Private Fleet Car Review: 2016 Suzuki Celerio CVT
Suzuki have built their reputation on providing niche filling small cars. The Alto was one such car and the nameplate has now been retired, in 2015 and changed to Celerio. It drives straight into a crowded market, with cars such as Holden’s Spark, Ford’s Fiesta and Toyota’s Yaris to contend with. A Wheel Thing checks out the 1.0 litre engine and CVT version of the 2016 Suzuki Celerio.
Considered a “city” car, the Celerio fits the bill with that 1.0 litre, three cylinder, engine. It develops 50 kilowatts at 6000 revs and 90 Newton metres of torque at 3500 revs. Unsurprisingly, it’s also light on the juice, with Suzuki quoting just 4.8L/100 km on a combined cycle from its miniscule 35 litre tank. A Wheel Thing covered over 550 kilometres in the city cycle and still had just under a half tank left. That’s an impressive statistic, given the engine needs a good prodding to get the car moving and even more impressive given the hill climbing the car did.
The CVT is old school, in that there’s no preprogrammed steps or manual gearchanges. It’s purely plant the foot and go. Although, there is a “Sports” button on the selector lever which made no real apparent difference. As a result, you’ll se upwards of four thousand on the tacho before it slides back to around two thousand. There’s a hesitation in the transmission too, between pushing the go pedal and actually getting forward motion. Yes, it’s noisy and thrashy with the CVT, it would be interesting to see how it drives with the manual gearbox it also comes with.
Inside, it’s back to basics for the strictly four seater; dials for the aircon bar a button for fresh or recirculate (and getting heat into the cabin is quick), manual adjustment for the seats but you do get electric mirrors and windows. Only the driver’s window is Auto and that’s down only. Audio wise, it’s a non touchscreen setup, reverting to an old school red LCD screen and there’s no steering wheel mounted controls. You do get USB, Auxuliary and CD. The cloth seats are comfy but you can feel it’s that poly-urethane filling that will soon compress but for now, they’ll do.
There’s a tiny cargo space, at just 254 litres, perhaps just large enough for a single person’s weekly shop, which is in keeping with the intended audience the Celerio is aimed at. That does increase to a maximum of 1053 litres, but that would also involve blocking rearward vision. Interior plastics are bland, shining into the front window, but there’s hints of brightwork in the cabin. There’s no centre console but spaces for two cups/bottles and again the sun visors are too short for true effectiveness.
Out on the road, it’s an interesting and potentially entertaining drive. Yes, it’s slow with the CVT. Yes, it’s noisy with the CVT. It’s noisy, full stop, with road and wind noise very noticeable, especially on the coarse chip surfaces found in NSW. But it will eventually get you where you need to be. That lag between pressing the accelerator and getting forward motion is an annoyance, but at least the brakes haul up the Celerio well enough, with discs at the front and drums at the rear.
It’s a moderately good handler, will crash the front suspension and feel as if the front struts will fall out when going at a moderate speed over the bigger traffic calming devices. It’s oddly taut at slower speeds, with smaller bumps feeling bigger than they are.
It’s also highly susceptible to cross winds, in part due to the boxy shape and slabby sides. having very narrow track tyres doesn’t do much for stability either, with “tramlining” also a feature of the Celerio’s handling. It, too, will skip across some unsettled and rough surfaces, with a solid beam, three links, rear axle. A huge bonus those, that’s directly related to its size, is just how easy it is to park, even lacking a reverse camera and parking sensors. Steering is quick enough for most driving situations yet also feels as if the assistance it has is somewhat underpowered, given the narrowness of the tyre tread, at just 165/65 on 14 inch diameter wheels.
At The End Of The Drive.
Suzuki offer a three year/100,000 kilometre warranty and for most, that’s peace of mind enough. With the Celerio seemingly aimed at a market that would drive far less than thirty odd thousand kilometres per year, that’s more than enough.
Lotus Cars Australia: Light Is Right
To go fast in a car, you can add power or lose weight. Or both. Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus said: “Adding power makes you faster on the straights, subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.” Weight becomes an enemy, losing helps everywhere, such as braking and cornering. This philosophy is at the core of the Lotus Cars company and each car remains true to that philosophy.
All cars are developed using what Lotus calls the Lightweight Laboratory Concept. All parts are looked at and measured in context to themselves and to the whole car, providing ample opportunity to be redesigned and re-engineered if needing to be. Items such as carbon fibre are weighed up, literally and aesthetically, needing to be seen as adding proper and usable benefits, not just to look good.
The benefits of weight reduction come down to weight distribution, suspension calibration, allowing sharper handling and body control. To assist, Lotus don’t just use the super strong carbon fibre, they’re a world leader in using aluminuim, in bonded and extruded forms.
As an example, the chassis for the Lotus Elise and Exige weighs just 68 kilograms. This is roughly half the weight of the chassis if it were to be built in steel and being metal, less complicated than using carbon fibre.
To that end, Lotus’ latest offering, the Evora 400, sees unladen wights of 1395 to 1425 kilograms, depending on a buyer going manual or auto. Behind the driver and passenger sits a supercharged 3.5 litre capacity engine, in V6 configuration. Lotus quotes power and torque at 298 kilowatts and 410 torques. These are bolted into a chassis so torsionally strong, Lotus rate it at 27000 Newton metres per degree for rigidity. Sir can specify a six speed, close ratio, manual gearbox or a slick six speed auto.
But being a light weight doesn’t mean it’s a lightweight when it comes to features: ISOFIX child seat mounts in the rear two seats, heated and folding mirrors, leather trimmed heated seats, Alcantara trim as an option, Michelin Pilot Sport tyres in 235/35/19 &285/30/20 configuration and hiding Eibach springs and Bilstein dampers, bi-xenon headlights and to haul the lot in, AP Racing brakes. 
Needed when there’s a zero to one hundred kilometre per hour time of just 4.2 seconds. Consumption for the combined cycle is quoted as 9.7 litres of unleaded for every 100 kilometres driven.
For prices and extra information on the Lotus range, including the exciting new Evora Sport 410, please contact your local Lotus dealer or go here: Lotus Cars Australia
Which Cars Are Stolen The Most Often?
We all know that it’s probably not a wise idea to leave your car unlocked on a dimly lit street overnight if you want to see it again in the morning. Most of us know enough to at least lock the doors and take other measures, including garaging the car if our house has a garage or at least shutting the gate if all we’ve got is a driveway or carport. Nevertheless, there are some cars that are thief magnets, just like some cars are cop magnets.
Surprisingly enough, it’s not the flash new sports cars such as Porsche 911s that are the thief magnets (cops are another story). The ones that tend to get nicked are the ones that are common – which means that they are harder to trace and more likely to end up in a chop shop with parts being swapped around to make a “new” vehicle out of the old one. In the list put out by the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council , you won’t find a number of the more glamorous marques on the list of vehicles stolen most often between April 2015 and March 2016. Looks like the light-fingered rotters out there just aren’t interested (much) in BMW, Porsche, Audi or Mercedes-Benz. Either that or the people who own these can also afford good garaging and security systems. The ones that go AWOL most often are marques like Holden (mostly Commodores), Ford (especially Falcons) and a handful of Nissans and Toyotas.
Private Fleet Car Review: 2016 Suzuki Vitara RT-X AllGrip 4×4 diesel
A Wheel Thing once sold cars. One brand was Suzuki so it is a genuine pleasure to have the 2016 Suzuki Vitara RT-S diesel AllGrip in the garage. For the second car of five from Suzuki that A Wheel Thing will review, the Vitara with the torquey 1.6 litre diesel was the one supplied, coinciding with a weekend away that included a visit to the Australian alps and to the home of one of Australia’s most recognised cheese brands, Bega.
First up, the RT-X looks exactly the same outside as the RT-S tested previously bar different painted alloys and the discreet AllGrip badge on the rear door. Well, unless you’re a train-spotter and notice the LED/xenon headlights, electric folding mirrors with LED flashers for the indicators, the different shade of plastic inserts for the front and rear bumpers, and are tall enough to see the panoramic sunroof. There’s also Parking sensors fitted to the RT-X.
Inside you’ll see suede cushioning on the leather seats, effectively making heating elements redundant, a light metallic grey plastic trim on the dash console with AllGrip badging, Auto headlights and rain sensing wipers, a push button for the Start/Stop which is out of the driver’s eyeline and sometimes not easily found intuitively, with the Parking sensor button (located in a strip just above the driver’s knee) being pressed instead. What the Vitara (and most cars) needs are the extensions to the interior sunshades when pulled over to the driver and passenger windows.
In between the front seats, you’ll find the selector for the six speed auto and a simple yet effective dial for the drive mode selector, being Auto, Sport, and Snow, with a tab saying Lock as well. These show up on the (still monochrome, why not colour?) centre screen in the binnacle facing the driver. There’s also an extra stalk for the tripmeter, compared to the single in the RT-S.
Closing the doors sometimes needed an extra push, as a “normal” closing move had the last door to be closed not fully sealing, indicating an extra bit of venting to equalise pressure is needed. There was also unexpected interior fogging, as in too much too often, especially when the exterior temperature was showing double digits.
Normal driving is left in Auto, Sport holds the upward gear changes longer (along with the paddle shifts on the steering column being called more into usage) and Snow looks after Mud and Gravel as well.
Even the Bluetooth streaming capable sound system gets an extra tickle, with a pair of tweeters fitted to the A pillars, improving the presence and soundstage. It’s not a vast improvement over the RT-S overall, but substantial enough to be a more comfortable listening environment for the office.
Up front is Suzuki’s chattery and throttle sensitive 1.6 litre diesel. Power is rated at 88 kilowatts (@ 3750 revs) but it’s the 320 torques at only 1750 rpm that make it the cracker it is. It’s also superbly efficient, with a final consumption figure, after 1450 kilometres of driving in just over two days, of just 5.0 litres per one hundred kilometres covered. It’s a smallish 47 litre tank on board yet it was after a sensational 773 kilometres from full when the tank was topped up.
If there’s a niggle for the driveline, it’s the dual clutch transmission that is the only gearbox option for the diesel. It’s prone to the same “lemme think” pause when going to Reverse from Park, with the roll forward or back and at a stop in Drive, the brake pedal needs a firmer push otherwise there’s the lurch as first gear is in then out, kinda like the hokey-pokey. To counter balance this, Suzuki fit Hill Hold Control, which isn’t always effective. Underway, it’s slick, smooth and mostly imperceptible in its shifts. Push harder and there’s an increase of chatter from the front and a longer, more linear surge of torque as the speedo numbers climb.
Otherwise, what you drive is a responsive, frugal, sounds bigger than it is, engine. That economy is helped along by a body weight that tips the scales at around 1200 kilograms, so it’s a fantastic torque to kilogram equation. It’ll surge forward from a standstill at the lightest touch of the pedal and will kick down readily enough for overtaking on the long open highways south of Canberra and on the Hume and Federal highways between Sydney and Canberra. Naturally it’ll run out of puff at revs where a petrol engine is just hitting its stride but only rarely did it feel that a 2.0L may have been a better option.
Ridewise, it feels tauter all round but has the same short/hard and long/soft suspension combo of the RT-S, even down to the underside of the chin belting the road coming off a road calming bump. Being a constant four wheel drive, you’ll notice more weight in the steering as the centre diff works with the rear to apportion drive and handling is affected as a result.
It’s less prone to being knocked around by cross winds, unlike the RT-S and feels more sure footed. In the wet and greasy conditions found near Thredbo and Mt Selwyn, some judicious driving was called for, more to ensure the capabilities of the drive system were met rather than exceeded. A light dab of the throttle to get underway, traction to the ground and you’re away.
It’s more easily settled by throttle application as well; the transmission will kick down a gear or two on a down hill run on a long turn, using the engine to assist braking and the front can then be pushed back onto the ground with a flex of the right foot. The power comes back in and the car recomposes itself. On the straight runs, there were times when the steering seemed lighter, as if the drive system was pushing more torque to the rear. In tight cornering, the 2500 mm wheelbase again proves handy, endowing the Vitara with a nimbleness many will enjoy, including a sub six metre turning centre.
There’s little doubt that the niche the Vitara aims for is soft roading; the Vitara gets an approach angle of just 18 degrees, departure angle is a decent 28 degrees but the rollover point is also just 18 degrees. That’s good enough for most people and there’s Hill Descent Control built in to give an extra bit of courage and confidence for those in need. The Continental tyres fitted to the polished and painted 17 inch alloys are the same 215/55 profile type you’ll find on the RT-S, more attuned to tarmac than serious off roading.
Pricewise, it’s up there, with $35990 plus ORCs, but you do get that wonderfully efficient diesel, plenty of room and driveability, the sunroof (normally a 2K plus option elsewhere), satnav, the techy dual clutch gearbox and paddles and the Continental rubber as standard. But you don’t get a full sized spare tyre.
At The End Of The Drive.
What makes the Suzuki Vitara diesel RT-X a winner is the engine. Flexible, unbelievably economical (that figure was achieved with four aboard and luggage as well), it pulls like a train and gets the dual clutch auto singing. The cloth inserts on the seats negate a need for heating, which was a HUGE benefit given the morning temperatures. Yes, there’s a couple of niggles but they’re livable. It certainly is an almost ideal chariot for a weekend away for a family and has a good feature set for the price.
Head to 2016 Suzuki Vitara range for extra details.
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