Category: Small 4x4s 
Price Range: £13,600 to £18,475
Looks neat and contemporary, good off-road ability, handles quite well, good value for a 4x4.
Restless ride, lacklustre performance, coarse engines and transmissions, feels dated to drive.
Not the advance we'd hoped for after experiencing the competent Swift. We await the diesel version with interest: meanwhile, a Kia Sportage is a much better bet.
A white Vitara with outsize wheels, driven by a peroxide blonde in Essex is most people's perception of the compact Suzuki 4x4, be it the original, square-cut version or the additional Grand Vitara model of 1997. Now there's another new Vitara, also prefixed 'Grand' even though there's no longer a non-Grand version.
The new compact SUV has been designed with European sales in mind, the three-door version available only on this continent. Japanese buyers get the five-door model only, known as the Escudo. Unlike previous Vitaras the new one has a unitary body, albeit with a reinforcing ladder frame welded onto it underneath, rather as Land Rover has done with the Discovery and the Range Rover Sport. Like the upmarket British 4x4s, the Vitara is also heavy: even the three-door weighs nearly a ton-and-a-half. The wheelbase is longer than before, the floor and roof are lower, but ground clearance is still ample for off-road use.
Suzuki has long been adamant that its 4x4s are true off-roaders, but with the three-door Vitara it's now treading soft-roader territory. These models - with a 106bhp, 1.6-litre engine and variable valve timing - lack a low-ratio range for the four-wheel drive system, so they're not serious off-roaders. The four-wheel drive is permanent, though, unlike in past Vitaras, using a Torsen centre diff with a 47% front, 53% rear torque split under normal conditions.
The five-door Vitaras do have a low-ratio option, selected by a rotary fascia switch which can also lock the centre diff for serious off-roading. They also have more equipment, different lights and a 2.0-litre, 140bhp engine.
Neither Vitara engine is overendowed with torque, despite that attribute's usefulness for off-roading or towing: they manage 107lb ft (1.6) and 135lb ft (2.0), these peak values reached in each case around a high 4000rpm. There's also a Renault diesel engine, a 1.9-litre unit with 129bhp and a much more useful 221lb ft of torque, delivered at 2000rpm. This might well prove to be the Grand Vitara of choice, although Suzuki is also considering a V6 model.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Suzuki Grand Vitara
wrote on 16 10 2008