Maruti Ciaz back on top, Outsells Honda City & Hyundai Verna

The Maruti Suzuki Ciaz C-Segment sedan, which got a facelift recently is back on top as India’s best selling C-  Segment sedan. Maruti sold 3,672 units of the Ciaz in March 2019 while Honda managed to sell 3,432 units of the City and Hyundai sold 3,201 units of the Verna in the same month. All three cars have registered a steep decline in year-on-year sales though, which is reflective of the overall drop in car sales in the Indian market. While sales of the  Maruti Ciaz – despite the facelift that offers many more features and a more powerful engine – have fallen by 15 %  from March 2018, the Honda City and Hyundai Verna show steeper declines, with 27 % and 23 % sales drops.

The Maruti Suzuki Ciaz has recently received a new turbocharged diesel engine, developed in-house by Suzuki. This 1.5 liter-4 cylinder diesel adds power and torque to the car and mileage has dropped marginally. The motor makes 94 Bhp-225 Nm, a step up from the 1.3 liter turbo diesel’s 89 Bhp-200 Nm outputs. The new engine also gets a 6 speed manual gearbox and a slew of other features to improve refinement levels. It will be Bharat Stage 6 emission norms compliant come April 2020, and will replace the Fiat Multijet diesel motor. Bookings for the Ciaz with the 1.5 liter diesel engine are already on, and deliveries will begin shortly. Notably, there’s no mild hybrid on offer with the new diesel engine.

The other engine options on the Ciaz include a 1.5 liter K-Series petrol mild hybrid motor with 104 Bhp-138 Nm  outputs, and the 1.3 liter Fiat Multijet turbocharged diesel mild hybrid motor with 89 Bhp-200 Nm outputs. Both  engines get a 5 speed manual gearbox as standard while the petrol model is also offered with a 4 speed torque  converter automatic option. The Ciaz offers twin airbags, reverse parking sensors, ABS+EBD, ISOFIX child seat  mounting points, speed alerts and seat belt reminder as standard safety features across the line-up. Higher variants  get a reverse parking camera as well. Prices of the car start from Rs. 8.2 lakhs, and this makes the Ciaz one of the  better value-for-money models available in the C-Segment sedan. The sharp price tag is also a big reason for the Ciaz selling so well.

Coming to the other cars in the segment, the Skoda Rapid brings up the fourth place in terms of sales with 729 units  clocked in March 2019. This is a 20 % drop from March 2018. The Volkswagen Vento brings up fifth place with 448 units sold – a whopping 40 % drop from March 2018. The Toyota Yaris is in 6th place with 339 units, and the Nissan Sunny and Fiat Linea bring up the rear of the segment with 63 units and 5 units respectively. Clearly, the Sunny and Linea are finding no takers in the market, and the latter has already been discontinued what with Fiat about to shut  operations. The Sunny is also on its way out now that an all-new model is all set to make its global debut. It’s  unclear if Nissan plans to bring in the new Sunny to the Indian market.