AWD
Private Fleet Car Review: 2019 Suzuki Jimny
This Car Review Is About:
The new and reborn fourth version 2019 Suzuki Jimny. It’s a cubical machine, with styling hints aplenty from Jimnys before, comes with a reasonable range of tech, and a pile of charm that’ll fit in your pocket.
Under The Bonnet Is:
A 1.5L petrol engine with variable valve timing. It gets grip through to the ground via a four speed auto with overdrive or a five speed manual. With peak power of 75kW @ 6,000rpm and peak torque of 130Nm @ 4,000rpm, the manual is the preferred transmission.
Fuel is fed to the small engine via a fuel thimble of 40-L. Consumption for the 1075kg/1090kg (tare weight) machine is rated, on the combined cycle, 6.4L/100km for the manual and 6.9L/100km for the self shifter.
There is a proper four wheel drive system, with 2WD and 4WD high range, and a transfer case for 4WD low range. It’s a simple push and pull design, and works well. Select Neutral, slide the somewhat notchy lever back for 4WD High, press down and slide for 4WD Low, and that’s it.
On The Outside It’s:
Two cubes joined together. One small one, and one larger. That’s the engine bay and the cabin. It is a three door, with the rear door swinging out to a full ninety degree fold from a driver’s side hinge pairing and holds the spare wheel hidden under a black plastic case. The styling cues are plentiful with nods towards history coming from the twin slots embossed into the sheetmetal at the base of the A pillar. Round headlights (with new LED inserts) and separate indicators, combination rear lamps, and a five slot grille complete the history lesson.
Paintwork is a choice of six with the test machine clad in a Chiffon Ivory Metallic. Other colours are Kinetic Yellow, Brisk Blue Metallic, Jungle Green, Medium grey, and Superior White, with a Bluish-Black Pearl roof, with the ceiling itself having longitudinal strakes. Black polyurethane wheel arches sit over a broad space between the body and the 195/80/15 rubber.
It’s not the biggest thing on the road, with a total length of 3,645mm and that’s the front to the wheel cover. It stands 1,720mm high and is 1,645mm wide. There is plenty of all round vision through the broad glasshouse, and the front screen has a pair of simple looking wipers. The washer jets are powerful but waste water because of the power, with the fluid bouncing off the screen.
The grille itself is the same black material as the arch covers and the front bumper, which houses standard globe lit driving lights, doesn’t stand that far out from the grille itself. The short overhangs allow an approach angle of 37 degrees, departure of 49 degrees, and the breakover angle is 28 degrees.
The body itself is built on a ladder chassis that incorporates a structure strengthening “x” member, plus an extra pair of cross members to ensure a stiff body. Adding to the strength is a rear axle housing that is bigger than the previous model, adding up to 30% extra rigidity.
On The Inside Is:
A cabin that has largely black overtones. The cloth seats are black, the dash is black, the floor is black, most of the door trim is black. There is a splash of body colour in the doors and around the rear seats, a light grey material covers the upper section of the cabin. The dash itself is old school and not necessarily all in a good way.
The good is Suzuki’s elegant seven inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, satnav and Bluetooth connectivity. The aircon vents at either end of the dash are the simple push and twirl for direction style, but the centre ones are a rectangular style and don’t feel as if they flow air terribly well.
The centre stack holds dials for the aircon controls and it’s a twist for the fan speed and temperature. The design has push buttons for the mode (air flow direction), fresh or recirculating, A/C on and an off tab. The size of the dials makes the information screen in the centre dial hard to read clearly.
The dials sit over four tabs for the power windows, Hill Descent Control, and traction control on/off selector. Underneath them is a 12V socket and USB port. On the passenger side is a grip handle, whilst the driver gets red back-lit analogue dials bracketing a monochrome information screen. The leather bound tiller holds cruise control and audio controls.
There are plastic sheets on the back of the folding rear seats which allow wet or dirty items to be placed in the 377L cargo area. That’s a whopping 53L larger than the previous Jimny. The packaging overall is better than before, with the seat hip points increased by 40mm. The seat frames themselves have increased by 70mm in width, and there is a sense of sitting high up in the Jimny for a sense of control and the all round vision.
The plastics themselves look old school but Suzuki says that they’ve been engineered to allow bare or gloved hands to operate the tabs and switches, and the vertical lines of the cabin provide a visual reference point when off-roading.
Info for the driver is from a monochrome screen between two somewhat archaic looking red dials, housed inside a cubical block of plastic. It’s a retro look, yes, but it goes too far in the history lesson.
What About Safety?
It’s been rated by Australia’s car safety body, ANCAP, as three stars. Part of that was to do with its Autonomous Emergency Braking system, with ANCAP scoring it down believing it’s not as effective as it should be. The biggest low point was in respect to pedestrian safety. It does have six airbags, Hill Descent Control, Hill Hold Control, and flashing emergency stop signals. Lane Departure Alert and Driver Waeving Alert are also standard.
On The Road It’s:
Lacking in urge, has a spongy ride (which was partly due to 28PSI in the tyres), has vague steering, and soft brakes. The torque is enough for something resembling acceleration but by no means can the word rapid be included. Bearing in mind the size of the engine versus the Jimny auto’s weight, it should feel more lively. And then factor in the transfer case for low range, and a need for more torque suddenly becomes apparent. There’s enough in the Suzuki parts bin to make this a possibility.
The chassis and suspension don’t feel as well sorted as expected. Even with the tyres bumped to 34PSI it was crabby, squirrelly, in its handling. There was more than expected body roll, squeals from the tyres even in gentle cornering, and no real feeling of the steering being connected to the front. Push on understeer was easily achieved at low (20, 30 km/h). The brakes lack bite and the pedal has perhaps not enough feedback.
Off road it’s a different animal. That soft ride tightens up, eating dirt for breakfast, and on AWT’s favoured test track, showed the manners expected. It flattens most of the gravel and rock surfaces with a less intrusive body roll, and ploughed through the deeper puddles in the test track with a mostly confident attitude. The narrow rubber was prone to tramlining though, tugging the tiller left and right with ease.
There is one particular section that can be a nuisance for larger off-roaders due to overhangs reducing approach and departure. In 4WD Low, the Jimny was judiciously entered into the dip, and simply crawled out at the other end without a blink. Hill Descent Control was engaged for some downhill testing and although perhaps descending a little too quickly it did at least engage.
And The Warranty Is:
Three years or 100,000 kilometres. Have your Suzuki serviced on a capped price program every six months at a dealership over five years and Suzuki offers a five year warranty or 140,000 kilometre warranty.
At The End Of The Drive.
The 2019 Suzuki Jimny is a curious mix of wannabe and nothing to prove. Sure, there’s that safety rating but part of that is due to the exterior design, meaning the pedestrian impact safety rating is down. It’s painfully soft and wafty on tarmac, but has enough goods to delight on gravel and rock and mud. It’s a “proper” four wheel drive thanks to the transfer case but really needs a dose of torque. It’s a car, frankly, that will appeal to those under thirty or to those that wish to relive their late ’80s youth. Neither is a bad thing. Here is where you can find out more.
Jaguar i-Pace Wins Major Award
Jaguar’s low slung all electric five door i-Pace has become Jaguar’s first car to win the European Car Of The Year award. It’s an award that is voted upon by sixty journalists from 23 countries. The award looks technical innovation, design, performance, efficiency and value for money.
To date, the i-Pace has found over 8,000 homes with around 75% of those in Europe. There’s obviously plenty of good reasons for the car to be so popular. The driveline, for example, delivers up to 294kW and 696Nm of torque, and with a pair of electric motors working together in a near perfect weight distribution, a zero to one hundred time of 4.8 seconds is just a flex of the right ankle away.
Road manners are Jaguar’s exacting standards. Torque Vectoring by Braking is standard in the i-Pace; it’s a system that delivers controlled independent braking on the individual inside front and rear wheels to add to the turning forces acting on the car. For the driver that wants to push the i-Pace even harder, an optional airbag suspension system can be fitted. This will drop the i-Pace by ten millimetres to help aerodynamic flow at speeds over 105 km/h.
Both of these are backed up by the Coventry firm’s Adaptive Dynamics monitoring system. At up to 500 times a second, the onboard system will read input from the throttle, the actual acceleration rate, braking, and the suspension to provide a best as possible ride and handling experience. Gone a little dirty? Then the All Surface Progress Control and Low Traction Launch systems will help out in low speed driving conditions.
The power system gets looked after too. Active Vanes open and close behind the grille and front bumper air intakes to provide cooling air when required for the electrical system. Enhanced Brake Regeneration feeds kinetic energy back into the power grid almost as soon as the driver lifts their foot from the accelerator. Heavy Traffic Braking is a variable system that adds power back in city driving stop/start.
Contact Jaguar Australia for information on the 2019 Jaguar i-Pace.
BMW Says Diesel Do Just Fine For The X7.
BMW has released details of the soon to land in Australia X7. For the time being, power will come from only diesel engines, with petrol to follow later. It’ll be a two model range to start, with the BMW X7 xDrive30d starting from $119,900, and the BMW X7 M50d from $169,900. The BMW X7 xDrive30d will have a “TwinPower” twin-turbocharged inline six-cylinder diesel engine with variable turbine geometry. It’ll pack 195 kW of power and 620 Nm of torque, meaning that can reach 0-100km/h in just 7.0 seconds.
The X7 M50d goes up a notch, with an uprated TwinPower quad-turbocharged inline six-cylinder diesel engine with two variable-vane turbines and two conventional turbines. There’s a more than impressive 294kW and a startling 760 torques. 0 – 100 is a very decent 5.4 seconds. Both will power down via BMW’s eight speed Steptronic transmission.
This has been recalibrated to feature a wider gear ratio spread. BMW’s much vaunted xDrive will be on board. xDrive is a smart drive system that varies drive torque split between front and rear wheels to optimise traction and power efficiency. 
Both will also have, thanks to xDrive, a rear biased drive feel. BMW’s tuning house, M Sport, offers a differential on the rear axle to ensure a smooth power transfer in the BMW X7 M50d, maximising traction and ensuring optimum handling on all terrains. It’s available for the X30d as part of the xOffroad package.
The BMW X7 xDrive30d will have 20-inch alloy light wheels as standard. The BMW X7 M50d has 22-inch M light alloy wheels for extreme road presence. Ride will come courtesy of a two-axle air suspension with automatic self-levelling. The system is smart enough that it can adjust the height of the car with the engine off and will go up or down by 40mm. There is some smart tech in the X7, it’s able to adjust the suspension for each individual wheel to achieve balance in an unevenly loaded car. More smarts come from Executive Drive Pro, and Integral Active Steering. Both will showcase exceptional cornering abilities and standout agility.
Seating is flexible, as anticipated. A 40/20/40 split for the second row seats is one option, a 60/40 split is also available. Standard cargo load is 326L, and that goes to 750L when the third row is flattened. All seats down offers up 2,120L, and a powered tailgate makes rear access easy, especially with the wave of a foot underneath the rear bumper.
Extra luxury comes from a panoramic glass roof, aluminuim roof rails and aluminuim window surrounds, BMW Head Up Display, 3D camera system that shows a top down/360 degree, and a 12.3 inch dash display.
Head to BMW Australia for more details and to lodge your inquiry.
Private Fleet Car Review: 2019 Holden Acadia LTZ-V
This Car Review Is About:
The 2019 model year Holden Acadia LTZ-V. The engine of choice is a 3.6L petrol V6, and the transmission is a nine speed automatic. There are three levels, being the LT, LTZ, and LTZ-V, with two or all wheel drive. Prices start from $42,990 driveaway with the top range a substantial $67,990. That’s for 2018 plated cars.
Under The Bonnet Is:
The more or less same driveline as found in the unfairly maligned Commodore. A V6, petrol fed, of a 3.6L capacity. That drives the front wheels via a truly superb nine speed automatic. Consumption is rated as 8.9L per 100 kilometres on a combined cycle. We finished on 11.2L/100km on a mainly urban cycle. Peak power is 231 kilowatts, with peak twist of 367Nm coming in at 5000rpm. Make a note of those figures.
It’s a keyless start, as expected. The engine itself is almost noiseless from inside, both on idle and underway in normal driving. Like all engines, push it and you’ll hear it. Even then it’s not the most aurally engaging engine going.
Being the AWD version means a selector dial is fitted in the rather staid looking centre console. Choices are Snow, Towing, and the ubiquitous Sport. Sport was trialled and discarded as being needed rarely.
A potentially handy item is Remote Start. Lock the car using the key fob, hold the tab that has a circle with an arrow cursor icon, and the Acadia starts up. Great if it’s been hot or cold and the aircon has been set appropriately prior to starting.
On The Inside Is:
Boredom. Plenty of average looking plastic, a squeaky centre console near the driver’s right knee, unappealing faux wood inlays, and seven seats. All windows are powered but, disappointingly for a top tier vehicle, only the driver’s window is one touch up/down. Where the driver and passenger knees rest in the console are the switches for heating and, blessedly, venting for the leather seats up front. Centre row passengers get a pair of USB ports, the front seats a wireless charge pad for compatible smart phones and a USB port plus 12V socket. Cold? Use the steering wheel’s heating function.
Rear seat access is via a powered tailgate with selectable opening positions or via the tiltafold centre row seats. The centre row have a one touch lever to move the seats forward and folding at the same time. Cargo is 292L with the third row in place, and that goes to a much more user friendly 1042L when they’re folded. Lay the centre row down and that virtually doubles to 2102L.
Although the rear seats are the much easier to deal with pull strap style, where a strap gets pulled and the seat easily swings up or easily pushed down, there doesn’t appear to be as much room laterally as Holden’s own Trailblazer. All seats in the review vehicle were a simple mix of black leather and white stitching.
The touchscreen is simple to read however the digital audio broadcast tuner had hiccups. Sometimes on start it would instantly show stations, on others it would would be as if it were in a permanent loop scanning. It does come with the Apple CarPlay and Android Auto pairing. Speakers are from Bose and they sounded as if the DAB signal was a compressed FM sound. Some DAB units offer a separate FM tuner to a DAB tuner, others combine the two. Even with sound adjustment the system simply couldn’t get the same depth as similar systems in other brands.
A HUD wasn’t offered, but GM’s vibrating seat and strip of red lights for collision warnings were fitted as standard. Other standard equipment as fitted is a reverse camera, satnav, and a pair of sunroofs. One would have been fine, with either a roof mounted screen or seat back screens more appropriate for a top tier vehicle. On the upside is a rear seat reminder and a traffic sign recognition system for the satnav.
Things such as the centre console, a narrow one at that, seemed too high for the left arm and too forward with the overhang almost fully blocking the drive selector dial, and the indicator and wiper stalks seemed at a too high angle off the steering column, and the A pillar is more an AA pillar. At least the indicator and wiper columns are Aussie configured with right hand for the flashers.
Actual leg room was suitable for front and centre, with really tall people probably the only ones that would find the third row an issue. Shoulder room was the same, in that the front and centre rows would accommodate adults well enough but the third row was moderately ok. And it’s those last two words that define the interior of the LTZ-V. It’s moderately ok. There isn’t anything that stands out, and it’s not unappealing. It’s simply ok.
The Outside Has:
A very American look. A bluff Superman like chin with a black grille above it which replaces the over the top GMC bling, slightly unfocused eyes as headlights with eyebrows that run back into the leading edges of the fenders, and fat hips over the rear wheel arches. In profile it seems as if there are three distinctly different designs. The rear has a separate window box to the centre, and then the front from the A pillar is seemingly unrelated to the rest. The A pillar is huge, way too huge for genuinely safe three quarter forward vision.
Rolling stock stands out, with 20 inch allys on 235/55 Continental Cross Control rubber. Overall length is deceptive; it looks long but not as long as the 4979 mm length it is. Wheelbase is 2857 mm. There are eight colours to choose from with Mineral Black, Blue Steel, and Nitrate Silver amongst them, and potentially a better colour choice than the Dark Shadow that faded the Acadia into obscurity. A couple of splashes of chrome and rectangle shaped exhaust tips give the LTZ-V a little more visual difference to the other two models.
On The Road It’s:
A weird mix. Off the line, from a standing start, the front driver rubber will easily chirp with no more than a gentle push of the go pedal. But thanks to its bulk, that’s about as exciting as it gets. That peak torque needs a lot of spin to really be effective in pulling the front wheel drive machine around, and as good as the gearbox is in utilising the torque, there simply needs to be either more of it, or have it come in lower. There is actually an easy fix for that, though, and it’s a one word answer. DIESEL. Yup, there is no oiler in the range and that’s thanks to the country of origin.
Underway it’s super quiet, refined, and smooth in its operation. Go for an overtake and again that dearth of torque become apparent. The same applies for anything remotely uphill, and soon the cogs are nine, eight, seven…..
Although Holden’s own engineers have worked on the suspension tunes of the Acadia range, with “FlexRide” dampers on the LTZ-V, it’s more an American floaty, wafty, spongy ride, even with the big rubber. On the up side, it never bottomed out in the suspension travel, but the plastic strip on the chin did scrape too often on mediocre intrusions. Rebound is well controlled, it’s simply a matter of feeling the springs are too soft up and down.
Handling is, well, like the interior. It’s ok. Response is not slow, and it’s not sports car rapid either. The latter isn’t surprising, of course, but the front end could do with a quicker how d’ye do when the tiller is twirled. Body roll is experienced but is also not as bad as expected.
Another weak spot is the way the brakes respond. Or, correctly, don’t respond. There’s dead air for the first inch or so, it seems, then a not spongy but not hard travel and retardation is simply too slow for a vehicle that weights around the two tonne plus mark.
What About Safety?
Autonomous Emergency Braking, bundled with pedestrian and cyclist detection, starts the list. The LTZ-V has a higher sensitivity when kit ncomes to reading the road ahead that the LT and LTZ. Blind Spot Alert is standard, Rear Cross Traffic Alert is standard, and Lane Keep Assist and Lane Departure Warning are also standard. A driver’s kneebag, along with front, side, and curtain airbags complement the five standard and two ISOFIX seat mounts. Pack in 360 degree camera views, semi assisted parking, and front sensors, and the Acadia LTZ-V wants for nothing in regards to keeping the internals safe.
The Warranty Is:
Five years or unlimited kilometres, with 5 years roadside assist if serviced at Holden dealerships. Website has a capped price quotation system.
At The End Of The Drive.
For a car that is intended to be Holden’s saviour, it falls short of lighting the candle. Having an interior plastics look that is outweighed by entry level cars half its price, no diesel, a lack of genuine tech appeal, a softish ride that may not be to the liking of potential buyers and a rear cargo that simply doesn’t look as wide as Holden’s other seven seater (which comes with a diesel and is therefore more suitable for purpose), plus an exterior unrelated to anything else in the family, means the 2019 Holden Acadia LTZ-V has a very sharp stick with which to push stuff uphill. It does nothing bad, but it simply does nothing special.
Here is where you can find out more.
Level 2, 9 Help Street