New Car Review: Suzuki Swace SZT

The Suzuki Swace is, essentially, a rebadged Toyota Corolla Hybrid Estate, or what Suzuki calls, a “collaborative business agreement”. There is a long history of this sort of cooperation between the two Japanese brands, and it isn’t the sort of collaboration that feels too unusual or weird. Here, Suzuki are offering what is a very practical, and what you know will be reliable family car for a really competitive price. There is a ton of standard equipment and crucially, it isn’t an SUV and that for some people is a real selling point in a market where alternatives to Crossovers and SUVs are increasingly hard to find.

As we’ve mentioned, if the Suzuki Swace looks familiar, it is because you’ve seen it on Irish roads as the Toyota Corolla Estate and the Suzuki rebadging is pretty subtle. This is a traditional, long, low-slung family estate. It is over 4.6 metres long and comes with almost 600-litres of boot space at the back, making it super useful as a family car. It sits very low on the road, as we found in the front-spoiler munching AA Ireland car park and this makes it the perfect antidote to anyone NOT wanting an SUV. It sits on 16” alloy wheels which looks a little too small for the car, but serve a purpose in helping the fuel economy, so while this car will never win any “world’s best-looking car” awards, it is a pretty inoffensive-looking thing overall.

Suzuki say that with the Swace, there is a “less-is-more” approach. The interior is a bit of a mixed bag, feeling like a car from a decade ago in places, in particular the Suzuki infotainment system which is quite simply, odd. However there is nod to the present day with the addition of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto which drags the car into the present day. There is an 8-inch screen, which is starting to feel small by present day standard, but it all works fine, especially if you use your mobile phone as the primary source of your navigation etc. But what this car is really all about, more so, is space and comfort and it has that in spades, with comfy seats, generous head and legroom both front and rear and of course that enormous boot at the back, and the option of flipping down the seats and extending the 596-litres out to 1,232-litres. The rear carpeted floor can be placed in a lower position to store taller objects and is also reversible with a resin backside that can be used for stowing wet or dirty items. There is also a handy remote folding lever to fold down the second-row seats. There is also a DC12V accessory socket for added convenience.

There is a decent climate control system and when it comes to standard kit this car really excels for the money, with pretty much everything you could ask for, including Adaptive Cruise Control, which makes longer journeys a doddle.

This is not an SUV, so it actually handles quite well, thanks to a low centre of gravity but before you get too excited it has really light steering, which is really good if you are driving around town and parking, but when you are on a back road there is very little feedback from the steering. This is not an exciting car to drive, the CVT transmission hunts a little and the sounds from the engine isn’t that nice to listen to, but it is super economical, you can drive in EV mode at times and it’s a perfectly normal family car for those that don’t really care too much. There is a drive mode select function which allows the driver to adjust the vehicle’s performance to suit driving conditions. There is Normal, Eco and Sport although in this car we are not sure there is a point to these as most people with leave it in Normal. Sport mode in this car seems like an oxymoron.

This is easy, there is only one offered.

The Swace comes with a pretty generous arsenal of safety equipment. A Pre-Collision System (PCS) helps prevent collisions with other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists by monitoring the road ahead with a millimetre-wave radar and monocular camera to apply braking assist and automatic braking if needed. Road Sign Assist (RSA) monitors the road for traffic signs and displays them on the multi-information display when they are detected. Dynamic Radar Cruise Control (DRCC) automatically maintains ample distance with the vehicle ahead, including stopping the vehicle when the preceding vehicle comes to a halt and then following it when it restarts.

For more information, visit Suzuki Ireland