2009-2010 Suzuki SX4

Oh dear...its been a very long time since I've updated. Its not going to get better as I'll be away for much of May. So...I'll try to get out a lot of reviews when I can. Starting with the Suzuki SX4.


Introduction: The Suzuki SX4 is a rare type of car in that it was co-developed by two companies that don't have a internal relationship like say Mazda and Ford working together on a car or Renault and Nissan or even GM and Toyota(The Geos, the Pontiac Vibe). The SX4 is developed by both Suzuki and Fiat, two companies that don't own shares of each other and never had a prior relationship. The SX4 was initially developed for Europe to be mostly sold by Suzuki and a few from Fiat. Eventually it was sold in several places including North America.

I didn't have very high expectations for the SX4 but this was mostly due to the disappointing GM Daewoo products Suzuki offered with their own badge. I did have higher hopes realizing the SX4 had nothing to do with GM Daewoo and thus is one of Suzuki's more authentic product. The fact it also offered AWD is another item that got my interest.


Performance: The Suzuki SX4 sold in North America comes with a 2.0L 4-cylinder engine. This engine produces 143 hp and 137 lb.ft of torque or the earlier engine while the 2010 engine products 150 hp and 150 lb.ft of torque. This engine is mated to a 5-speed manual or a 4-speed automatic if you purchased the earlier 2007-2009 cars. In the 2010 and newer models this is mated to a 6-speed manual or a CVT transmission. Depending on the transmission your acceleration will be affected. With the manuals the SX4 goes from 0-100 km/h in about 8.5 seconds, the automatic and CVTs do it in roughly 10-10.5 seconds. Its slower if you go with the AWD pushing its acceleration to 11 seconds with the CVT. If you don't drive the manual then the SX4 is slow. The engine is a bit buzzy at the higher rpm range so its not that quiet either. Yet somehow I still kind of like the engine. It seems to feel adequate...despite being the contrary. With fuel economy the SX4 isn't the best but its only thirsty if you have the AWD.

My Score: 5/10 - Its not quick unless you have a manual, a bit buzzy yet still seems alright.

Handling: The SX4 is one of the more different cars in the segment where it places height as a priority for interior space. This gives it a strange feeling that you get on cars with higher centers of gravity like minivans, crossovers and SUVs. When you take a corner aggressively you start to feel that the SX4 might tip over. Yet despite this top heaviness the cornering ability is actually quite good. Steering feel is actually very good, its light enough yet it produces enough feel to allow yourself to enjoy tackling corners. Its actually a fun car to drive and ride comfort actually seems pretty good.

My Score: 9/10 - Very good aside from the higher center of gravity making it feel like it will roll over.



Interior: The older interior of the Suzuki SX4 is rather conventional and a bit simple. The automatic transmission is a gated one while the CVT seems like the conventional linear automatic. Yet it doesn't quite have the aura of cheapness you get from Chrysler or lately Toyota. It even has some aluminum around the center console, its not much but its better than ugly tin foil plastic. The original gauges are rather simple and conventional. The 2010 model has a brighter and slightly more high tech dash with a small square clearer displays than the older model. As I mentioned in the handling the head room of the SX4 is extremely generous, its definitely the best car when headroom is a primary concern. The sedan version is larger than the hatch and one of the few times where in most cases the sedan is more practical. The hatch SX4 is rather small and would easily fit in the subcompact segment. The build quality of the SX4 is mostly pretty good, its rare that loose trim is an issue. The SX4 for the North American market are made in Kosai, Japan.

My Score: 7/10 - Excellent headroom, reasonable materials, good build quality but some space issues.

Styling: The SX4 is styled by Italdesign Guigiaro studio and in the hatchback form I think it actually looks quite good. A bit quirky yet it seems to work all around. The sedan I don't think works nearly as well due to the high roof line. From the side profile it looks a bit odd due to how tall it is proportionally. Its sort of memorable but for an Italdesign car...its not that impressive and a bit bland in their portfolio.

My Score: 7/10 - Hatch looks good, sedan is a bit too tall, overall its a bit too bland considering its Italian design credentials.

Value for money: The SX4 is a car that sits between the subcompact and the compact segment. If you have a major concern about headroom but want a small car, the SX4 is easily the best in both segments. The availability of AWD makes it a good choice between the terrible Caliber and the more expensive Matrix and Impreza. In the fun to drive part, it has much tougher competition against Mazda and Mitsubishi, fortunately its very competent here. As an overall package it depends what you prioritize, as a Suzuki its resale value is not nearly as good as other Japanese makes. With AWD its not a fuel saving vehicle compared to others but if you like the other parts its good at, then its a great car.

My Score: 7/10 - Depends what you prioritize, its a good car in most levels but has its flaws.

Overall: 35/50 - A pretty good Suzuki, not perfect but here's hoping the Kizashi is even better.

2007-2008 Suzuki Swift+

Sometimes you can tell how good or bad a car is just from the way it looks. Here's one that shouldn't be that difficult to guess.


Introduction: This car started out in 2004 and is known in South Korea as the Daewoo Kalos. GM decided it wanted this car and placed a Chevrolet badge for the international market and a Pontiac badge for the American market. For the Canadian market, GM still had control over Suzuki and decided to bring this along and put a Suzuki badge as well while bringing the other two rebadges. This resulted in the Chevrolet Aveo, the Pontaic G3 Wave and the Suzuki Swift+. All three of these cars are practically identical, only the grille had the biggest change aside from the badges. This would be GM's answer to the Toyota Echo, the Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio.

Now when I first got news that I was going to have to drive this car, I didn't really know what it was. I never knew Suzuki actually had this car as a rebadge or even knew of its existence. I knew about the Aveo, but not the G3 Wave or this. I do remember the old Suzuki Swift that had the 3-cylinder, this seemed nothing like that. Most of these are sold as hatchbacks and this is what this review will focus on.


Performance: The Swift+ featured a 1.6L 4-cylinder engine for the North American market. This engine produced 103 hp and 107 lb.ft of torque making it the lowest hp producing engine since the demise of the Golf Mk IV with its 1.6L. The acceleration this engine can manage for this car is going from 0-100 km/h in 10.8 seconds. Not the worst accelerating car I've driven. As for the engine its not a very good one, its very noisy and irritating. You can tell Daewoo was new to making cars due to how rough this engine puts out power with the noise and the fact you can feel the vibrations in the interior. The worst thing about this engine however is its not even efficient, the Chevrolet Cobalt with its bigger 2.2L engine manages slightly less fuel economy in the city but beats this Daewoo on the highway. What is GM thinking? What was Suzuki thinking? The old Swift at least was very fuel efficient, this Daewoo is inefficient yet still nowhere near exciting.

My Score: 2/10 - Unrefined, noisy and not fuel efficient...what good is it?

Handling: This is usually where small cars manage to get back some points if they failed on performance. This Daewoo...doesn't really get there sadly. The steering wheel is not as light as it is on a Toyota or Chrysler but crucially it doesn't produce a natural feel to the steering...it feels artificial and doesn't produce confidence when you try and corner for a small thrill. The body roll is very poor and with its very small wheels its less agile than its competitors.

My Score: 3/10 - They tried but failed, puny tires and the articificially inserted feel do not make this car any fun


Interior: This is where you start seeing why Daewoo failed in North America in the first place. Inside its just all black aside from some tin foil plastic which is as always pretty nasty to look at. The cup holder is very flimsy and very cheaply made, the door handles are also made of this flimsy cheap plastic, the seats use budget proportioned cloth and so on. I mentioned in the performance section that the engine's vibrations can be felt inside, the steering wheel is often the piece that shakes as the car idles, showing how cheaply designed the engine is and how cheaply trimmed this interior is. Due to how black and unattractive the plastic is...its actually a pretty depressing place to be inside. While Daewoo managed to have interior space for moderate sized passengers they sacrificed the tailgate space. Last thing to mention, Daewoo mostly fit these with no power locks...there is no way for the driver to manual lock their door since the inside lock itself refuses to move and must use the key from outside the car. This may not seem like a problem at all but I've seen these cars where the key hole actually collapsed and getting inside this car required entering from the passenger side and exiting the same way. I mentioned a key hole failing and this is another problem in this Daewoo because its not built very well. All these cars come shipped from GM's Daewoo factory in South Korea, so if you're not too knowledgeable about cars the salesman might con you into thinking this is American or Japanese.

My Score: 1/10 - Unattractive, very poor quality materials, flawed engineering, poor cargo room and not built very well.

Styling: This is normally where Chrysler regains some points...this Daewoo just doesn't. When you look at this car with its strange side profile, its dinky wheels and its not very attractive front end you can tell this car isn't going to be any good to begin with. With the surprisingly poor fuel economy I looked around to see how much drag it creates...well it produces a drag coefficient of 0.35 which is what luxury Japanese SUVs can manage. So basically you have this weird shape for no good reason.

My Score: 1/10 - Its bad when you can tell just from looking at the car that it will be bad, add for most people this will be a clown car.

Value for money: This is normally where Korean cars start to look good due to being very well equipped and fantastic value for your money. This Daewoo...doesn't, it may have the lowest MSRP of its time but when running costs are added its more expensive than its Korean rivals and clearly more expensive than the Toyota. Its more expensive due to how fuel inefficient it is but also due to the parts being sourced purely from South Korea it takes a long time for them to arrive. Accident damage or an out of stock part puts this car out of commission longer than cars made in Japan or Germany. Its not very well equipped either, unlike the Kia or Hyundai it has nothing as a standard feature. More importantly, its not very safe either it did spectacularly badly during its earlier crash tests, today its just scores just average which for a small car is worrisome.

My Score: 2/10 - Its got a low MSRP, unfortunately its burdened with no standard equipment, expensive running costs due to bad fuel economy, difficult to source parts and worst of all disappointing safety scores.

Overall: 9/50 - Its a very bad car, I'm still perplexed at why GM even bothered when they clearly could do much better with a smaller Cobalt. This is part of the reason why GM had to declare bankruptcy, stupid decisions like selling this car outside of its home country.

2007-2009 Chevrolet Equinox, Pontiac Torrent, Suzuki XL-7

Just thought of one car that's pretty much gone from our fleet. The Chevrolet Equinox, Pontiac Torrent, Suzuki XL-7, these are all pretty much the same SUV.




Introduction: The Chevrolet Equinox was introduced as a replacement of the old Blazer. The larger Trailblazer was introduced while the Equinox remained GM's smaller SUV in order to compete against the Ford Explorer and increasing Japanese entries. The Pontiac Torrent would fill the gap left by the very controversial Aztek. Suzuki decided on joining with GM to make an addition to their SUV entry with the XL-7. The fate of the Torrent went with Pontiac and would go no further than the 2009 model year while the XL-7 due to very poor sales would also be discontinued as a 2009 model. The Equinox however had better success and has just entered its second generation.

As usual from the beginning I'm not too thrilled about SUVs so I really didn't care about these three. I actually initially thought the Suzuki was a bit different mostly due to the styling until I got inside and saw the exact same dials from the Equinox and Torrent.


Performance: The Equinox and Torrent had two choices of engines the 3.4L V6 and the 3.6L V6 while the Suzuki only got access to the 3.6L V6. All the vehicles I drove had the 3.6L V6, judging from the numbers the 3.4L V6 is definitely not the engine you want to power an SUV. The 3.6L produces about 252-264 hp and 243-250 lb.ft of torque, it differs with each brand. All three SUVs accelerate from 0-100 km/h in about 7.8 seconds. This SUV is pretty well powered and the V6 is reasonably smooth. Oddly enough while this is one of the quickest vehicles I've driven they didn't seem all that fast.

My Score: 9/10 - Very well powered with the 3.6, its not very exciting however despite its performance.

Handling: The three SUVs handle pretty reasonably and offer no real surprises. You cannot push them as hard as good handling cars but they don't feel as heavy as some bigger cars or SUVs. The steering feel is pretty reasonably for a GM vehicle. All in all they corner like you'd expect a regular SUV to, the moment you attempt to try anything rash you'll notice it really is just a regular SUV.

My Score: 6/10 - Not bad, but nothing outstanding.


Interior: All three use very similar interiors, there are minor differences but they're pretty negligible and do not affect the operation of anything in the SUV. As SUVs they offer quite a lot of space as 5-seaters and also offer pretty good trunk space. The materials used to construct the interior are of mediocre quality, you can't really say they're good because they look quite average but they're pretty solid. The colours inside also vary, the Suzuki offers a lightly coloured interior while the Pontiac is pretty dark inside. The A/C unit is pretty powerful so in the heat, this vehicle is quite comfortable. Build quality in these SUVs seem to be pretty good making it much better than the Trailblazer/Envoy. All of these SUVs are built in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada.

My Score: 9/10 - Spacious interior, good A/C unit and pretty good build quality

Styling: The Torrent and Equinox are basically the same aside from the grille. They're pretty generic looking SUVs. The XL-7 is actually the different one but I thought it looked pretty odd from the rear and I didn't think the grille looked very good.

My Score: 5/10 - The Torrent and Equinox look generic, the XL-7 looks weird.

Value for money: Both Torrent and XL-7 have ended up being terrible value for the money due to Pontiac being cut as a brand and the Suzuki selling so poorly. The Equinox is the best deal of the three however, despite the power I didn't really notice anything particularly outstanding. I didn't even drive the base vehicles making me wonder what exactly is the selling point. They're just a bit too generic in my mind.

My Score: 5/10 - Generic Crossover SUVs, the Torrent and XL-7 only have worse resale rates.

My Score: 34/50 - In the end there's nothing particularly bad about these SUVs, they have a good engine although I'm struggling to think of what makes them different.