Prophesy is the last word someone in the industry should use and yet we can’t help but see the 2015 Suzuki Vitara as a good omen. The compact SUV, which is a global model for the company, worked its keep-it-simple magic on us, and we believe this means Suzuki is back in the segment’s books.
The Japanese carmaker was building SUVs long before the class became popular, but it continued to rely on its traditional values, such as ruggedness and practicality. At the same time, the newcomers started turning to all sorts of artifices to grab a slice of the booming market.
Suzuki may have been off-beat for a while, but after spending a few days with the 2015 Vitara, we can say it’s singing to the right tune. And while the basic Suzuki attributes mentioned above are still here, you can forget the old-school attitude of the Vitara you knew. This is a fresh package, and it feels like it.
This isn’t Suzuki’s first effort to conquer the new-age crossover market. That was the
SX4 S-Cross we drove last year. While the platform and the suspension of the two have plenty of details in common, you can clearly see how things have evolved meanwhile.
Interestingly enough, the Vitara is somehow slotted below the SX-4 Cross, both in terms of size and pricing. Despite this, it feels like a better car. This applies to the actual driving experience and when it comes to Suzuki’s better understanding of clientele’s demands.
This positioning also means that, just like the SX-4, the Vitara doesn’t approach its rivals directly. From the affordable Dacia Duster and the smaller
Nissan Juke or
FWD-only
Renault Captur, to the larger Hyundai ix35 or the more elaborate and yet aging Skoda Yeti/ VW Tiguan, none of these vehicles overlap with the Vitara 100 percent.
Has Suzuki found the perfect formula? Well, we wouldn’t say “perfect”, but the car seemed to work well in any of the situations we threw at it. It all started before we even entered the vehicle, as the Vitara has an appealing appearance.
The overall package is pleasing to the eye and with details such as Suzuki’s traditional clamshell hood, it feels almost as rugged as the antique Jimny. We wouldn’t feel out of place parking the Vitara in front of a five-star hotel, since the styling tricks play the basic card, with the car never trying to be more than it actually is. Cool.
Suzuki offers multiple visual personalisation options, led by the choice of two-tone exterior color schemes. The only issue is that the upper Black side of our tester was achieved using vinyl, not paint. Not exactly durable, so it's best that you avoid this feature, especially when you don't need it.
Of course, if you squint a little bit while looking at the Vitara, the inevitable happens, and you see the Range Rover Evoque in shrunken proportions.
Then again, just like we said in the case of the Aston Martin-“inspired” Renault Laguna Coupe, who doesn’t want to have the design of a lavish nameplate for much less money?
The interior is a different story though, as it brings mixed feelings and emotions. It all depends on whether you zoom in or out, and we’ll start with the latter. The design of the cabin is spot on. Once again, we find Suzuki’s understated manly approach.
The dashboard clock, placed in between the pair of air vents on the center stack, draws your attention. If some psycho JDM tuner ever lays its hands on a Vitara, the turbo boost gauge will land straight in here. It’s amazing how Suzuki managed to deliver such an eye-catching result with budget materials.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the plastics covering an important part of the cabin. This is an urban dweller, not a workhorse, so the materials are below our expectations.
The artificial leather in Japanese cars always makes you sweat in the hot season. However, most of the seating surface in our fully gifted tester was covered in man-made suede, which made things a bit better.
As for the ergonomics, the results are, once again, mixed. On one hand, we have Suzuki’s loaded steering wheel, which works just fine. The rest of the control also comes in handy, but we have to treat the center console specifically. The introduction of a touch-screen infotainment system has cleaned up the center stack. As for the system itself, this sits somewhere in between the cheap ones that annoy you and the premium systems offered by German carmakers. We’ll call it barely decent.
The 8-inch display is also used for the rear-view camera, which works brilliantly, especially if we consider the moderate budget of the car.
The cabin proves to be spacious, even in the rear area, where the Vitara tops the Nissan Juke. Heading over to the luggage compartment, we find 375 liters (13.2 cubic feet) of space. There’s a double floor that will keep the little things from flying around.
Speaking of flight, it’s easy to dream about this in the Vitara if you go for the optional panoramic sunroof. This is a pleasing piece of engineering, including two sliding glass panels with a combined length of 1 meter.
When it comes to the driving position, you get a mix between a compact and an
SUV, one of the best in its class. Together with the frugal dimensions of the Vitara, this brings hefty urban driving benefits.
The Vitara is truly agile around the city, just like a supermini.
The electromechanical steering is clearly on the light side, which adds to the assets above when you find yourself in the city. As usual during our tests, we subjected the Vitara to the heaviest of traffic, and it felt nimble. The ground clearance gives the extra security to those who seeks it, so everything is just fine.
In the powertrain department, Suzuki has a simple approach. You can choose between two 1.6-liter units, one petrol and one diesel. We spent most of our time in the first and, contrary to the industry trends, this is not a downsized, turbocharged engine.
Instead, the Vitara has to do with a naturally-aspirated 1.6. The 120
HP are just fine, but the 154 Nm (113.5 lb-ft ) of torque will keep you searching for revs at times, since this arrives at 4,400 rpm.
Appearances can be deceiving though. At first, you’re tempted to say this is the kind of engine that works on a Swift, since it’s pretty rev-happy. Despite not making you fast, it can offer a bit of a sporty sensation if you take it to past 6,000 rpm.
However, if you adapt to the character of the car, you can work with the 1.6 just fine. In fact, if you’ve had your license for over a decade, chances are you’ve learned to drive relying on such an engine. Technology has advanced though, and we’re not just referring to the start-stop system now.
For one thing, the Vitara is light, weighing in at 1,160 kg (2,557 lbs) in petrol, all-wheel drive trim. As a result, the 1.6-liter petrol needs between 8 and 10 liters per 100 km (35 - 28 UK mpg) inside the city.
The diesel is easier to drive and more efficient, but the bottom line is that, if your annual mileage is low, you don’t need it - the petrol is good enough to allow the well-balanced Vitara to please you.
While the petrol is stuck with a five-speed manual, the oil burner gets a six-speed. You can also have a six-speed automatic (only for the first), but we didn’t get to test this.
While the Vitara can sustain long trips, there are two main technical elements that make it lose some points in this regard. The first is the five-speed manual. Sitting at 3,000 revs when driving at 120 km/h (75 mph) means you fuel efficiency will be affected. Speaking of which, we got 6l/100 km (47 mpg). Moreover, the ratios are a bit long to compensate for the lack of a sixth gear. You can feel this and the car would be more pleasant to drive with shorter gearing.
The other technical aspect we need to mention is the steering. Yes, we live in the electromechanical era, and this is a car that doesn’t need to offer too much feedback. We understand that. Nevertheless, the overly assisted setup that helped within the city can lead to exaggerated maneuvers at highway speeds.
Once you go past these shortcomings, Suzuki’s Vitara proves to be a reliable open road partner. The soundproofing is surprising, and the handling is trustworthy. It’s always difficult to set up the suspension of an SUV when you’re on a budget and can’t install adaptive dampers, but Suzuki has made a good compromise between ride and handling. We spent quite some hours driving the Vitara without too many stops and were perfectly relaxed when we reached our destination. Having ticked the coziness box, we’ll discuss the handling a bit.
The body roll is within limits and the word that best describes the Vitara’s character is “neutral”. The Vitara can be gifted with an AllGrip
AWD that lets you choose between four modes. There’s Auto (usually the best), Sport(makes sure the FWD-based system also feeds the rear axle), Snow (uses AWD by default) and Lock.
The handling remains unbiased even when you turn off the stability control and hit the sand - mind you, the electronics never fully go away. For instance, the Dacia Duster could even get a bit tail-happy at times, but the story with the Suzuki is different.
This Suzuki makes sure it offers the neutral handling mentioned above in any situation.
When you push past the limits of grip, the Vitara goes into a small
4WD drift rather than letting the back step out.
And speaking of sand, we took this Suzuki off the road. The car maintains its agility in rough terrain and always feel solid. At 185 mm (7.3 inches), the ground clearance is not that high, and there’s no underbody protection, so we stopped short of passing over the moderate offroading point.
Safe. This is a word that describes the 2015 Suzuki Vitara’s driving experience well. Moving from the on-road attitude to the Euro NCAP ratings, the conclusion still stands. The Vitara has a five-star score, with good ratings in all the areas.
The Vitara’s active safety trick is a millimetre-wave radar hidden behind that massive front badge. This doesn’t just bring adaptive cruise control, but also a feature including automatic braking. The system is set up in a simple way, so you can easily understand what it does when it engages in an emergency situation.
It’s interesting how this transparency, which might be perceived as poor insulation otherwise, has a positive effect on inexperienced drivers, who don’t get to panic about the car having a mind of its own.
With the Vitara, Suzuki has shown the world that it can deliver one of the best compact SUVs out there without turning to tricks. The Japanese carmaker didn’t complicate things in any way. It didn’t reinvent its ways to design this car, simply focusing more on what it did best instead. In fact, we see the Vitara easily cannibalizing the slightly larger SX4 S-Cross.
As a result, the 2015 Suzuki Vitara’s top asset is its balance. From the driving character to the ease of switching from city to offroad driving, this SUV is dependable and can even put a smile on your face.
The Vitara has a light-hearted attitude: it’s very easy to drive, and its appealing styling might even turn a few heads.
As any SUV should be, the 2015 Vitara is family friendly, with impressive cabin space for its size and a well-lit interior.
Speaking of the cabin, the mediocre plastics are one of the worst sides of this Suzuki. The list of downsides isn’t long though, but it also includes the steering, which could be a bit firmer at high speeds.
The 2015 Suzuki Vitara offers one of the best value-for-money ratios we’ve seen in a long time, and we’re not just referring to SUVs here. The best part of it though is that you don’t need to mention this to appreciate the car, as it can shine on its own.
The Vitara is one of the most affordable compact SUVs on the market. And while its pricing may be just a little lower than that of the Nissan Juke or the Opel Mokka, the Suzuki offers all-wheel drive for the money - you’ll need about EUR24,000 to grab a well-gifted Vitara 1.6 AllGrip on the German market, 19 percent VAT included. The pricing starts at EUR17,990 and can climb to about EUR28,500.
You can’t talk money in this class without discussing the Dacia Duster and yet the Vitara is a better choice. First of all, the Suzuki is superior to the Dacia from most points of view. And as for the pricing, the Duster only wins if you go for the lower trims. However, if you go for a fully-loaded model, the price gets dangerously close to that of the Vitara.
Since Suzuki likes to keep things simple, we want to give you the Vitara in a nutshell and “rightsizing” is the word to use here.