Road test report -------- August 2009 ----------------by Kevin Fenix.

Suzuki Alto

This car is such fun to drive !

I freely admit that I like driving. Down through the years I have been fortunate to have been given the opportunity to drive a wide variety of cars, from large North American cars, to practically all the European makes, as well as Japanese and South Korean cars. This diversity includes rear wheel drive, front wheel drive and four wheel drive, both on and off-road. Some of these cars have been superb to drive, others relaxing to drive, pleasant to drive and exhilarating to drive. Then there are a few that have been Fun to drive.
Early in my motoring life, my father bought one of the first Minis to come on the market and he allowed me to drive it at weekends. It was FUN to drive, although it had its foibles. Then some seven years later I bought my first new car, a Fiat 500 and that car, which I still have, was FUN to drive. Now during my test session with this Suzuki Alto, I have discovered all over again, what driving FUN is all about. Frankly I love it.

Looking back over the years, all the cars that were fun to drive, had one thing in common, they were minimalist. They were designed to do a job, without fuss or unnecessary embellishment. Most had smallish rather raucous engines, but that was all part of the fun. Down through the years motorists’ expectations have expanded, so what is considered minimalist today, was considered to be the height of luxury when I first took to the roads as a driver. For example, things like multi speed windscreen wipers, heated rear windows, power assisted steering, cabin heating/ventilating and radios, were all things that had yet to be invented, or if they were available, were only fitted as rather expensive optional extras.
By those standards, this Suzuki Alto, would be considered to be very luxurious indeed. After all it has multi speed electric wipers, a rear wiper, a heated rear window, cabin heating and ventilation, electric power assisted steering, with a height adjustable steering wheel, electric front windows, servo assisted, anti-lock brakes exterior rear view mirrors, not to mention a covered vanity mirror in the driver’s sun visor. Not only does it have a radio, but it has a CD player as well. The system is MP3/WMA compatible and if all that is not enough it has a socket to let you plug in your iPod. The luxuries do not end there, as it has remote controlled locking and unlocking, two cupholders in the front seating area, plus two bottle holders for rear seat passengers, childproof locks, ISOfix fittings in the rear seat for child safety seats, with two front and two side airbags for the front seat occupants.
Thus the Alto certainly could not be described as minimalist by the level of its standard equipment. Perhaps the minimalist only applies to its compact overall size and its small capacity engine.

Its compact overall size makes it ideally suited to its roll as a city runabout, but as I found during this test, it is also perfectly happy out in a rural landscape. So you can comfortably cope with congested city traffic all week and at the weekends you can just as comfortably get away from it all and enjoy the open countryside. According to the recognised EU testing standards, it gives a highly satisfactory 51 mpg (5.5 lt/100 km) on the urban cycle, yet when you can get away from it all, it delivers an excellent 74 mpg (3.8 lt/100 km) on the extra urban cycle. Taken together this gives a combined cycle average of 64 mpg (4.4 lt/100 km), which I am sure will be highly satisfactory to the vast majority of potential owners. This level of fuel consumption yields an exhaust emissions reading of 103 gm/km, putting the Alto comfortably into Irish road tax band A, which, at present rates, carries an annual charge of 104 euro.
I consider its performance to be equally satisfactory. Top speed is 154 kph (95 mph), with 0-100 kph acceleration in 13.5 seconds. In congested urban city traffic, you are lucky if you can crawl along at 8 kph (5 mph), while out on the open road, even on an uncongested motorway, the national speed limit is 125 kph (77 mph), which is well below the Alto’s full potential. That brings me to the 0-100 kph acceleration figure. Yes, there most certainly are, a vast number of cars on the roads today, that easily out perform that figure, but in heavy urban traffic, they very rarely get the opportunity to exploit their full potential. Even if they do win a stop lights grand prix, you will be right on their tails a few seconds later, as they have to slow down for the next obstruction. If you have your wits about you and happen to get away first, you have that priceless advantage in that your nose is ahead of them, making it difficult for them to get in ahead, with all the other traffic on the road.
This is where the FUN comes in ! You are sitting at the lights, watching the traffic that has right of way. You keep an eye out for pedestrians and cyclists, although these latter are an almost impossible task, as they come out of nowhere and pay absolutely no heed at all to traffic lights, pedestrians, or any other traffic on the road. Then just before the lights change you slip it into first and as the green appears, you are away. The little three cylinder engine gets rather raucous as the revs rise and in a flash you slip ito second gear. Your adrenaline starts pumping through your body and as it does so a big grin spreads happily across your face. This is life, this is Fun ! You don’t need radios, CDs, iPods MP3s or any other gadgets, the sound of that little engine roaring into life is all the sound you need. On the open road other traffic may pass you, but as you come up to a curve or corner, you brake momentarily, drop a gear or two, then accelerate all the way through the corner. The Alto may have a rather basic suspension, but it sticks to the road like a leech, that adrenaline pumps like fury and you feel the glow of satisfaction all over. This is life, this is living, this is FUN !

The instrument panel is kept beautifully simple, with no unnecessary frills to distract you. There is a large analogue speedometer under a hood behind the steering wheel. In the same housing just below the speedometer face, there is a digital panel, that shows the fuel gauge, and some other information, like the trip recorder and a clock. This can be varied to give a choice of information. There is no need for a tachometer, as the sound of that little engine buzzing away is all the indication you need for gearchanging. Most of the time it will cruise along in almost complete silence, but get the revs up and it lets you know that it is hard at work.
The gearchange itself is smooth and precise, with short movements from one ratio to the next. It cruised along very contentedly in fourth, so that I frequently forget to shift up into fifth. When I did so I discovered that you needed to be doing around 80 kph (50 mph) for the engine to cruise smoothly in fifth. Below that you could frequently detect a note of strain coming from under the bonnet.
The audio system is in the top centre of the facia, with the clearly marked, heating/ventilating below, plus a handy open storage shelf between the two. Over on the passenger side there is a large open storage box, while in the central console, below the heating/ventilating, there are further smaller open storage spaces. It is all so simple, so accessible, so easy to use, without distracting you from the main pleasure of driving.
The electrically power assisted steering is geared to give a very comfort oriented 3.5 turns from lock to lock. However, on the road it never felt too low geared for fast and precise steering adjustments. The brakes, however, which are servo assisted with a small diameter, ventilated disc at the front and a simple drum at the rear, did occasionally feel as if they were not quite up to coping with spirited driving. The system does have anti-lock with electronic force distribution. Possibly the fact that the car is relatively light in weight, means that a large sweep area is not required, for normal urban motoring.
The driver’s seat was comfortable, with an adequate range of fore and aft plus backrest angle adjustment.

The rear seat will accommodate two adults, but here I must add a few qualifications. If your front seat occupants are above average height (1.75 metres - 5’9”), they will need to have the front seats set further back and this will reduce the legroom for rear seat passengers. However, if all passengers are of average height, the rear seat occupants should have just about enough kneeroom and headroom. The windows on the two rear doors are hinged at their forward edges and open outwards, from a catch on their trailing edges. When extra luggage needs to be carried the back of the rear seat folds down horizontally onto the seat cushion.

Normal luggage space under the detachable rear shelf is 0.129 cubic metres and this expands to 0.367 cubic metres when the rear seat back is folded flat. Suzuki say that the Alto was not designed for towing trailers and carrying loads on the roof is not recommended, so if you do go away on a trip and you have rear seat passengers, you will have to learn to travel light. On the other hand if there are only two travelling, you can fold the rear seat backrest down and then you should have plenty of space.

Above left : Normal luggage space ----------------- Above right : Maximum luggage space

A Spacesaver spare wheel is stored under the luggage floor. It is on a pressed steel rim, but unusually it has four round ventilation holes in it.

Technical data