2020 Suzuki Swift Review
I am currently in Thailand on holiday, and have been driving a 2020 Suzuki Swift as my rental car. During the last week, I’ve been doing a mix of inner city and cross country driving in the car, so have a pretty good sense of what it is like to own.
The 2020 Suzuki Swift is quite refreshing as it is a very simple, no frills car. Car makers don’t make many cars like this anymore. It is equipped with power windows and air conditioning, but not much else. I don’t really miss all the intrusive technology on other rental cars I’ve driven. Unfortunately, it is fitted with auto start/stop which is a really annoying feature in a hot/humid climate like Thailand.
The traffic is chaotic here, which means lots of idling. At 30c and 90% humidity, the last thing you want is for the A/C compressor to stop. This is of course what happens when you are waiting in traffic. The A/C becomes more and more tepid, allowing the temperature in the car to raise. Eventually after a few minutes, the car does kick into life, but it has to work hard to lower the cabin temperature again. You can of course turn the feature off, but it doesn’t remember the setting each time you restart the car.
The Swift is equipped with a basic infotainment system. It doesn’t seem to remember settings from last time you used it. However, it is equipped with apple car play. You can’t just plug your phone in though. You first have to let the system boot up, which takes about 5 seconds. Then you have to select the menu to pair the phone. Once you give the system a few seconds to think, you can then plug your phone in. Once plugged in, it needs another few seconds thinking time, then you have to unlock your phone and it starts working. After all that, it is quite reliable. Sound quality is average.
The car is reasonably comfortable for two adults and three children, although luggage space is quite limited. The seats are cloth, good in such a hot climate. With a tall adult in the front seats, there is not a lot of legroom in the rear, but enough for children. I drove it for a couple of hours and didn’t feel uncomfortable. The controls fall easily to hand and its quite comfortable for a tall driver. The pedals are quite small though, and a couple of times I found myself pressing the brake and accelerator at the same time.
Performance is adequate. I do not know what engine is fitted to this car, but around town it has quite good performance. Even for a city car, it will cruise at motorway speeds quite happily. The only times you notice the lack of power is trying to overtake, or going up steep hills. I needed to accelerate from 100km/h to 120km/h to get into a gap in traffic and the poor little car didn’t have much to give.
The Swift appears to be equipped with a CVT. It doesn’t find itself caught out in the wrong ratio and bogged down like a lot of CVTs, so its not too bad. It can be a bit jerky to start out, but it is otherwise tolerable. Fuel economy is very good around town, although it drops away on the open road. Still, as a city car it is very frugal.
Visibility out of the front is quite good compared to many modern cars. This makes it far more relaxing to drive on the open road. The A-pillars as not so thick to create blind spots. Rear visibility is pretty poor – the rear window is small and the C-pillars are quite thick. Its not as bad as some, but since there is no reversing camera you need to be very careful when parking due to the large blind spots.
Being more familiar with the Suzuki Swifts of the 90s, I assumed the car would be small and handle like a go-kart. It doesn’t. It is actually quite a large car. Like the modern Mini is gigantic compared to the old BMC Mini, the 2020 Suzuki Swift is gigantic compared to the 90s version. It doesn’t handle all that well, it feels like a very big car and the ride is very choppy. Roads in Thailand are quite bumpy and you feel them all. It is also quite wide driving through narrow streets.
Quite oddly for a modern car, the headlights are pretty woeful. I’ve driven 50 year old cars with better headlights. Turning them on also dims the instrument cluster making it very difficult to see if you want to turn the lights on during the day when it is raining. Since there was torrential rain a few times I was driving the car, I had the lights on. It is probably possible to change this, but I didn’t see how.
Styling isn’t bad – the white paint with the subtle red accents look quite good. I’m generally not a fan of white cars but it suits the 2020 Suzuki Swift.
My overall Verdict is that the 2020 Suzuki Swift isn’t a bad city car. Its cheap and cheerful and quite good on fuel. Plus it doesn’t have all the expensive and annoying tech. Its not as good on the open road, but still gets the job done.
Rating: 3/5.
