Living with a… Suzuki Swift (Month 4)

With new cars getting bigger and some manufacturers like Ford turning away from small cars altogether, Suzuki sees this as a huge opportunity. Not everyone has space for a massive SUV on their driveway, nor do they want to pay the higher running costs, and this is where the Swift comes into its own. Suzuki thinks it’s the perfect car for anyone looking for a fun Fiesta-size hatchback, so we’ve got six months with one to find out if it fulfils the brief.
Skip to: Month 1 – A Swift introduction Month 2 – Moving Swiftly on Month 3 – Swift to anger? Month 4 – 17 again

Catherine says: “I pretty much fit the target audience for the Swift perfectly and on this basis my long-termer and I should get on well.”

How much has it cost you?

The Swift is wonderfully frugal. I’ve travelled more than 1,000 miles so far and spent just over £100 on fuel. The car’s onboard computer claims we’ve averaged an astounding 66.7mpg and by my own maths I reckon it’s done 64.6mpg. Impressive indeed!

Where have you been?

I pretty much fit the target audience for the Swift perfectly and on this basis my long-termer and I should get on well. After an initial short jaunt into town, it’s been a month of long-distance journeys. We’ve visited family and friends in Suffolk and taken the scenic route around the county before heading back to Greater Manchester. I’ve driven all the way down to Goodwood for the Festival of Speed and most recently the Swift and I went to an event at Caffeine & Machine in Warwickshire. It’s fair to say we’ve spent a long time getting to know one another, in fact the trip computer says I’ve already clocked up over 30 hours of driving!

What have you been carrying?

This month I was tasked with finally clearing out my childhood bedroom, so the Swift had to swallow a large pile of assorted items including a medium suitcase, my Granny’s old typewriter and a disco ball! Folding down the rear seats was easy and I even had room to spare, proving a humble hatchback can be practical. It carries people well too, transporting four adults to a local café with no complaints. Everyone was very happy to climb into the Swift, but I was buying them lunch so maybe that had something to do with it.

Anything delighted you?

When I reviewed the Swift at the launch in Bordeaux, the low speed limits around the city and through rural villages meant I barely needed to use fifth gear so I didn’t know how it would fare on faster roads. I needn’t have worried. Most of my trips this month have involved motorways, and the plucky little Swift has been a trooper. I used to own a rather lovely top of the range Mazda2, and if I’m honest I think the Swift lets less noise into the cabin at high speeds and is comfier over long distances. True, it’s no luxury limousine, but it punches above its weight when it comes to motorway refinement for a small car. The engine loves to rev and in the right gear it’ll accelerate no problem so overtaking or gathering speed on a slip road is much easier than the official stats suggest. Once on the carriageway I’ve been particularly impressed with the adaptive cruise control with lane departure prevention. It’s been great at taking the strain out driving and it even continued to work perfectly in a heavy downpour. I’ve tried this in cars costing three times as much as the Swift which haven’t filled me with as much confidence.

Any frustrations?

I don’t have many complaints with the Swift, but there are a few things I’ve been finding really annoying. The first is, it loves to tell you off. This is especially frustrating when you’ve done nothing wrong. There’s a stretch of road near me the Swift has incorrectly decided is a 20mph zone and it will bing at you for miles afterwards until it spots another road sign. You can deactivate this feature, but you need to press and hold an old school toggle on the dashboard, scroll through a list of indecipherable acronyms and then work your way through two further sub-menus. It then resets each time you start the car. I can’t be bothered with the faff, so I am learning to tune it out. My second issue is the hill hold control feature doesn’t seem to do anything, so you need to crank the handbrake and do a proper hill start even on imperceptibly small slopes. I thought I was pretty good at clutch control but without the handbrake, I can’t seem to avoid rolling around. The pedals are really light which is great in heavy traffic, but it does mean you don’t get much feedback when trying to find the biting point. It’s not just me, my fiancé has noticed the same thing too.

This month in a nutshell

I’ve spent more time on the M6 than I care to mention but the Swift has been a dependable travel companion.

Mileage: 1,370 miles Fuel consumption: 64.6mpg (measured average)

Back to top

Catherine says: “As two thirtysomethings with no children or pets, we have got plenty of room in the Swift for our needs.“

How much has it cost you?

Not much at all. It’s still doing over 60mpg. The tank is tiny, but fuel lasts for ages meaning trips to petrol station are infrequent and relatively painless.

Where have you been?

The Swift has been a godsend this month. My fiancé’s 12-year-old Renault Mégane acquired an engine warning light leaving it languishing forlornly while the Swift stepped into the breach. It’s been another busy month and we’ve covered nearly 1,500 miles. We’ve been back and forth across the M62 several times visiting family in Leeds, up to Scotland for a wedding in Glasgow and I also spent a week dog-sitting in Suffolk.

What have you been carrying?

In our household it’s just Ed (my fiancé) and me. We have completely different priorities when it comes to cars. I’m after style and fun, whereas he likes practicality and function. As two thirtysomethings with no children or pets, we have got plenty of room in the Swift for our needs. The boot can easily hold two small suitcases plus a couple of rucksacks for a weekend away and there’s no drama if we need to give a passenger or two a lift. It’s ticking the practicality box so far. However, as Ed highlights, the Swift’s suspension doesn’t soak up the bumps as well as his beloved, but broken Renault.

Anything delighted you?

The manual gearbox is a joy. The gearstick glides precisely back and forth finding the required gear with ease. It’s engaging and fun without being hard work, just the way things should be. I’m also still really appreciating the adaptive cruise control for motorway journeys. There was a tiny wobble on my most recent trip where the car briefly slowed down unexpectedly, but generally it’s been very helpful. I also like the way Google maps instructions appear in the driver display when using Android Auto. Not all cars with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay seem able to show information from other navigation apps in front of you as well as on the main infotainment screen, but if Suzuki can do it in a £20,000 Swift, there’s really no excuse for more premium brands.

Any frustrations?

One of the most compelling things about the Swift, aside from its lovely gearbox, is everything comes as standard. On paper it outshines pretty much every other small car on value for money. However, I’ve started to notice a few useful things are missing. I was driving along recently and realised I couldn’t see through all the raindrops because the windscreen wipers don’t come on automatically. I didn’t know how lazy I’d become until the feature wasn’t there. I expect I’ll forgive this omission once it gets colder and I can make use of the heated seat, but there is something else I feel the Swift could do better. The Swift was delivered in mid-summer, so I hadn’t driven it much in the dark, but as the nights are already starting to draw in I’ve discovered the headlights are pretty feeble! They are LED so you would expect a good field of view, but on low beam the light doesn’t reach very far and full beam is more like what you get from other modern cars when the lights are dipped. If you are driving along a well-lit motorway, or through a town with streetlights, you won’t notice it, but out in the dark rural countryside is where it’s most apparent. This is compounded by the 9-inch infotainment screen which despite having an auto dimming setting hasn’t been switching over into night mode. It’s very bright and distracting when you are trying to concentrate on the road ahead. You can change the setting manually, though it’s a multi-touch operation not helped by a laggy screen which is rather annoying.

This month in a nutshell

Another month has flown by, and the Swift is still holding its own.

Mileage: 2,865 Fuel consumption: 64.9mpg

Back to top

Catherine says: “My sense of perspective wasn’t the only thing I lost this month; a persistent tyre pressure warning light had me tearing my hair out."

How much has it cost you?

The Swift has been spoiling me with its impressive fuel economy and it has cost me my sense of perspective. For the first time during our test, the Swift’s efficiency reading briefly dipped below 60mpg and I almost felt betrayed! I’ll admit this was an overreaction, particularly given the Swift was still sipping less petrol than the Renault Clio my colleague, Dan, lived with previously. The Swift did really well to achieve 54mpg in Manchester’s heavy traffic and following a long run down to Oxfordshire we finish the month with an impressive average reading of 65mpg.

Where have you been?

We’ve been keeping things local this month with a much quieter calendar. I’ve been popping to the shops, travelling into the Manchester office and there was one longer trip down to Oxfordshire for EV Live.

What have you been carrying?

Nothing exciting, just the usual shopping bags and occasional passengers.

Anything delighted you?

Forget lane keeping assistance, I think all cars should come with blind spot monitoring as a minimum safety requirement and I am thrilled Suzuki has added it to the Swift as standard. Just knowing it’s there fills me with so much more confidence on motorways and I’m equally reassured when I spot an orange or red dot on the wing mirrors of surrounding cars too. Although the Swift only scored three stars in the latest NCAP test, from a driver’s perspective the active safety systems strike a good balance and are generally helpful rather than overly intrusive. Yes, it does wind me up by constantly telling me off when it misreads the speed limit, but that aside, it feels like the Swift has my back.

Any frustrations?

My sense of perspective wasn’t the only thing I lost this month; a persistent tyre pressure warning light had me tearing my hair out. When the warning first appeared, I rooted around in the boot for an air compressor and topped up the tyre to the recommended level. I was then ready to press the reset button and carry on with my day, only there wasn’t one! The manual said to drive around for 10 minutes, and it should sort itself out. It didn’t. No matter how far I drove it wouldn’t clear and after a week I was losing my cool. Thank goodness for YouTube. I eventually found a video suggesting I should change the Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) mode from ‘Comfort’ to ‘Load’ and back again. Mercifully this worked. The car has been fine since, but I can’t understand why it doesn’t have an easy reset button. I’ve since discovered my own Mazda MX-5 doesn’t have a button either, but previous model years did. Annoying. On the bright side, I wasn’t defeated by a flat tyre so all’s well that ends well.

This month in a nutshell

The Swift and I had our first tiff this month but now the tyre pressure monitor has stopping flashing all has been forgiven.

Mileage: 3,363 miles Fuel consumption: 65.5mpg

Back to top