Suzuki Club UK

Hi All,

Well, after a pile of carefull research and having previously owning a Nissan Terrano 2, 2.7 TDI which caused no end of trouble, (mostly bad tinworm underneath, but lots more problems too) we wanted another 4x4 but one a lot more reliable. It seems that the Suzuki range fits the bill according to a lot of websites and owners. I hope they're right lol

Anyway, it's on a 'W' plate, year 2000. We bought it with the MOT done 2 days earlier with no advisories so that sounds ok hopefully. It's a kind of dark blue with the silver plastics. It's the 5 door version.

Good points: 4 x alloys (but spare is steel, rusty and no cover ), it has a very nice CD/MP3/WMA (aftermarket???) player fitted and the sounds are simply excellent!!

That V6 engine is superb! So smooth and powerful at 142BHP in a small, light 5 door 4x4. It really shoves it along pretty good! Great torque from the V engine that I missed so much in recent years, (V's are my fav engines). I can run around town in gears so high with no judder or any other issues that the Terrano could only dream of!

Wonderful to drive as everything is just so light and smooth, that it feels almost as good as being back in our old BMW 528i SE!! Now that is praise from me!

Um, Not quite so good points: That 5th spare wheel being a "steelie", tut tut. Much lower sitting than the Terrano and much smaller all around with less room for all the "junk" and my shooting gear, rifles etc thrown in the back. Heavier on petrol than the Terrano was on Diesel, but only just

NO ABS as standard!! Unbelievable in this day and age that a "safety" feature is an OPTION from new! No Air/Con as it's also an option from new, (not that we use it much in UK anyway lol). No heated door mirrors! Again, unbelievable and defo USED in the UK as I would love to have had them this morning....Unless they aren't working for some reason? No REMOTE central locking! Sorry, unforgivable again in this day and age. I had a Toyota Celica GT 2.0 on an 'L' 1994 plate and she had fully working remote locking/toyota alarm system onboard as standard.

Probably a few other negatives I haven't noticed yet in the 2 weeks we've had it or have forgotten about. I think it was on the RAC/AA website I read while researching that Suzuki decided to make loads of stuff either not available or an option for the buyer from new in order to keep a good competitive market position. Hmm, tough luck then for anyone buying secondhand years later if the brand new owner didn't want any/some/all the trimmings eh?

What myself and the GF really want from this Suzuki is reliability at least for the firat year or two, then we will be very happy. I hope we have made the right choice this time in a 4x4 as that Terrano still annoys us when we think about it.

It's only been 2 weeks since we bought it, but in spite of the negatives I have written above, so far I can honestly say we ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!

Regards and Best Wishes,

Andy

Can you unlock all the doors from the passenger side key switch. If you can this means all the doors including the drivers have a lock motor. If so you can buy a unit for £20 to give you keyless entry.
I believe there is little wiring involved.

Darrell wrote:Can you unlock all the doors from the passenger side key switch. If you can this means all the doors including the drivers have a lock motor. If so you can buy a unit for £20 to give you keyless entry.
I believe there is little wiring involved.

Hi Darrell,

The key opens all doors with one turn in the drivers/passenger and also the rear door I have read about the aftermarket remote locking/alarm systems and some of them seem excellent. We intend to buy one in the near future and get our friendly and very cheap auto electrician to fit it for us. He's brilliant and has done lots of jobs on our cars for several years and always gets it right I have looked closely at the HAWKE remote locking with alarm systems as they seem to have a very good name and the price seems very good even for the more complicated models, so this is possibly what we will buy.

On another subject. Your name Darrell is not one I have come across much at all over the years and especially spelt like that with the double 'R' and 'L'. I do a LOT of shooting and have done since a teenager I guess, (air rifles only these days for the moment, now I'm back into it) and my main "Shooting Permission" is on a farm not far from where I live. The farmer has been a good mate of mine since our earliest school days and we are both 50 now and I have known him since we were 5 years old. His name is Darrell

Thanks for the Info!

Andy

I haven't shot since I was a kid! Back then it was my old man's russian 12 guage or my .177 air rifle. I'd love to get back into it, but just plinking, mind!

Also, to club uk!

Anton wrote:I haven't shot since I was a kid! Back then it was my old man's russian 12 guage or my .177 air rifle. I'd love to get back into it, but just plinking, mind!

Also, to club uk!

Thanks for the welcome . This is a good forum I can tell already and very helpful for those of us new to the Suzuki brand of vehicle.

I have a .22 and a .177 and used shotguns for years at one time many years ago now. I may venture back into it some time and have been thinking about putting in for another Shotgun and FAC licences. My farmer mate has said he will co-sign for me and his land is ALL FAC rated so should be ok. For the moment, I'm happy enough with my air rifles

I have driven a Suzuki 4x4 before in the late 80's come to think of it. I used to work for a farm supplies company and he bought the one that kept tipping over all the time lol. Was it called an SJ10 or something like that? Can't be certain as it was years ago in another time when I was but a young 17 year old. Thankfully, it didn't ever turn over with me

Andy

Sj410 by any chance? The best SJ

You guys must have driven it like a loon to roll it alot

ScottieJ wrote:Sj410 by any chance? The best SJ

You guys must have driven it like a loon to roll it alot

Yes, it was probably SJ410 then. It was so many years ago as I'm 50 now and I must have driven it when was between 17-19 I think. I do know that it had a 1.3 petrol engine that always screamed as if needing one more gear and that it was a drab brown colour and had no side windows in the rear so more like a van/4x4 I guess lol.

We didn't tip or roll ours but I seem to remember press releases at the time where it was mentioned and was a serious safety issue? I'm almost certain that people were tipping 'em over regularly back then lol as Suzuki had somehow got the suspension and/or wheelbase etc a bit wrong somehow? They of course denied it as they all do lol, but later models suddenly changed and stopped tipping over so easily. Funny that eh?

I would be VERY surprised if our GV V6 could be tipped over easily as it has suspension that is WAY harder than I thought possible on a 4x4 vehicle and holds the road like glue even at high speeds. In fact, the suspension kind of reminds me of the road holding on our BMW 528i SE with MSport suspension on her, except the BM had a very comfortable ride and absorbed the deep drains and bumps in her stride, (best suspension on any car I've had). The GV hits a deep drain or deep bumps and you know ALL about it unfortunately. Still, I would rather have the road holding ability and a slightly more jarring ride because it's so very tempting to keep one's foot planted on the right hand pedal and hearing that burbling. growling ROAR of this amazing V6 engine

Andy

The 413 perhaps? 410's have 1.0's, 413s have 1.3's.

And the safety concerns were drummed up by an American magazine that, it turned out later, deliberately changed the test conditions to try to tip over the SJ. They did the same thing to the Pajero a few years later, and eventually got sued by several manufacturers.

Suzuki did make the track wider on the 413 and renamed it the "Samurai" in response to the article, but it killed sales in the US. There's a YouTube video of them trying hard to roll an SJ, and it shows what lengths they had to go to just to get wheels off the floor - they never did manage to roll one though.

Anton wrote:The 413 perhaps? 410's have 1.0's, 413s have 1.3's.

And the safety concerns were drummed up by an American magazine that, it turned out later, deliberately changed the test conditions to try to tip over the SJ. They did the same thing to the Pajero a few years later, and eventually got sued by several manufacturers.

Suzuki did make the track wider on the 413 and renamed it the "Samurai" in response to the article, but it killed sales in the US. There's a YouTube video of them trying hard to roll an SJ, and it shows what lengths they had to go to just to get wheels off the floor - they never did manage to roll one though.

Wow, I wasn't aware of that. What a sneaky and underhanded thing for a magazine to do! (I wonder who paid them to do that article? ho hum). Well, after all these years I'm glad it wasn't anything Suzuki got wrong Good to know.

As for the SJ, I'm trying to remember but I think it had a 1.3 petrol in it, but sadly it was a long time ago and I can't be certain. It may well have been the 1.0 SJ410 then as I do always remember you really had to make it work very hard (Screamer) to get it to go anywhere fast, but then it was often loaded up with heavy farming deliveries lol. Excellent on fuel though if you took it real easy. I also seem to recall she had a max speed of around 80MPH and at that speed it really screamed and was very loud lol

Andy