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2019 Suzuki Jimny Moose Test: It's Bad, It's Very Bad

Demand for the Suzuki Jimny has gone through the roof. It's super-cool, small, affordable and unique, but at the end of the day, this mountain goat of a car is still not great for taking corners.
2019 Suzuki Jimny Moose Test: It's Bad, It's Very Bad 1 photo
Photo: YouTube screenshot/km77
The moose test was always going to expose the shortcomings of this car. The new Jimny looks a lot more modern than its predecessors, but it's still built the same way, sort of like a body-on-frame truck, but tiny.

So just how bad is the situation? Well, the moose test carried out by km77 shows the Suzuki is quite unstable. Electronic stability control is working hard to keep the car from rolling over, but it lifts wheels off the ground wobbles like it's about to disintegrate.

The testers say they had two significant problems with the Jimny. Firstly, the steering rack was very long, and the driver just couldn't make fast-enough inputs for the moose test. We'll remind you that the scenario is designed to replicate you having to avoid hitting something which suddenly appeared in your lane.

Also, the grip from the tires is shallow, made worse by the soft suspension and body lean. This results in a noticeable tendency to understeer, even at low speed. At most, they managed to do the test at 68 km/h, which is slow. For the record, the Audi Q8 did it at 79 km/h. Also, we noticed that stability control had dragged almost all of the speed away from the car by the time the test was done.

The Jimny doesn't do any better in the slalom test, which is to be expected. We can already hear the Suzuki haters and SUV critics sharpening their axes. But we still love the little toy. The moose test result is expected, and anybody who's driving this thing fast has a death wish.

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About the author: Mihnea Radu
Mihnea Radu profile photo

Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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