{"id":1288,"date":"2020-05-18T13:13:03","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T13:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/?p=1288"},"modified":"2020-05-18T13:13:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T13:13:05","slug":"suzuki-s-presso-1-0-s-edition-2020-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/?p=1288","title":{"rendered":"Suzuki S-Presso 1.0 S-Edition (2020) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>We haven&#8217;t&nbsp;been able to travel significant distances with the Suzuki<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>S-Presso, which joined&nbsp;our test fleet just before&nbsp;the national lockdown. David Taylor has nonetheless learnt a great deal&nbsp;about the Japanese brand&#8217;s newcomer. How does it stack up in the budget-car segment?&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We like:<\/strong>&nbsp;Pricing, standard features, free insurance, nippy performance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t like:<\/strong>&nbsp;Awkward driving position, vague steering, yet to receive a&nbsp;Global NCAP safety rating<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fast Facts&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Price:<\/strong>&nbsp;R147 900&nbsp;(May 2020)&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Engine:<\/strong>&nbsp;Naturally-aspirated 1.0-litre 3-cylinder petrol<\/li><li><strong>Power\/Torque:<\/strong>&nbsp;50 kW \/ 90 Nm&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Transmission:<\/strong>&nbsp;5-speed manual<\/li><li><strong>Fuel economy<\/strong>: 4.9 L\/100 km (27-litre tank)<\/li><li><strong>Load space:<\/strong>&nbsp;239 litres<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Suzuki must have&nbsp;noticed how well the Renault Kwid and Datsun Go were doing in terms of sales in developing markets and naturally wanted a slice of that share&#8230; The S-Presso hails from the Suzuki stronghold of India, where these entry-level cars have been tremendously successful; the Kwid also features prominently in local sales charts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first glance, the Suzuki S-Presso&#8217;s styling&nbsp;is best described as awkward and unconventional, but that&nbsp;is not necessarily a criticism \u2013&nbsp;car design seems to have become very safe and&nbsp;predictable of late, so it&#8217;s not all that often that something with ground-breaking looks comes to market. Hmm, is this&nbsp;a compact hatchback, or a baby SUV?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In S-Edition guise, the Indian-made newcomer could easily pass as the latter as this trim level adds design elements such as wheel-arch cladding, side body-cladding, silver upper-grille garnish&nbsp;and a front skid plate. The S-Presso&#8217;s 180 mm of ground clearance further leads us to lean towards a&nbsp;compact-SUV designation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How it performs in terms of\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Performance and economy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the bonnet is a compact 3-cylinder, 1.0-litre petrol engine. It produces&nbsp;50 kW and 90 Nm of torque and drives the front wheels via a 5-speed manual gearbox. Now, while those outputs seem paltry, it&#8217;s important to remember&nbsp;the Suzuki doesn&#8217;t weigh all that much and not a lot of power is required to get it going. With a kerb weight of just 770 kg, the little 1.0 S-Edition&nbsp;feels surprisingly nippy and agile to drive. Aided by a light-action clutch and snappy manual gearbox, the newcomer darts through the traffic as if it were a motorcycle, albeit a 4-wheeled one. That&#8217;s a win in our books, although you don&#8217;t really want to &#8220;stretch the engine&#8217;s legs&#8221; \u2013 it&nbsp;sounds quite harsh&nbsp;high up in the rev range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>True to most of Suzuki&#8217;s offerings, the new S-Presso is quite light on fuel. While we couldn&#8217;t quite achieve&nbsp;the claimed consumption figure of 4.9 L\/100 km, the&nbsp;indicated return of 5.5 L\/100 (after driving exclusively on urban roads&nbsp;\u2013 in other words, to the shops and back&nbsp;\u2013 was impressive. One minor gripe, however, is the size of the fuel tank (27 litres), which is only marginally smaller than the Kwid&#8217;s (28 litres), but consider&nbsp;that rivals such as the Datsun Go+ and Hyundai Atos offer 35-litre tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under lockdown, the S-Presso was limited to making supply runs&nbsp;for the most part. We spent the majority of our time behind its &#8216;wheel pottering through the suburbs, where its ride quality proved&nbsp;acceptable. Helped by 14-inch wheels wrapped in higher-profile tyres,&nbsp;the suspension absorbed&nbsp;cracks and bumps, especially those pesky under-tar tree roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vehicle does tend to exhibit&nbsp;a measure of body roll when&nbsp;cornering at moderate speeds, which, given its tall stature, is to be expected. While the overall driving experience is fair, the Suzuki&nbsp;falls short of the&nbsp;benchmark set by its Korean rival \u2013&nbsp;the Hyundai Atos, which exhibits arguably the best driving manners in its segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our main gripe with the S-Presso is its&nbsp;perched driving position:&nbsp;you feel as if you&#8217;re sitting on the car, as opposed to in it. There&#8217;s no rake- or reach-adjustment&nbsp;for&nbsp;the steering column, so it&#8217;s tricky for tall&nbsp;occupants to get comfortable behind the Suzuki&#8217;s tiller.&nbsp;What&#8217;s more, the newcomer&#8217;s steering is fair, but it lacks feel and responsiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another annoyance was quite a bit of wind noise when travelling at&nbsp;triple-digit speeds. Parking manoeuvres proved an absolute cinch to execute, however;&nbsp;thanks to its&nbsp;tiny turning circle, the S-Presso can deal with (what would usually be) 3-point&nbsp;turns in 2 movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Interior execution and features<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The cabin of the S-Presso is a fun and interesting space to occupy. There&#8217;s an air of youthfulness here, replete with bright, colourful trim around the centrally-mounted speedometer\/trip computer module and ventilation outlets. There are some cheap-feeling materials, but that&nbsp;is par for this segment and not a deal-breaker whatsoever.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Budget cars used to be stripped-out econoboxes, but these days manufacturers load&nbsp;as many mod-cons&nbsp;into their entry-level products as they can&nbsp;in a bid to appeal to buyers&nbsp;looking for optimal value. The Suzuki comes with a 7-inch infotainment touchscreen with Android Auto\/Apple CarPlay connectivity and USB\/12V charging ports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve become&nbsp;accustomed to controlling the Android Auto interface&nbsp;via voice control (activated by a button on the steering wheel), but because the S-Presso does not have a multifunction &#8216;wheel, the&nbsp;service needs to be activated via&nbsp;a button on the touchscreen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of standard fare, there&#8217;s a manual&nbsp;air-conditioner, a reverse-view camera, rear parking sensors, electric windows, as well as Bluetooth connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On-paper safety features include anti-lock brakes with electronic brake-force distribution and&nbsp;dual front airbags. Suzuki claims its new Heartect platform has been designed to disperse impact energy better in&nbsp;the event of a&nbsp;vehicular collision. However, there&#8217;s yet to be a crash test for this newcomer, so we&#8217;ll wait for that before passing judgement on this vehicle in terms of its safety credentials. The budget segment doesn&#8217;t have a stellar track record when it comes to this, we&#8217;re hopeful the S-Presso will&nbsp;buck the trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We haven&#8217;t&nbsp;been able to travel significant distances with the Suzuki S-Presso, which joined&nbsp;our test fleet just before&nbsp;the national lockdown. David Taylor has nonetheless learnt a great deal&nbsp;about the Japanese brand&#8217;s&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1290,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1288\/revisions\/1290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diepslootnews.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}