SX4 comfortable and versatile
Remember Roger, my Welsh friend who refuses to climb aboard the crossover-utility bandwagon?
He’s a dreamer, who hopes to find comfort, utility and affordability, all in a single, all-wheel-drive package.
Guess what — Roger met his dream car at the Auto Show.
Suzuki’s SX4 is a small hatchback equipped with standard all-wheel-drive. It competes in a growing new class of entry-level subcompacts aimed at economy-minded but quality-oriented buyers. Its foes include the hatchback versions of the Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa and Kia Rio.
Thanks to standard all-wheel-drive, the SX4 stands out in even that worthy crowd: With its base price of $15,594, including destination, it’s the least expensive AWD car offered in the U.S.
In base form, the SVX is reasonably well equipped, comfortable and versatile. It appears to be sturdily built and should things go wrong, its powertrain is backed by a 100,000-mile/10-year, fully transferable, no-deductible limited warranty.
And here’s the Rosetta stone, just in case you’re wondering about that name: S stands for Sport, X for crossover and 4 for four seasons.
Cute, right? Okay, here’s the rest:
Generous accommodations
The SX4 is larger than all its competitors but the Versa and has class-leading interior space.
Fold down the rear seat and the SX4 offers a whopping 54 cubic feet of cargo room. Only the Versa comes close, at 50 cf. With the rear seat in use, cargo space drops to 38.1 cf, or more than what’s found in most normal trunks and more than enough to clobber the competition. Front-seat occupants enjoy 41.4 inches of legroom and acres of headroom. Rear-seat legroom rivals that of some midsize cars.
Standard features on all SX4s include air conditioning, keyless entry, tilt steering and roof rails.
The Spartan interior is laid out logically with a simple design based on circular shapes and swooping lines. The gauges are easily read and knobs and buttons have a quality feel.
The standard, five-speaker audio system includes a CD player with MP3 playback. An uplevel system adds a six-disc in-dash changer and four more speakers, including a subwoofer. An auxiliary MP3-player input device can be ordered from the dealer.
A Sport trim package ($16,994) adds automatic climate control, cruise control, heated mirrors, keyless remote entry and start, and stability control and traction control systems.
A bit of bulk
The weight of the AWD system turns the SX4 into a little porker. At nearly 3,000 pounds, it’s 500 pounds heavier than the Fit and 200 lbs. heavier than the Versa.
A 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine makes a class-leading 143 horsepower – but the extra weight offsets any expected performance gains. At 11.3 seconds, 0-60 is a stroll. Freeway entrances demand nerve and two-lane passing is more a concept than a strategy.
The combination of weight and AWD renders the SX4 the thirstiest of the lot, too; its fuel economy ratings are substantially lower than the competitors’.
Versatile AWD
In its favor, the three-mode AWD system is more versatile than most. The default mode is front-wheel-drive, but the driver can select automatic all-wheel-drive for slippery conditions; in this mode, torque is adjusted on the fly, with up to 50 percent of the power routed to the rear wheels.
The SX4 also has a locking differential, which allows the driver to lock in a 50-front/50-rear torque split. That can be a big help when the snow piles up, or when one is trying to accelerate from a dead stop on a slippery incline. At 36 miles per hour, the system kicks back into standard AWD.
Don’t plan to pilot your SX4 into the deep woods, though; Suzuki explicitly warns it’s not intended for off-road use.
The SX4 is equipped with disc brakes at all four corners – rather than the disc front/drum rear setup offered by others as standard gear. Anti-lock braking is also standard.
The SX4 has front and rear stabilizer bars, while the rest make do with a single bar up front.
A word of warning: A pair of stabilizer bars does not translate into superior chassis dynamics; they merely help the Suzuki take advantage of the goods with which its chassis and suspension engineers have blessed it.
The acid test
A friend test-drove the SX4 and described its handling as “twitchy,” but I suspect he would find that to be a hazard of the class. None of these small cars, with their short wheelbases, rides like a bigger one
The SX4 maneuvers nimbly in traffic and provides a respectable ride in normal conditions. It was predictably choppy on our broken spring streets.
It sporty profile notwithstanding, the SX4 is more practical transportation than sport hatch. It has neither enough power nor suspension sophistication to fuel one’s fire. It is sufficiently communicative and responsive, however, to make it a pleasant companion.
In the past year, a host of interesting new options has become available to entry-level buyers. The SX4 adds the practical dimension of AWD.
That’s enough to excite my friend Roger and I’m guessing he won’t be alone.