2021 Suzuki Swift Sport Series II review
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TechTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. How cool is the name BoosterJet?
00:03That's the name of the engine that Suzuki fits under the bonnet of the Swift Sport, and the Swift Sport has this massive
00:09heritage. It goes back ages. It used to be a fun car that was cheap,
00:14economical, and then just enjoyable to drive on a mountain road.
00:18Now with the name like BoosterJet, it sounds like a fighter jet, something nice and fast. This is priced at just under
00:24$29,000. The Swift Sport competes with cars like the Volkswagen Polo GTI,
00:28the Ford Fiesta ST, and the Renault Clio RS.
00:32Today, we're going to do a detailed review of the Swift Sport, and if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of
00:38this review, just use the time codes up on the screen there.
00:41Or if you're on YouTube, you can use the chapters below. And if you haven't done so already,
00:45I'd love it if you could subscribe to our channel, and also press the bell icon so you can find out every single time we
00:50drive a BoosterJet.
00:52So the Suzuki Swift has been updated. All the base models get some new trimmings down the front here,
00:58but the Swift Sport stays pretty much the same.
01:01You won't really tell much of a difference on the outside. It comes with seven colors, and all but white is an extra
01:07$595. Or you can get this two-tone version here, which is just under $1,100. Now, let's have a look at this design.
01:13There's like this faux carbon fiber plastic front end. Nice little grill there with that proudly worn Suzuki logo.
01:19And then you've got this lower carbon fiber-esque trim down the bottom. It's quite a cool-looking car.
01:24The standard Swift looks good, and I think with the Sport, they just give it that edgy look. This car weighs under
01:311,000 kilograms. So you get the idea that this is fun to throw around and will be powerful because it just doesn't really weigh much,
01:38so you don't need to have a lumpy big engine under the bonnet. Now, in terms of headlights, you get full
01:43bi-LED headlights with LED daytime running lights. Fog lamps down there. Jump around here to the wheels.
01:5117-inch alloy wheels, and I love this design. You've got that chrome finish there on the black.
01:55195 wide, so they're not massive tires, but it's not a massive amount of power,
01:59so you don't need too much holding this to the ground.
02:01It's quite a nice look. It looks sporty, but also stylish at the same time.
02:06These black mirror caps match that two-tone roof that continues on the top here. You get privacy glass, and check this out, an
02:13inbuilt door handle. So instead of having it down here, they've kind of chucked it up the top there.
02:18I like the look of that. Down the bottom, a little more of that carbon fiber-y fake stuff.
02:22And then come around to the back, the spoiler tucked into the roof there. LED tail lights,
02:26and then these two exhausts that sit within this. More carbon fiber-esque type stuff.
02:31It is really quite a cool and aggressive looking car.
02:34And then, of course, you know it's the Sport because you've got the red Sport badge under the Swift.
02:38Let me know in the comments below, do you think it's a good-looking car? I'm a big fan of the way this is designed.
02:43So we're inside the Suzuki Swift Sport.
02:46I like the way that it looks. On face value, you can see all these red highlights down here as well.
02:51Got that nice steering wheel with the red stitching in it, too.
02:54But then when you start looking at it a little bit closer, you start noticing that everything is super cheap in here.
03:00It just feels like a standard Swift that they've just thrown a little bit of red stuff at. So, I don't know,
03:05it's a pretty expensive way to get yourself into a Sport if it all is going to look like this. How hard is it all?
03:10Well, we've got our hardness tester.
03:12It measures from 0 to 100, where 0 is soft and 100 is hard.
03:15And I want to give you an idea of what that feels like.
03:19There we go. That has virtually maxed out our durometer.
03:23That is pretty bad. What about this center section? Well, there's no console there, so I reckon we try the doors.
03:29Okay, that's nice and soft. And then what about the top here?
03:34That is absolutely rock hard. So yeah, I don't know, not a huge fan of that. A lot of scratchy surfaces.
03:40What about the build quality? Well, not amazing. If you look at this center section,
03:43that's all sort of moving around a lot. On top of that, this thing has also completely come loose on the driver's side.
03:49So this section here, it's just snapped off and is just whistling in the wind there. So yeah, not very impressive.
03:55Let's have a look at the infotainment system you get in the Suzuki Swift Sport. I'm actually a fan of this.
04:00It is very simple, very basic, but it does everything that it says on the box.
04:04It's a 7-inch screen that slots into this area here. The home screen is divided into four sections.
04:11You have listen up the top, which is for radio. You have AM and FM bands.
04:15There's no DAB plus digital radio in there, unfortunately.
04:18You can then flick over to media where you'll find USB connectivity plus Bluetooth and the ability to stream from an SD card and
04:25an auxiliary port. We jump back over to the home screen. You have inbuilt satellite navigation. This works fairly well.
04:30It's not the best system in the world, but it's, you know, it does the job.
04:34So let's have a test here. Put in our favourite destination, points of interest search. We'll put in Melbourne Airport.
04:41Okay, so already this is a little bit annoying because I have to put in an area for the point of interest search country, Australia.
04:50And then you're going to put in the city, which is, actually I don't even know where Melbourne Airport is.
04:56So this immediately is kind of convoluted because if you don't know the place that you're trying to search,
05:02you won't be able to find the point of interest, which is a little bit frustrating. So that's not great.
05:06What about an address? Okay, so that's all pretty straightforward.
05:08You just put in the country, city, postcode, blah, blah, blah, and then it goes.
05:11So that is your inbuilt satellite navigation.
05:13But you also have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is built into the screen and wired.
05:19So you have to use a cable. You don't have a wireless setup. This works fairly well.
05:24It takes up the entire screen. You can flick through those menus and you can also send voice commands to your phone
05:29so that the voice recognition system is better. The car's inbuilt voice recognition system works okay, but it's not amazing.
05:35So you're not able to give it full navigation commands. You can give it basic instructions like calling contacts though.
05:41So let me disconnect CarPlay. This is what the phone menu looks like.
05:45You've got your previous call history, contacts, and a dial pad as well. And then finally you have shortcuts.
05:49So in the center you have your favorite items.
05:51So you can click on any of those and then each of your pillars has a shortcut.
05:56So if you want to go straight to destination entry, you can go there.
05:58Or if you want to go to your sources, you can go to the shortcut in the listen menu.
06:02Okay, enough about the infotainment system. Let's look at the rest of the features you get in the car.
06:06So you have autonomous emergency braking that works at low and high speed and detects pedestrians.
06:11It's now matched with blind spot monitoring. You get adaptive cruise control, but you miss out on a couple of little creature comforts.
06:18You don't have an auto dimming mirror, for example.
06:21But you do get single zone automatic climate control.
06:23And if you dive down here, you have a USB port, auxiliary port, a 12 volt outlet.
06:28There's also a digital speedometer that now sits inside this LCD display that includes other functions such as the trip computer.
06:35You also get a clock, this cool little G meter, a torque and power gauge, and also a boost gauge.
06:41You also get rear parking sensors and a reverse view camera.
06:45Reverse view camera isn't amazing. The quality is pretty poor, especially at nighttime.
06:49It's a bit hard to see what's going on around there, but it is backed up by those sensors.
06:52Now, what does the key look like? Have a look at this. How cute is it?
06:55So it's a tiny little key. Lock, unlock, and then on the back of it, you've got the Suzuki symbol.
07:00And it's a proximity sensing key. So you just grab the door handle to unlock the car and then you have push-button start.
07:05So let's look at practicality and we'll start with storage. Where are you going to put your phone?
07:09Fits in the back there, there as well, and also slots down the front. No wireless phone charging.
07:14What about your water bottle?
07:16Fits into one bottle holder there and then into both bottle holders here.
07:21And then inside the door, you can also stick a bottle in there with a little bit of room behind it.
07:25Now, there isn't a center console here.
07:27So there's no way to really store things out of sight from everyone outside, but you do get a glove box.
07:33Reasonably sized, fits the manual in there, plus a couple of other bits and pieces, and that's about it for storage.
07:38Now, what about comfort? These seats are great. They actually look really cool.
07:41You've got the sport insignia on them. You get those red stitching highlights.
07:45They are entirely cloth, but they do hug you in nicely.
07:48And the seating position is really great, too.
07:50The steering wheel fits beautifully in the hand.
07:52And then you've got some paddle shifters there, a flat bottom, and then all of your controls are very easy to reach.
07:58Okay, back seat. What's it like back here?
08:01Not a great deal of legroom, but that's to be expected given how big the car is.
08:05So I have my seat in my normal driving position. You can see my knees are sort of nestled into the back there.
08:11But it's not too bad. It's not like they're getting pushed in on.
08:14In terms of toe room, reasonable. Headroom is reasonable as well.
08:19And I feel okay back here. I'm not too claustrophobic, and I can see out the windows.
08:24Now, there isn't a center armrest here, so where do you put your bottle?
08:27You can store it there, or you have one bottle holder in the door.
08:32You have ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats, and then map pockets just for the passenger side.
08:38It's pretty basic back here, and it continues the theme with all the scratchy stuff.
08:42There is not one soft surface on here. Even the door armrest is really, really hard as well.
08:48So it doesn't feel all that premium back here.
08:51So it isn't the world's biggest car, but how much boot space do you have?
08:55Well, not a great deal, unfortunately. You have far less than your competitors.
08:59So that is a little bit disappointing. So 265 litres of cargo space in this area.
09:04You can see it's quite a high lip as well, so you're gonna have to load things over that.
09:08It's under the floor. No spare tyre. You just get a tyre repair kit, which is interesting.
09:14Let's see if we can drop these seats, because that expands the space.
09:18So we get this little cargo blind out of the way. How cute is it?
09:23This then allows us to drop the seats, and then we get 918 litres of cargo space.
09:29We'll see what it looks like with our bags in there as well, our suitcase.
09:33There we go. That fits in very nice and snugly.
09:41So we've hit the road in the Swift Sport. What exactly is a booster jet engine?
09:46It is Suzuki's terminology for a 1.4-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine
09:51that makes 103 kilowatts of power and 230 newton metres of torque.
09:56When you look at that from an equation of power to weight, that's actually pretty impressive.
10:00It's over 100 kilowatts per tonne, so that makes this a fairly sporty little car.
10:04And that's all mated to a six-speed automatic transmission that sends torque to the front wheels.
10:10Now, in terms of fuel economy, given the car is so light, it means 6.1 litres per 100 kilometres
10:15on the combined cycle, but if we look at our trip computer, we're currently averaging 7,
10:21just over 7 litres per 100 kilometres. So close enough to that claim, and I mean,
10:26I keep saying this, but given the car is so light, you're never going to see
10:29massive fuel consumption here, even when you get up it.
10:32The only downside to this whole package is that when it comes to fuelling,
10:35you're going to need to feed it with 95-ron premium unleaded petrol,
10:39so it's going to cost you a little bit more over the long run.
10:41There aren't any drive modes per se, but the gearbox is adaptive, so it's learning your style.
10:46It'll hold gears if it needs to, but you've got paddle shifters and you can lock it into
10:50a manual mode. So we've flicked it down there. We've got a couple of corners coming up.
10:54Roll into this. It feels really good as you lean into it. It's got a little bit of roll to it,
10:59but it's not offensive. Gearbox doesn't really want to shift down there all that much.
11:03Roll onto the throttle here, give that a big old punch.
11:06You'll feel that inside wheel slipping a little bit there. There's no limited slip differential.
11:12Still not letting me shift down, that's annoying. See if it holds gears or stay in that.
11:18No, it doesn't hold gears either, even in manual mode. I don't know,
11:21a little unimpressed with that. It's kind of, okay, it's an automatic gearbox,
11:24but you should be letting me hold gears and it's not overly quick either.
11:28As I flick down a gear, it's taking a little while there. Give it a punch.
11:32The mid-range acceleration is pretty impressive though. That 230 newton metres of torque
11:37feels like a lot when the car weighs this much. It's not sort of shoving you in the back,
11:42but it's more than enough to keep it moving. Given it doesn't have adaptive dampers and
11:46all that kind of stuff, the ride is actually pretty impressive. It's not too firm. It's
11:50not too soft. So you're getting this nice and compliant ride. It refuses to change gears.
11:56As you tip it in, you get that feel from the steering wheel, but it's not
11:59overly direct. I would have liked just a little bit more feel through the wheel.
12:03But surprisingly, it's actually on sweeping bends that it kind of comes into its own.
12:08You can get it tipped in, you feel that rear left wheel lifting a little bit,
12:11then you can roll onto the throttle and it just moves you away. There's really not a
12:15great deal of stability control intervention either. It just constantly feels like it's
12:19brusque and getting somewhere. So look, it doesn't feel as agile or sharp as some of the other cars
12:25that it competes with, but it's actually quite entertaining to drive. It feels, I don't know,
12:29a bit soft around the edges, but it doesn't feel like it's going to bite. It always feels like
12:34it's giving you enough leeway. Tell you what, one thing I'm not loving here is the engine noise.
12:39It just sounds really thrashy. The Polo GTI, the Fiesta ST, they both have a unique sound.
12:44They both crackle and pop. It's just really nothing coming out of this. I don't feel like
12:49it's special or engaging. So when you're done having fun and you go back into the normal drive
12:54mode, there's a fair bit of road noise that comes into the cabin. It's quite droney as you're on
12:59course chip roads, travelling at highway speeds. Visibility is excellent though. I can see clearly
13:03out the front. The wing mirrors on the side are big enough. You've got that blind spot monitoring
13:07system and visibility out the back is excellent too. Turning circle, given it is such a tiny
13:12little car, 10.2 metres, means you'll really have to be doing three-point turns. So the Suzuki
13:18Swift Sport, I really enjoyed the car. You nail the throttle, you find some corners and it puts
13:23a smile on your face. That is what these hot hatches are all about. But there is a bit of
13:27a problem because the last generation car was smile-inducing as well, but it was really cheap.
13:32This one has become a lot more expensive and I don't know that it's reflected inside the cabin.
13:37Still feels a little bit cheap for this price tag. And if you compare it to its peers, yes,
13:41they've gone up in price as well, but cars like the Fiesta ST and the Polo GTI are just so much
13:47more engaging to drive. They feel so much quicker and more athletic and dynamic and they feel like
13:52they're worth their price tag, whereas this feels like it's just creeping up a little bit too far.
13:56Let me know in the comments below, am I missing something here? Have you bought one of these?
14:00Let me know what you think about it and would you buy the Fiesta ST or the Volkswagen Polo GTI
14:05instead of this? If you did enjoy this video, I'd love it if you could hit the like button,
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14:13that'll tell you every single time we drive something new. But until next time, take it easy!