A first for Maruti Suzuki, the new Dzire compact sedan has scored 5 stars in the GNCAP crash tests. This was a voluntary test and do note that GNCAP tests are more stringent than the BNCAP tests. The car has scored five stars in adult occupant safety and four stars in child occupant safety. In terms of the scores, the new Dzire has 31.24 points out of 34 which is impressive for adult occupant safety and the child occupant safety is 39.2 out of 42.

A big reason for that is the fact that the new Dzire now has ESC and pedestrian protection as standard. The new Dzire was submitted by Maruti for voluntary testing. According to the test, the structure and footwell area were stable and can withstand further loadings. Of course, three point seat belts are there for all seating positions. The tests included a pole test which showed full head protection and even the side impact test showed full protection. Compared to the new Dzire, the old Dzire scored two stars for adult occupant safety and two stars for child occupant safety.

The earlier Dzire has two frontal airbags as standard when compared to 6 in the new one and that means that the old Dzire had an unstable structure as well as a footwell. An India spec model was used and this is indeed a massive improvement along with removing the safety concerns if there were with earlier Maruti Suzuki cars. The new Dzire will go on sale next week and is based on the 5th generation Heartect platform while getting a new 3 cylinder petrol 1.2 petrol engine.