keyless entry and go, electrically folding mirrors, a 9-inch touchscreen with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, automatic climate control and cruise control.

Reversing camera display has an amber marking for drivers to judge tailgate-mounted spare tyre.

Infotainment

The 9-inch SmartPlay Pro+ touchscreen is familiar as it does duty in several new-age Maruti offerings. The touch sensitivity is good, it responds quickly and the interface is very easy to navigate. There’s also a row of shortcut keys below to access menus, and some key functions on the move. Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay further enhance user experience. Sound output from its four speakers is tuned by Arkamys, however, sound quality can be described as average at best. Techy buyers will miss some off-road-specific meters such as the inclinometer, compass etc, like those in the Mahindra Thar.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Performance

Like in the 3-door version that’s sold internationally, Maruti has deployed the 105hp, K15B four-cylinder petrol engine in the 5-door version. This engine performed duties in multiple Maruti models until it was replaced with a newer, more efficient K15C petrol engine. But for the Jimny, it was only viable to have a common powertrain between the 3-door and 5-door versions not only to simplify production processes, but to also help the company achieve economies of scale. Additionally, since the powertrain is longitudinally mounted (north-south layout) in the Jimny, fitting another unit would require significant re-engineering, and the company says the benefits would only be incremental.

The K15B is a peppy engine, with impressive bottom-end grunt, which makes the Jimny get off the line rather eagerly. For urban use and off-road applications, it feels more than adequate to haul its 1,200kg weight around. But demand more out of this naturally aspirated unit, and things go downhill rather quickly. As with any naturally aspirated unit, the flow of power in the mid-range feels unhurried, and to make quick progress or even for a simple overtake, you’ll have to wring its neck to extract every last bit of performance it has to offer.

Ride lacks finesse of monocoques, but very good by ladder-frame standards.

A look at the numbers tells you the exact picture – it accelerates from 0-100kph in 14.59 and 17.47 seconds in its manual and automatic iterations, respectively. And even though the 5-speed manual is the quicker of the two, it isn’t our pick of the range. Shifts are firm and warrant significant effort from the driver to shove it into gates, and it takes away the joy of rowing through a manual. So even though the 4-speed automatic (torque converter) comes at the cost of outright performance, it does the job far more effortlessly with smooth shifts and a sorted shift logic. What’s nice is that the 4-speeder gives owners the option of ‘L’ mode where it remains in the lowest possible gear; ‘2’ where it accelerates up to second gear only; as well as ‘o/d off’ where the car accelerates up to the third gear but doesn’t upshift to fourth, which is its overdrive gear. These modes give you better control during steep ascents and descents. With the automatic, however, owners will have to contend with the prominent drivetrain whine each time they rev out this engine.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Fuel economy

Even though fuel efficiency isn’t this off-roader’s core competency, Maruti claims an overall fuel efficiency of 16.94kpl for the manual and 16.39kpl for the automatic. In our tests though, the Maruti Jimny manual managed to do 10.86kpl in the city and 14.74kpl on the highway, whereas the automatic wasn’t too far behind, with figures of 10.04kpl in the city and 13.56kpl on the highway.

Despite the stretch, the 5-door Jimny is still a sub-4 metre SUV.

Both versions get an auto stop/start feature, which helps conserve fuel while idling by seamlessly shutting off the engine as soon as you come to a complete stop, and restarting it when you lift off the brake pedal (AT), or when you depress the clutch pedal (MT). Another point to note is that while cruising at 100kph in top gear, the engine is spinning at a rather high 3,000rpm in the AT and 3,200rpm in the MT, which not only impacts fuel efficiency, but also makes the engine sound quite vocal at cruising speeds.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Ride & handling

The Jimny’s ladder-frame construction gives it serious off-road prowess, and when you judge it in the light of its natural rival – Mahindra Thar – the Jimny’s suspension impresses with its pliancy, its bump absorption capability and its road-holding manners. Equally admirable is its robust construction, which feels like it can take a repeated beating and it remains unfazed over the toughest of terrains. You wouldn’t think twice before taking  it off-the-beaten track, or attacking pothole-stricken roads without slowing down.

Compare its ride to monocoque compact SUVs, and the Jimny’s feels a bit unsophisticated, with some rocking movements over less-than-perfect roads. On account of its boxy, slab-sided design, crosswinds also tend to hamper its highway manners; each time a larger vehicle passes by, you’d experience a gush of wind, which could unsettle the car. And when pushing the car around a series of bends, it rolls a fair bit and understeers due to its skinny front-end; enthusiastic drivers will be left yearning for tighter body control. What also dampens the drive experience is steering, which needs a fair bit of input to persuade it to change direction. On the highway, it has a slack in the dead-centre position where it feels a touch lifeless. And it isn’t user-friendly in urban conditions either. Uniquely, it uses a recirculating ball-type electric power steering, which also happens to be tuned for off-roading rather than road use. As a result, it is slow geared and requires four turns lock-to-lock, has a huge turning radius, and what further dampens the experience is that it is heavy to twirl around too.

This off-roader could also serve as your daily driver.

In off-road applications, however, the slow-geared steering shows merit, and Maruti has also added additional steering dampers, so it doesn’t kickback aggressively like many other off-roaders. The Jimny gets Suzuki’s AllGrip Pro four-wheel-drive system, and unlike the Grand Vitara’s AllGrip Select  system, it doesn’t get selectable drive modes (Auto, Snow, Sand and Lock) but gets a manual lever to choose between 2H (2WD) and 4H (4WD). It also gets 4L or 4-low range gear, which is handy to conquer challenging terrain. Combine that with solid front and rear axles, its mere 1,200kg kerb weight and electric wizardries like hill-start assist, hill-descent control, ESP and electronic brake locking differential (front and rear), the Jimny has a mountain goat-like ability to trundle through the rough. What’s equally commendable is that it hauled itself up rock-covered steep inclines, waded through water, leaned at unimaginable angles and pulled itself out of sticky situations, without batting an eyelid. This, while driving on stock highway all-season (mud+snow) tyres, which seem more than capable at their job.

Maruti Suzuki Jimny Verdict

The tough-little Jimny is an unabashed off-roader first, so it is more than capable of tackling challenging terrains without flinching. You also get oodles of charm as standard equipment. So when it comes to fitness for purpose, the Jimny proves its mettle. Sure, it has its share of weaknesses, the biggest being its powertrain, which, though adequate for commuting and off-road applications, is noticeably lacklustre on highways, especially while overtaking. Then, it isn’t as easy to drive on account of its heavy steering, unusually large turning radius, a clunky manual gearbox and a heavy clutch. However, despite being an outright off-roader, it has a practical side too: four doors, four seats, reasonable boot space and modern creature comforts. So, if you want a practical yet no-nonsense SUV for adventures like dune-bashing, mud-plugging or traversing treacherous hilly regions, your search ends here.