2009 Suzuki SX4 Sport Review

2009 Suzuki SX4 Sport Review You know Mercury uses that tag line, "You’ve got to put Mercury on your list!" But over at Suzuki, they should use something similar “Please, put Suzuki on your list!” No one I know ever thinks about this car but that is kind of a mistake. Let's go for a run in this Suzuki SX4 with the tech package. There are some surprises inside. So, you look around and you say, "Okay, it's a Suzuki SX4, kind of a lowly economy vehicle.” But let me show you something because ours is loaded. Look at that, a flip up navigation system. Now I know, it's kind of like the way I would do flip up navigation. I'd get some glue. I'd stick it on the back of a Garmin but I'll tell you, it's remarkably effective. First of all, a nice bright screen, thank you Garmin that’s a Nuvi 760 by the way and it's in the perfect position. It's right there in your periphery as you're driving, as opposed to having to look down here to get your nav. Now the downsides, it’s way out there and it's a touch screen, so keep going. You do have dockablity. So, push the button on the bottom and it comes out. Now, because it is a garden variety Garmin and a good unit, it's really easy to live with and it's a nice piece of navigation technology. But here's the cool part. Go over here to the tools. MSN Direct services are here and that's a lot of stuff including live traffic, which is a pretty high-end feature even these days but it's there. This is all on a wireless, updated connection. You've also got weather, gas prices, movie times, news, stocks, local events, even some web links you can program in here. So, it's got all of the online technologies you'll see in a lot of the high-end systems like Sirius Travel Link. What it doesn't have in the same sense is the built-in search and nav that we saw on the late great Dash Express. What you do have here under web favorites is you go to your desk. You find something through MSN search and then you can send it to your unit but you can't initiate the search right here. Now, as innovative as that nav system is, is how non-innovative this audio system is. Four speakers, AM/FM, we got a CD in here. It's not a changer by the way. It's a single disc. It does have MP3 and WMA disc readability. So, you can burn your own and put lots on there. There's an aux jack but it shows up as an option for $68.00. No true iPod connector is available. You have to live with that optional aux jack. There is a button here for XM but as it says right here, “It’s XM ready”. You've got to option that up. I think that's a dealer-installed module. Two leaders of inline-four provide 143 horsepower, 138 foot-pounds of torque. For comparison, a Honda Civic does almost the same numbers but with 200cc less engine. The base gearbox in our SX4 is a five-speed manual but we have the optional four-speed automatic. The Suzuki delivers 22/30 MPG with a manual gearbox. Suzuki competes more on price than economy and it has a power edge over its key Asian rivals. Okay, let's price our little SX4 sport tech. This is kind of the king of the hill for this model. And including the fancy body and the wheels and the nav rig and all of that, only about eighteen, three delivered. Your options include the automatic, like we have for a kind of steep $1100.00 or for almost chump change, $68.00 for the aux rig. They got to give that to you free, right? By the way, the warranty on this car is pretty stout, 100,000 miles, seven years and it's transferable. That's on the powertrain. That's part of the value formula for a value car.