Suzuki Grand Vitara SZ5 road test
The name Vitara has been a key component of the Suzuki car offering since the first three door 4×4 Suzuki Vitara’s first appeared on the roads back in 1988 – compact, well built, value for money, fun-to-drive, the car quickly garnered a cult following. A Grand Vitara was first introduced back in 1999 as larger 4×4 vehicles, the SUVs, became more popular, but again the principles of what made the Vitara a success were upheld – value for money, well built, and offroading capability were all wrapped into a more appealing packaged. In late 2008, Suzuki revised its offering to include a new flagship variant of the Suzuki Grand Vitara, the SZ5, this is the review.
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The range topping SZ5 has a 16v 2.4-litre petrol engine at its core, and it is a development over the previous 2.0 litre engine seen in the Grand Vitara. Performance is best describe as capable, the engine certainly doesn’t struggle with the size of car however neither does performance dazzle; the car behaves impeccably at motorway speeds, showing no sign of strain at 70mph, and equally the engine is perfectly capable when used in slow, busy urban situations. While the car comes with a four-speed automatic transmission option, the car test driven came with the more popular five-speed manual gearbox, which proved to be pretty uninspiring. Changing gears, specifically between second and third gears was, at times, a chore with a clumsy and frustrating motion as you’re left floundering and out of gear. They say practice makes perfect, but it didn’t become smoother during the test drive, although the gearbox is not as troublesome as the car’s main competitor the Chevrolet Captiva which had an even more difficult gearbox to tame. Looking at comparative performance figures in the value-for-money 4×4 SUV stakes – there isn’t too much to choose between the Suzuki Grand Vitara against the likes of the Chevrolet Captiva, Hyundai Tucson, and Kia Sportage. The Suzuki will hit a maximum speed of 115mph and takes 11.7 seconds to go from 0-62mph, while fuel economy is 29.1mpg (combined) and CO2 emissions are 225g/km.
Read the Suzuki Grand Vitara SZ5 road test report
RoadTestReports.co.uk provides road tests reports written by members of the Guild of Motoring Writers. These reports are complemented by car reviews submitted by the members of the public who drive the vehicles day in day out.
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