In its third generation now, the Maruti WagonR has been among the most popular cars in the market. The tallboy offers not one but two frugal-yet-peppy petrol engine options, easy maintenance and a practical cabin. The latest iteration of the age-old Hyundai Santro rival is built on the lightweight HEARTECT platform, which it shares with other Maruti Suzuki models like Baleno, Swift and Ignis. What it also shares with its costlier siblings is the reputation for having a ‘light build’ that has often displeased many owners. Today, we have some visuals of a WagonR that has allegedly been blown away by wind somewhere in Rajasthan!
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The Maruti WagonR tips the scale at 830 kg (kerb weight), which makes it even lighter than the Maruti Baleno (kerb weight- 910 kg). As can be seen in the visuals we have above, an entry-level Maruti WagonR with a completely destroyed LHD is parked at the side of the road. In another image, what seems to be the same car is toppled over. A post by one Naman Malik on an unofficial Facebook group by Maruti WagonR owners reads – “yesterday here was an windy situation about 30-40 km/h was the speed of wind. The WagonR is toppled in the wind this shows the pathetic build quality y Maruti Suzuki this is unacceptable, just for some profit they play with the lives of people.”
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As we said, we’re yet to verify the sequence of events but what’s undeniable is the light weight of the Maruti WagonR and even the fact that cars flying away of toppling over in high winds isn’t something that is totally uncommon. Also, due to the light weight, the WagonR is also susceptible to get caught in wind blasts from bigger vehicles on the highways. The light weight of the tallboy has repeatedly been questioned by many. However, what’s important to note here is that the safety a car offers can’t be judged by its weight alone. Also, without actually properly measuring the wind speed, it won’t be right on our part to question the safety of this car under high wind speeds. For all we know, the wind speeds in this case might have been a lot more than 30-40 km/h. In fact, tropical storms (with wind speeds of at least 63 km/h) have been known to be strong enough to topple over much heavier vehicles.
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Several Maruti Suzuki cars have come under the scanner of car buyers for the mediocre safety standards they offer. Compared to many of the rivalling, especially from Tata Motors, Maruti cars often end up with fairly lower ratings from Global NCAP. The Maruti WagonR, for instance, has been managed to score just a 2-star rating for adult and child occupant safety from Global NCAP. In comparison, arch-rival Tata Tiago has bagged a 4-star adult occupant safety rating and a three-star child safety rating.
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