Paul Murrell tests the 2018 Suzuki Swift Sport with pricing, specs, ride and handling, safety, verdict and everything the over-50 driver needs to know.
Summary: Over 50 and looking for an affordable injection of youth? The new Suzuki Swift Sport could be just the answer.
2018 Suzuki Swift Sport
Pricing: From $25,490 (manual), $27,490 (auto) plus on road costs (a lot of fun for not a lot of money)
Warranty: Three-years, 100,000 km (perhaps the most disappointing thing about the Swift Sport)
Safety: five-star ANCAP
Engine: 1373cc inline 4-cylinder double overhead cam 16-valve turbo
Power: 103kW at 5500rpm
Torque: 230Nm at 2500-3000rpm (a huge 70Nm over the outgoing 1.6 litre model)
Transmission: Six-speed manual, six-speed auto
Drive: front-wheel drive
Body: 3890mm (long); 1735mm (wide); 1495mm (high)
Boot capacity: 265 litres (seatbacks up), 579 litres (seatbacks folded)
Weight: 970kg (manual) 990kg (auto)
Turning circle: 5.1m
Towing: not stated (surely you wouldn’t buy one of these for towing)
Spare: Tyre repair kit (well, space is tight)
Fuel Tank: 37 litres (drive it hard and you’ll have to refuel quite often)
Thirst: 6.1L/100km (manual, combined, 95 RON unleaded), 6.1L/100km (auto, combined, 95 RON unleaded)
seniordriver consumption: 5.7L/100km over 434km (manual), 5.8L/100km over 398km (auto) (we bettered the official figure, admittedly with more rural driving than usual)
[review]
CAR COMPANIES ARE notorious for finding ways to squeeze a few extra dollars out of the pockets of buyers, and one of the favourite ways of upping the ante has been to turn a hatch into a hot hatch. Stick on a GTI, ST or RS badge, add some red stitching, a flat-bottomed steering wheel, some faux carbon fibre and bigger and wider alloy wheels and bingo! instant premium price.
Some companies have been a little more transparent by genuinely turning a base model hatch into something worth buying, owning and driving. Hyundai springs to mind with its properly fun-to-drive i30N, but well before that there were great little hatches (and still are) from Peugeot, Volkswagen, Renault and Ford, to name just a few.
Suzuki’s first Swift Sport was a real bargain.
A few years ago, Suzuki joined the throng to hot hatches by enhancing both performance and handling on its cute (but derivative) Swift, and then sticking on the obligatory bling so the neighbours would know you weren’t driving a common-or-garden model.
At the launch in Broadford (Victoria), we pushed the original Swift Sport to (and occasionally beyond) its limits at a small, tight and challenging race circuit. Most of us came away mightily impressed with what Suzuki had achieved.
Now, Suzuki has turned a very good little car into an even better one.
Tougher appearance gives it more machismo. The first generations of the Swift were neat but not very butch, and somehow, with a hot hatch, that just doesn’t work. A good little hatch needs a touch of the mongrel to it.
Some subtle styling tweaks have transformed the appearance of the Swift Sport. Of course, it gets chunky wheels (17-inch alloys, but there’s only a repair kit in the boot), the almost-obligatory faux carbon fibre body kit and a rear spoiler above the rear window. The designers have also pushed the nose further forward to give the whole car a more eager, thrusting look. The big-bore twin rear exhausts add to the hot hatch experience and if you really want to attract attention (and if you’re buying a car like this, why wouldn’t you?), go the whole hog and specify the searingly bright Champion Yellow exterior paint. If that’s all a bit much, you can tone things down by choosing black, blue, grey or pearl white – it looks good in any of these colours.
Sportier cabin, but still too many hard plastics.
It seems like we are forever banging on about low-rent hard plastics in interiors, but really, when so much effort has been expended to make the little Suzuki look like a more expensive hot hatch, the penny pinching on the interior stands out even more glaringly. Sure, the deeply bolstered front seats are sporting and hold you well when you’re pressing on and the extensive use of red stitching and red stitched Sports name raise the ambience, but hard, unforgiving plastics on the door tops, dashboard and elsewhere around the cabin let the side down a little.
There’s more red on the dashboard in the instrument dials and to remind you that you’ve gone for the hot version. You also get a boost meter to show you how hard the turbocharger is working, an oil pressure gauge and a largely irrelevant g-force meter that records how fast you are accelerating, decelerating or going around corners – if you have time to look at it, then you aren’t (or shouldn’t be) driving anywhere near the limits.
Also appreciated is the digital information readout between the main dials, but a digital speedo would be welcome. Techy types will love the 7-inch media screen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, smartphone connectivity, inbuilt sat nav, reversing camera, Bluetooth phone and audio streaming but they’d probably want more than one USB port.
Storage is decent for such a compact car with cup holders between the front seats and bottle holders in all four doors. However, things aren’t quite so good in the boot, with a fairly tight 265 litres – 55 litres more than before but still not as generous as others in the class.
As you’d expect, the rear seat is a bit of a squeeze for the well-proportioned, but not too hard to get in and out of. The are two sets of ISOfix child seat anchors and three top tether points.
The sporting deal on the road.
The little Swift Sport delivers a true sporting drive, without ever going quite as fast as it feels or sounds. It does, however, reward “press-on” driving by always delivering a considerable fun quotient (and in these days of over-policed roads, low speed limits and head-in-the-sand drivers all around you, who needs to be travelling at stupid speeds to get things rowing along?) The ESP is suitably restrained and doesn’t intervene unless you’re getting near the over-eager zone. Even the auto gearbox gets into the sporting spirit of things, although it can, on occasion, be a little reluctant to swap to a lower cog when you ask it to. But at least there is an auto option – it’s not something you’re always offered in a hot hatch.
The amount of noise at highway speeds is a bit of a disappointment. While it can be fun when you’re driving spiritedly, it quickly becomes tiring over long distances. We suspect that some of the sound deadening may have been removed in the quest for the lightest possible weight. You also miss out on a centre armrest and console. The upside is that the latest Swift Sport is 80kg lighter than its predecessor.
A slightly lower driving position would be my preference (although not to everyone’s taste).
A grand more than before, but more standard features.
Although the price has jumped by $1000, buyers get quite a bit more for their money. The reversing camera is now standard, rather than an optional extra, and there’s push-button start, keyless entry, auto high beam lights, adaptive cruise control including speed limiter, safety goodies such as autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and LED headlights. The adaptive cruise reverts to mid-range distance setting to the vehicle in front every time you switch off and restart, making for an annoying need to reset it every time if you prefer a closer or greater spacing to the vehicle ahead.
Unlike the entry-level Swift models, the Sport achieves the maximum five-star ANCAP rating.
Smaller engine, more get-up-and-go.
It’s becoming almost standard these days that new models get smaller engine and better performance figures. The Swift Sport has dropped a 200cc in engine size, but the 1.4-litre ‘BoosterJet’ turbocharged four-cylinder engine is a gem. It puts out 103kW (an increase of 3kW) and 230Nm, a full 70Nm more than the previous 1.6-litre Sport. Peak torque comes on in a quite narrow range (2500-3000rpm) and peak power is reached at 5500rpm. The important thing to remember, as Mr Chapman (of Lotus fame) always tried to convince us, is that the power is only important in relation to how much weight it has to propel. The Swift Sport tips the scales at just 970kg (990kg for the auto) and that means each Newton meter is only having to move 4.2kg, and a power-to-weight ratio increased from 95kW to 106kW per tonne, hence the liveliness, even if the actual zero to 100km/h time of 8.0 seconds is hardly class leading.
The auto version is a real auto, rather than the CVT in the earlier model. It makes for a much more satisfying drive, although it’s still geared more towards economy than performance, especially in Drive; flick it into manual mode and it hangs on slightly longer before changing up or down. Enthusiasts will, naturally, opt for the six-speed manual and be slightly disappointed with the light action and lack of feel. Power continues to come on all the way to the 6000rpm limiter, which, for no apparent reason, is set 300rpm below the 6300rpm red line.
Third gear in the manual model peaks out at 118km/h, making it a useful ratio for snappier overtaking, although fourth gear is more flexible and less demanding of the engine. Ratios in the auto are a little wider.
The claimed combined fuel consumption is 6.1L/100km which we bettered in both the manual and auto versions (admittedly with more non-urban mileage than usual). We recorded 5.7L/100km in the manual over 434 km and a nearly identical 5.8L/100km over 398km in the auto. It’s just as well, because the fuel tank of just 37 litres doesn’t allow a particularly large touring range. And if you drive it the way it always encourages you to, you’ll get even less range from the tank.
On the road, the Swift moves off smartly, although there is a little lag. The engine is slightly less willing to rev than the previous 1.6-litre unit but it gets up to speed quite satisfyingly. The steering is sharp, although not as supremely accurate as, say, the Ford Fiesta ST and there’s some obvious understeer and even occasional hints of torque steer, but never enough to become annoying. The suspension can be a little pitchy on uneven tarmac as well, but that’s only to be expected with a short wheelbase (2.45m).
Warranty and service costs.
The Suzuki standard warranty of just three years or 100,000km is starting to look a little underdone in these days or five- and seven-year warranties with unlimited kilometres. It isn’t necessarily a reason to walk away, but worth keeping in mind.
Another consideration is that the Swift Sport needs to be serviced every six months or 10,000km when the default is rapidly becoming annually or 20,000km. However, this is offset to some extent by the capped price service plan ($175 for most, $349 for the 24 month/40,000km service and $379 for the 48 month/80,000km service).
Summary.
The Suzuki Swift Sport certainly won’t be for everyone, but at the price, it delivers fun handling, great performance and a smile a mile wide. And how can you put a price on that?