There is a lot to like about our 2009 Suzuki SX4. It's cute (I know you don't all agree), it's comfortable, it has good visibility, satellite radio, lots of nice features.
But it's painfully slow. Excruciatingly, frustratingly slow. For tooling around town on city streets, that's fine. When running errands, it holds all my crap, groceries, dry cleaning, potting soil, anything you can think of. It's easy to park. Lots of pluses.
But forget it on the highway. Merging into traffic, foot down, and it takes its sweet old time. I find myself yelling at it to hurry the heck up. When you finally get up to a comfortable cruising speed, the SX4 handles it without much vibration and noise. But try to pass a Camry and it stubbornly climbs the speedometer at a snail's pace.
Argh.
Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor
carlisimo says:
05:02 PM, 05/28/09
Going by the 0-60 times, it appears to be as slow as my old Tercel was. That car was lighter and weaker, so the weight of passengers or cargo probably had a stronger effect than in the SX4. Still, it's not good enough.
I think a 10 second 0-60 is tolerable. Not good, but tolerable. Anything slower than that can really be a problem on certain onramps and inclines.
mikeolan says:
05:24 PM, 05/28/09
The real problem isn't just 0-60 times. You'll get some Suzuki-loving penalty box drivers who swear 0-60 times only 'let you race to the next red light.'
The real problem is merging. A LOT of people poke around on onramps and then at the last minute floor it, leaving you to go from 35mph to 70mph in the few seconds before the guy in your lane crawls up your rear end.
It's annoying for me as well when I've got someone in an old pickup or penalty box who has entered the freeway doing about 20 under the speed limit and can't seamlessly get up to speed. If it's rush hour, you'd better believe this contributes to congestion.
mikeolan says:
05:28 PM, 05/28/09
Also, for the mileage this thing gets (25mpg), that's just inexcusably abysmal. For comparison, a Nissan Rogue (I know it's more expensive but bear with me here) gets better mileage (27-28mpg) AND is 2 seconds faster to 60mph.
And the Rogue has a much larger engine.
firstwagon says:
05:55 PM, 05/28/09
Why do you think the Rogue will get 27- 28 mpg?
In the hands of edmunds, I would be surprised if it got more then 20 to 22 mpg.
jm1212 says:
06:59 PM, 05/28/09
if you ditched the AWD this wouldnt be as much of a problem
carguy622 says:
08:18 PM, 05/28/09
Can't pass a Camry, ouch! I wonder how this rates compared to the Compass you guys used to have. That got plenty of flack for being slow as well (amongst a bunch of other stuff).
mikeolan: The Suzuki starts at 15,939 while a Rogue (indeed a nice little CUV) starts at 20,220. You've got to admit that's a pretty big jump. Personally I'd give the Suzuki with a stick a try if I were in the market for a new car, it seems like a pleasant vehicle.
dragonflight says:
12:52 AM, 05/29/09
Sounds just like my Hyundai Tucson. It's a real pity that my daily commute for about 6 of the 30 months I've owned it ended up being two hours of peak traffic each way. Really takes skill and planning to cut through when you're down that much horsepower even to the grandma in the Accord to your left.
johnnyr3 says:
04:07 AM, 05/29/09
For the amount of mileage this thing gets it really should be making 170-180hp and getting to 60 in 7.5-8 seconds.
There is no other excuse otherwise.
mlh says:
11:05 AM, 05/29/09
Good title!
firstwagon says:
12:46 PM, 05/29/09
While you have this test car, can you please borrow or rent or whatever a manual version to compare the two.
When the SX4 first came out I saw a local show do a test on them. They had 3 of them and I remember the 5 speed base model beat the AWD automatic version to 60 by more 2 seconds.
They said it felt even faster as the 4 speed auto was slow to downshift and gave the car a lazy feel.
rustyshepherd says:
06:30 AM, 05/31/09
I firmly believe that people today have no real concept of how much power is necessary in a car (although they're likely to learn in the next few years when the new fuel economy regulations go into effect). Road testers frequently complain that one car is a slug because it takes 1/2 of one second longer to reach 60 miles per hour than another car in the test. I have driven my 2004 2.0
115 horsepower Jetta for 91,000 miles. It was one of the slowest cars on the market in 2004 with a 0-60 time of about 11 seconds (remember when a 350 Impala was just as "slow"?) and I have never felt it was dangerously underpowered in traffic or merging. If the hole in the traffic is so small that you have dart into it with a burst of acceleration, it's too small and you should wait for the next one. If Ms. Derosa thinks the SX4 in unbearably slow, she should drive the Mercedes 240D I owned years ago whose 0-60 time was about 24 seconds and, yes, believe me....THAT'S too slow.