Suzuki Vitara

The new Suzuki Vitara offers good value, loads of kit and a decent drive, but falls short in some areas.

The new Suzuki Vitara is finally here, and it's hoping to abandon memories of the dated previous car with Range Rover Evoque inspired styling and much more advanced equipment. There's also more dynamic ability on offer, but it's not quite up with the class best.

The new Vitara hares its platform with the SX4 S-Cross, the other mid-sized crossover in Suzuki’s range. Thanks to a raised ride height and more rugged angular styling, the Vitara is the more overtly off-road looking model, but a 100mm shorter wheelbase and a smaller boot mean it’s more of a Nissan Juke rival, while the S-Cross takes on the Nissan Qashqai.

Suzuki has a long history of building hard-wearing, affordable small 4x4s, so its no surprise that the Vitara is offered in both front and four-wheel drive configurations. There’s a choice of a 1.6-litre petrol or 1.6-litre diesel engines, both of which feel sportier than you'd expect, as well as manual and automatic gearboxes.

A wide choice of exterior paint, a contrasting roof and a variety of interior trim colours add a high level of personalisation, while safety equipment includes an auto braking function, adaptive cruise control and seven airbags as standard. 

Our choice: Suzuki Vitara 1.6 VVT petrol ALLGRIP 

Park the Vitara side by side with the SX4 S-Cross and they look virtually the same size, but the stat sheet reveals the Vitara is actually 125mm shorter overall with a 100mm shorter wheelbase.

It’s still 40mm longer, 10mm wider and 45mm taller than the Nissan Juke though so it has a sizeable presence on the road. The chunky styling is fairly modern and fresh and we particularly like the chrome grille that lines up perfectly with the headlights, the squared off rear wheel arch and the interchangeable front and rear bumpers.

You can select Urban or Rugged styling packs, which feature attractive additions such as extra chrome trim, a tailgate spoiler or tougher skid plates. Metallic paint is £430, while a contrasting roof colour can be specced for a further £370. However, none of these customisation options manages to disguise some of the Vitara’s heavy-handed details and rather awkward proportions.

Inside, the interior design is lifted by a large central clock and a smart, seven-inch touchscreen that’s standard on mid-grade trims and above. The instrument cluster is simple and easy to rear, while a strip of plastic that stretches across the dash can be ordered in a variety of colours and textures.

The only issue (a major one for some) is the interior trim quality. It feels relatively hard wearing in most places and there's plenty of toys, but the plastics are hard and scratchy and the lower parts of the centre console feel very flimsy. It's fine in the cheaper models, but as top-spec cars nudge £19k we'd be looking for more upmarket materials.

If you want to emphasise the feeling of space, a panoramic roof with a large 560mm opening is offered as an option, although on our test car it suffered an irritating rattle (early test cars sometimes have this issue).

Suzuki says its aim with the Vitara was to make it drive like the Swift supermini, and it’s not as far off as you might think. The extra weight and higher centre of gravity means it doesn’t change direction quite as quickly and rolls a little more, but it still clings on to the road eagerly when you up the pace.

The diesel model sounds a bit agricultural on anything more than half throttle, but provides plenty of punch and a broad spread of torque, while the petrol engine sounds sporty and loves to be revved. Curiously, the diesel model has a slightly softer suspension setup than the petrol so it’s the one to go for if comfort is top of your list of priorities, but both models ride well and deliver decent refinement at motorway speeds.

The raised driving position and light steering make it well-suited to driving around town, but if you do order the optional ALLGRIP four-wheel drive system and fancy some light off-roading, it’s more than happy to oblige.

Four transmission settings - Auto, Sport, Snow and Lock – change where the power is sent, ranging from a two-wheel drive fuel-saving mode when you’re cruising in Auto, to permanent four-wheel drive modes like Snow and Lock that help extricate you from sticky spots. Sport sends power to the rear tyres when needed, according to throttle inputs.

Suzuki has traditionally boasted a strong reputation for building durable cars, but a 31st-place finish in our Driver Power 2015 satisfaction survey suggests that the brand has hit trouble.

Still, the Vitara uses many parts from other models in the line-up, while its 1.6-litre diesel has been developed in cooperation with Italian giant Fiat. And in the event there are any problems, buyers will be reassured that the brand’s dealers finished a respectable 16th in our 2014 poll.

There’s even better news when it comes to safety, because the Vitara was awarded a five-star rating in Euro NCAP’s tougher 2015 tests. All versions get seven airbags, stability control and tyre-pressure monitoring, while adaptive cruise control and autonomous braking are standard on SZ5 cars – although it’s not even optional on other models.

Because it’s 125mm shorter overall, and with a 100mm shorter wheelbase than the SX4 S-Cross, the Vitara doesn’t have the same amount of interior space, but is still a spacious family car.

The high-sided design means there’s lots of rear headroom and legroom is generous enough for all but the tallest adults. The boot space of 375 litres (increasing to 1,120 litres with the rear seats folded) is 55 litres less than the S-Cross, but 21 litres more than its main rival, the Nissan Juke.

It’s a well-thought-out shape - square with a wide opening and a moveable boot floor creating a loading area that’s level with the boot lip, plus a covered storage space underneath. Up front, there’s large storage bins in the doors, although the glove box is a bit on the small side.

As an all-seasons car, the four-wheel drive version is a practical choice – it might not climb a mountain or cross a river like the Land Rover Defender, but it’s perfectly capable of crossing a muddy field or finding traction when two-wheel drive cars will be scrabbling for grip on icy roads.

Because it weighs relatively little (1,160kg in four-wheel drive petrol guise, and 65kg less for the two-wheel drive version), the Vitara’s running costs should be among the lowest in the class. It can’t quite dip under the 100g/km barrier for CO2 emissions, but it’s close – the most efficient 1.6 DDiS diesel returns CO2 emissions of 106g/km with the six-speed manual transmission, or 111g/km if you order it with ALLGRIP four-wheel drive.

The two-wheel drive petrol model returns 53.3mpg with the five-speed manual transmission (51.3mpg with the six-speed automatic), while the four-wheel drive petrol model returns 50.4mpg and 134g/km with the manual ‘box and 49.5mpg and 138g/km with the auto.

Suzuki offers a range of fixed-cost servicing packages, and by fitting even the entry-level models with air-conditioning, Bluetooth, DAB radio and alloys it’s working hard on improving residual values.