2010 Suzashi Kizuki: Where Can I Buy One?

Let's see, I'm fifteen minutes from a Suzuki dealership, an hour and a half from an Acura dealership, two and a half hours from an Infiniti dealership, and the local Mazda dealership closed last year, so it's an hour to the next one. In miles that is, respectively, 11 to Suzuki; 87 to Acura; 135 to Infiniti; and 60 to Mazda. Not really sure where the nearest Mini dealership is, how do they ever sell any of those little suckers? Everybody else is nearby, except Porsche, Bentley, Jaguar, and the exotics. And Saab, since their implosion.

Though it is difficult to compete nationally when a really huge market like SoCal is so spottily represented for Suzuki.

I drove 45 miles to my nearest Lexus dealership, until they opened a closer one...40 miles away...

Within a 20 miles radius, I've got 1 Zook dealer and 7 Honda dealers with Suzi being 14 miles away. BTW, there's 1 Mini dealer within the same radius 4 miles away.

I live in Columbus, OH, and there are two within ten miles of me.

I've got Chevy, Ford-Lincoln-Mercury, Chrsyler-Dodge-Jeep, GMC-Buick, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota-Scion, Nissan, Honda in town. Everything else is available within 1.5 hours in Knoxville, Nashville, or Chattanooga.

Also within a 20 miles radius of me is 1 each of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Aston Martin. There's also 2 Lotus dealers.

And...

Suzuki just cut 50 dealers!

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/16/report-struggling-suzuki-cuts-50-u-s-dealers/

It would be a real shame to lose Suzuki (car) here in the USA, but all signs seem to point in that direction.

RIZ-

Saw you on this 10 this morning. [Black SLK55, we were both getting off at Cloverfield].

Gotta say people, this car looks even better in person than it does in pictures. The paint is as nice as the hand wet-sanded Lexus LS paint and it's got major presence. The gray color IL has the Kizashi in is AWESOME. I felt pretty boring in my typical black Mercedes sitting in typical SoCal morning traffic getting the typical 12MPG. Riz had a big smile on his face driving next to me in that $25k Suzuki and I was jealous.

Here in Vegas, all dealerships are within a 2 to 20 mile radius of me. That includes 2 Suzuki dealers, 1 10 miles NW of me & the other 20 miles SE.

There's one just a few miles from me in Greenville, SC. I didn't realize it, but someone has taken over the Spartanburg franchise (about 30 miles away) after the previous one filed for bankruptcy after several lawsuits over advertising practices (its sister store in Gaffney, about 20 miles NE of Spartanburg seems to still be shuttered). And there's one in Greer, about half-way between Greenville and Spartanburg. But on the Anderson/Easley side of the area, there's nothing even though just about anything else is represented, excepting VW and Subaru. I also noted that the Charlotte area only has two dealers.

I'd also note that finding the car you want my be an issue. Among the three dealers near me are a total of 10 cars. (though I'd note the Greenville Subaru and Mazda dealers don't have a single Legacy or 6; the combined Spbg. Subie/Mazda dealership has three and one, respectively).

In SW PA there are two nearby and three more reasonably close. Although, at one of the close dealers they are overshadowed by sharing the lot with Hyundai, Honda, Mazda and Cadillac. The other close dealer took the opportunity to move them from a small standalone storefront to the empty space in his Pontiac-GMC-Saab-Hummer store half a block away.

I keep thinking that it ought to be possible to get a really good deal on one of these, since several of those five dealers have 4-5 dozen sitting around. No trouble finding your choice of color, trim, and configuration because they're all represented. But if Suzuki doesn't reverse its US death spiral, I worry about the availability of model-specific parts, or the cost to get them here from Suzuki's operations elsewhere. How hard is it to maintain a Daihatsu, Isuzu, or Daewoo these days?

closest suzuk dealer to me is 32 miles away, i live about an hour away from charlotte, nc. there is one about 40 miles away in winston salem.

Mine is right next to my closest VW, Hyundai and Mazda dealers, so not bad at all. It used to be a Chrysler dealer until it was cut loose in the great purge...

I'm in west suburban Chicagoland, if anyone is curious. And by the dealers described, anyone from the area familiar with the dealerships probably knows where I am describing.

It also depends where those Suzuki dealerships are. The ones in Houston are in the seedier parts of the city. It doesn't inspire confidence in a brand when you have to take your new car to the ghetto to get it serviced & to a dealership that looks like a used car lot.

spencerkatz: I actually remember your car this morning. As much as I like the Kizoo, your Benz is bitchin'. You should put it up for a Reader's Long Term Car.

JRiz, I've been commenting on the LA dealer situation in quite a number of the Kizashi posts. You've made several mistakes though.

There is NO SUZUKI DEALER IN LA COUNTY. The one in Van Nuys is SERVICE-ONLY, no sales. Plus, it is miles away from the Galpin Empire (on Roscoe Blvd. in the mid-Valley), in the Keyes Empire on Van Nuys Blvd. to the south.

For LA residents, the closest place to test-drive or buy a Suzuki is in Orange County.

From the Autoblog article:

"After peaking at 101,884 units in 2007, Suzuki has only moved 13,501 vehicles through July of this year. "

Bye-Bye Suzuki...

GM used to have a partnership with Suzuki. Why can't GM partner with them again and rebadge the Kizashi as the Cruze SuperSport? Just a thought.

Yeah, it's an odd thing not to have one in LA proper. BTW, there are two in the SLC metro area... go figure.

I've had this same issue with Suzuki in LA. A friend of mine was looking for an affordable and reliable four door sedan to replace her old Acura Integra and I recommended the Kizashi. She lives in Sherman Oaks (in the San Fernando Valley) and we also found out that Van Nuys Suzuki is service only- no sales. The nearest dealer to look at the car was in Orange County- 40 car-clogged miles away. Sadly- the Kizashi was crossed off the list and she bought a Sonata instead. She, understandably, wasn't willing to drive two hours out of her way to look at one car when she had plenty of other options within a few miles. I remember 10 years ago Suzuki had dealerships in Cerritos, Hollywood, Long Beach, and Bellflower. Not a good sign.....

Funny thing is there are 3 in Indianapolis here...and Indy is far smaller than LA.

Like someone was saying, Suzuki used to have dealers in LA. Problem is, they would have their grand opening in some converted used-car lot, only to close a few months later. Then another would spring up, just to fail again. I've seen this happen at least three times over the last few years.

Suzuki needs quality product (like the Kizashi) across the board to build and maintain sales momentum. What they really need to do is build a brand.

Let's hope the Kizashi is not a one-off, last-ditch, all-cards-on-the-table deal.

102.92 miles away from a Suzuki dealer. Thankfully Ford is .5 miles away and Chevy and Dodge are 2 miles away with Mercedes, Land Rover, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Ferrari and Smart are ~20 miles away.

There are 4 in the Denver metro area. Arapahoe Road near my house is an automotive paradise...Toyota, Ford, Honda, Mitsu, BMW, Audi, Jeep, Chrysler, Subaru, Mazda, Hyundai, Lamborghini, Lotus, Kia, Dodge, Lexus, Acura, and probably a few others all have dealerships along a ten mile stretch of that road.

4 in Denver is not bad considering that the population of the entire Front Range corridor is less than half of the population in the L.A. metro area. Denver has 6 Honda dealerships and 9 Toyota dealerships (ugh...Toyota).

I also found it interesting that there are an equal number of Mazda dealers as there are Honda dealers in the Denver area.

I can actually walk down the street and buy a GM, Ford or Chrysler, but if I want a Suzuki I have to drive 40 miles to Burlington, VT. And that's partnered up with Mitsubishi under the same roof.

I live in the Chicagoland area and a reason I don't purcahse a Mini Cooper is that is no dealer South of the city (that plus I hate run flat tires). There three dealerships and all are in the suburbs which located are located North, Northwest and West but none in the southern burbs.

I do have a Suzuki dealership within walking distance.

Western Chicago suburbs here and there are 4 Suzuki dealers within 25 miles; 9 if I up it to 50 miles.

To compare against Mitsu since both are represented in the long-term fleet and both have small dealer networks, within 25 miles there are 6 Mitsu dealers; 11 within 50 miles + a 12th at 51 miles.

As long as there are at least 2 dealers within a comfortable range I won't let that be a factor for my purchases. Even Lamborghini has 2 Chicago area dealers. :)

drhorrible - The western 'burb Mini/BMW dealer is about 8 miles from me.

apez beat me to it - I live less than 10 minutes from Galpin's Van Nuys "empire" and never noticed any Suzuki sales or service. They do sell Spykers, though, in case you were wondering where you could buy one of those...

Update: I found the dealer in Greer and despite their website saying they only had five Kizashis, they had thrice that, though all but two were SE's. Their sign also said their Grand Opening was Sept. 10. It was a nice, new store, but they had a big banner proclaiming a buy-back program. That's one of the things the dealer who was sued out of business in Spartanburg and Gaffney was sued over. The lot also had quite a few seemingly new Forenzas.

I'd also note that the the Greenville dealer also looks like a used car lot. It was originally a warehouse or terminal of some kind before being converted to be a Chrysler-Plymouth dealer . They built a new building for that way down the road (before they sold it of course, before the Dodge dealer absorbed Chrysler-Jeep) and took on Kia and then added Suzuki in an out building that I think may have been for Yugo at one time. When the group that owns the Kia stores in Greer and Gastonia (really Lowell), NC, bought out their Kia franchise and moved it to Easley, they moved Suzuki in that building. But a huge portion of their inventory seems to be used Kias.

Well, no where in central VA...or alot of other places for that matter. Talk about too little, too late! The best affordable sedan nobody will ever get to drive let alone buy.

I have 3 dealers within 25 miles of me here in North Carolina. As for the post about Suzuki's sales taking a nosedive...of course they did, because they stopped selling the Forenza and Reno which were by far their biggest sellers. However, since these were the rebadged Daewoos that gave them such a poor reputation in the marketplace, I see this as a move by Suzuki to rebuild their image in the U.S. The Kizashi is a giant leap in that direction.