cars: Suzuki

Showing posts with label Suzuki. Show all posts

2010 Suzuki SX4 SZ-L

2011 Suzuki Equator

Suzuki SX-4's Darker Side: New SZ-L Special Edition for UK Market

A new special edition version of Suzuki's SX4 small crossover called the SZ-L is being launched onto the UK market this week. What makes the SZ-L special is a styling package that adds a number of exterior and interior features.

Available in two colors, 'Silky Silver Pearl' and 'Cosmic Black', the SZ-L model comes equipped with unique gunmetal colored roof rails, front grille, alloy wheels and front and rear skid plates.

Inside, the SZ-L gets Alcantara seat trim in light gray plus a three spoke leather steering wheel with gunmetal stitch detailing and a standard six disc in dash CD changer.

The SZ-L is based on the SZ4 grade and is available only in two wheel drive layout with a 120HP-strong 1.6-liter gasoline engine matched to a manual gearbox. Suzuki claims the small crossover can accelerate from zero to 62 mph (100km/h) in 10.7 seconds and return a combined fuel economy of 45.6mpg UK with CO2 emissions of 143g/km.

Pricing is set at £13,145 and includes the cost of the metallic paint.

Fire Hazard from Garmin Nuvi Prompts Recalls from Suzuki and Nissan

After Garmin announced a voluntary recall of 1.25 million units of its popular Nuvi GPS system at the end of August amidst concerns that the batteries could overheat and catch fire, Suzuki and Nissan followed with a recall on several vehicles equipped with the affected Garmin Nuvi navigation systems including the 750, 760, or 765 models for the same reason.

The recalled Garmin units can be found on certain Suzuki vehicles including the 2008-2010MY SX4 crossovers, 2010MY Grand Vitara SUVs, and 2009-2010MY Equator vehicles, and the 2008-2010MY Nissan Altima, Frontier, Pahtfinder, Rogue, Sentra, Versa and Xterra vehicles.

In both cases, the automakers will notify owners of the affected models, and the repairs will be performed by Garmin technicians who will replace the battery and insert a spacer on top of the battery free of charge.

Report: Suzuki's US Sales Nosediving into Oblivion

Remember yesterday when we said Suzuki got smacked by an average 68% sales drop compared to last August (and -52% from the beginning of the year) in the US? Well, we decided to take a deeper look at the company's sales figures and discovered some interesting facts.

All in all, Suzuki sold a mere 1,878 cars and SUVs in August, down from 5,751 units the same month a year ago. The Japanese automaker says it has around 300 dealers in the U.S. If you do the math, that comes to a little over 6 vehicles sold per dealer in August... Here are some more details on the company's sales broken down model by model:

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Suzuki's "best"-selling models, the Grand Vitara and Equator, took a 73% sales dive. Not far off that, the SX4's sales fell by 75% while the XL7 and and Forenza/Reno took 99% and 100% drops (granted, the Forenza/Reno was discontinued and only moved a laughable 12 units in 2010).

The all-new and much promising Kizashi, which hasn't officially dropped in sales because it wasn't available last August, has barely managed to bring in 478 buyers in August. For all the other scary Suzuki sales figures, scroll on down.

Looking at these depressing stats, it's no wonder they're holding off on debuting the Swift here.

By Phil Alex

US Auto Sales Plummet in August: Post-Clunker Drops and Gains

August sales, for the most part, are hurting from a year ago. To be precise, initial data showed sales came in at 997,574, down 21 percent from a year earlier, according to Autonews. After the cash-for-clunkers sales surge of '09, it was to be expected. So, after the economy's cash-injection car sale plan, where do automakers stand compared to August last year?

First off, American automakers are all over the map: Ford is down 14%, Chrysler is up 7% due to fleet sales, and GM fell off a hefty 25%.

Japanese automakers, on the other hand, are all down. Isuzu is gone, so that's a big goose egg either way; Subaru, Mazda, and Nissan kept their drops in the 23-27% range, while Honda, Toyota, and Mitsubishi ranged from 33% to 37%. Toyota, while gaining significantly from the clunkers program, was not only affected by the predicted drop but also by a variety of recalls. Of all the automakers selling vehicles in America, Suzuki just plain got smacked; it's in freefall after a 68% drop.

John Mendel, sales VP for American Honda, says, "We've known that August comparisons would be irrelevant due to the 'cash-for- clunkers' program last year...The good news is that we continue to see increasing demand for Honda products..."

Korean Hyundai group managed to stem the bleeding, attaining a Ford-like drop of only 15%.

The Germans all seem to be doing fairly well, with Daimler (+7%) and Porsche (+33%) milking gains while VW (-3%) and BMW (-2%) both stayed strong with minimized declines.

Volvo and Saab, due to their change in ownership, have some faulty numbers (see below). Other Europeans were also strong, with Maserati, Jaguar / Land Rover each posting an impressive 25% gain.

Analysts realize that these numbers are all over the place, and have stated multiple times that comparing figures to a year ago would not make sense. Therefore, they are using more comparable (albeit much closer) previous month figures to make evaluations on the state of the market.

By Phil Alex

Source: Autonews (sub. required)

Suzuki Swift 2011 Elegant CIty Car

Suzuki Swift 2011 Elegant CIty Car

2010 Suzuki Swift Wallpaper

Unveiled at the firm's Magyar Suzuki Corporation production facility at Esztergom, in Hungary is the 2010 Suzuki Swift which sports an evolutionary look from the previous generation.

A new power plant line-up accompanies the 2010 Swift among them is the 1.2-liter petrol engine with Dual VVT (Variable intake and exhaust valve timing) which replaces the outgoing 1.3-liter unit. It produces 94-horsepower at 6,000rpm, slightly more than the outgoing 1.3-litre unit, while torque is also improved to 118Nm (87 lb-ft) at 4,800rpm.

Fuel consumption for this engine on the combined cycle is 5.0 lt/100km, equal to 56.5mpg UK and 47.0mpg US for the manual transmission model, an improvement of 0.8lt/100km or 7.8mpg UK over the previous 1.3-litre unit.

Emissions are much lower as well as the new 1.2-litre engine with manual transmission produces 116g/km on the combined cycle; representing a 24g/km or 17 per cent improvement over the 1.3. An optional automatic transmission will be available for the petrol engine from launch.

The reworked 1.3-liter diesel engine produces 75HP and according to Suzuki, it emits 109g/km (down from 119g/km) and has a combined fuel consumption of 4.2lt/100km, equal to 67.3mpg UK and 56.0mpg US (previous model: 4.5lt/100km or 62.8mpg UK).

Underneath the body panels, there's an all-new platform that increases the 2010 Swift's wheelbase by 50mm to 2,380mm and the car's overall length by 90mm to 3,850mm. The new Swift is also slightly wider (+5mm) and taller (+10mm) and comes with wider front (+10mm) and rear tracks (+5mm).

I will post up high resolution pictures of the interior as soon as it is available. So please do return and check.