Suzuki Jimny 5-door (2023) Living with it
Everyone loves the Suzuki Jimny, but is a bigger version, with 2 extra doors, better in every possible way? Ciro De Siena presents a video review of the 5-door and Lance Branquinho put the new variant to the test during the recent end-of-year break.
During the Festive Season of 2021, I spent a few weeks with one of South Africa’s most cherished cars, the Suzuki Jimny.
At the end of that extended test period, my conclusions were clear: the Jimny was a parking hero, adored by all, and overengineered beyond any vehicle of comparable size. But, it was also agonisingly slow on the highway and a touch unstable when cruising at the national speed limit, especially in crosswinds.
Two years later, it was time for another Festive Season Suzuki experience in the latest, larger, version of the Jimny. Also, if you haven’t watched it already, check out our video review of the 5-door derivative.
Do you feel the Jimny 5-door’s longer wheelbase?
One of the issues I’ve always had with Suzuki’s Jimny – and I’ve driven many of them since 2008 – is its “nervousness” at cruising speeds.
The combination of a short wheelbase, proportionally high centre of gravity and separate chassis design means you must be ahead of the road texture, wind conditions – and the traffic – when driving a Jimny at higher speeds. Sudden corrections can easily become overcorrections due to the 3-door’s extremely short wheelbase, plus the on-road “unease” is exacerbated by the vehicle’s tall body and narrow tyres.
How much difference does the Jimny 5-door’s 340 mm of extra wheelbase make? You get an idea when you view the newcomer side-on – look at how offset its rear axle position is. That’s right, Suzuki literally just extended the wheelbase instead of reengineering a new body proportion for the Jimny 5-door, which is why it looks a touch odd, with its proportionally huge wheelbase and very compact rear overhang.
From the first sequence of bumps you encounter on a deteriorating B-road, to the worst dirt road corrugations, it’s immediately apparent how much more stable the 5-door is than its 3-door sibling.
At highway speeds and rounding medium-radius corners, the 3-door requires constant steering trim, while the 5-door has more inherent tracking stability due to its longer wheelbase. It’s a much less nervous car at cruising speeds on poorly surfaced roads, but the increase in body size does make it notably more sensitive to crosswinds.
The significant increase in wheelbase reduces the 5-door derivative’s straddle angle, but is that a major issue? Straddle angles only become important in very challenging off-road conditions and, to my mind, the Jimny is more of an all-terrain adventure touring vehicle than a grade-5 rock crawler.
Most owners would happily trade superior cruising stability for a slight reduction in straddle angle, let alone greater rocker-panel vulnerability.
Less of a parking hero
With its cartoonishly compact dimensions, the Jimny 3-door is terrifically capable at low speeds, especially when hunting for parking. And during the Festive Season, no matter where you are, from the smallest Eastern Cape coastal town to the Camps Bay promenade, parking confidence is a must-have… Face it, nobody wants to embarrass themselves when that ideal parking bay presents an opportunity.
Much as the Jimny 5-door’s cruising stability is a win when journeying between cities or navigating your way down to the coast, it does influence parking agility.
The newcomer is easy to park, but it cannot match the 3-door’s manoeuvrability. And, when you evaluate the wheelbase numbers, the reason becomes clear. The difference between a Jimny 3-door’s wheelbase and South Africa’s most popular medium SUV – the Toyota RAV4 – is 440 mm. That’s nearly half a meter, and you can imagine how meaningful that is when you start turning on the steering lock, at low speeds.
The Jimny 5-door’s wheelbase is only 100 mm shorter than that of a RAV4; to put it another way, it’s 340 mm longer than the 3-door’s. And for a supermini-sized vehicle, those numbers are very significant.
The Jimny 5-door could be better inside
The Jimny 5-door is a small, affordable car that triggers big reactions – you have to be mindful of that. It attracts the kind of attention/positive curiosity that is usually reserved for R1 million-plus vehicles.
And, when you spend a lot of time inside a Jimny, you realise that the model’s engineering and product budget went into optimising chassis strength and durability instead of ergonomics and trim.
Issues from my Festive Season 2021 time with Suzuki’s Jimny 3-door are still present with the 5-door. Tiny door pockets and a lack of utility storage mean you are always wondering where to put your keys, snacks or smartphone.
Plus there’s the seat bolster and padding issue. Like the furniture in a home, quality car seats aren’t easy to do on the cheap. And for South African drivers, who tend to be larger than consumers in many other markets and committed to driving for long distances in a day, the Jimny’s seats are, well, underpadded.
At 1.8 metres and 78 kg, I’m hardly a big driver, but after a few hours in the Jimny’s driver’s seat, I found the primary padding had sagged, requiring me to reposition my posterior for better support and comfort.
I don’t have an issue with the Jimny 5-door’s rear seats not folding flat… The fold-down angle of the Mercedes-Benz G-Class’ rear seats is even worse, but I have a problem with the lack of a parcel shelf.
Security is a real concern for any South African car owner and a parcel shelf is standard on Suzuki’s most affordable cars, so why isn’t it a feature on the brand’s hero car?
I imagine that shaping a compact, square parcel shelf for the Jimny’s unique rear load area is a challenge, because it’s unlike any other ultra-compact 5-door vehicle, but surely it can’t be an unsolvable problem?
Jimny 5-door is expensive – but its value is forever
For a vehicle so unapologetically engineered for purpose, the Suzuki Jimny performs incredibly well as a public style statement – it does not need to pose whatsoever.
Few cars priced under R1 million (from new) can match its cachet, and the ownership benefits transcend the Jimny’s purchase price of R457 900. When you think of it based on Rands-per-kilowatts, a Jimny is outrageously priced. The 5-door is even slower than a 3-door and, for R457 900, you can buy a small crossover like a Renault Duster, which offers a lot more performance and a much better cabin.
But in a world where value has become vague, the Jimny 5-door embarrasses many of its rivals. Its separate-chassis construction, simple switchgear and durable mechanical bits will outlast those of most crossovers and unibody SUVs, especially if you regularly travel on dirt roads or deteriorating B-routes.
A reasonably low-resistance tread reduces acoustic resonance, but the Jimny’s tyres have lots of sidewall and volume, making them excellently suited to South Africa’s challenging road conditions.
A tyre failure could leave you stranded next to an unfamiliar road at night – immobile and vulnerable – and, alarmingly, punctures are becoming more frequent as lower-profile tyre specifications meet the reality of local road conditions. But when the Jimny rolls through that godawful pothole on an unfamiliar route after dark, its off-road grade suspension and ladder frame platform absorb it without drama.
In a small (or even medium) crossover you’d start praying; hoping that the thud you heard isn’t a ruined tyre or damaged rim, but in a Jimny, there’s no such concern. What price do you put on peace of mind?
How many iconic cars retain their image value over time and support the ownership prospect of being a forever vehicle? Land Cruisers? Probably. G-Classes? Possibly, but the layers of electronics that underpin contemporary G-wagon models make them intimidatingly expensive to own for decades instead of years.
Jimny 5-door? What’s going to go wrong? Nothing. Will it ever go out of style? No, because it has unique proportions and absolutely no post-functional design elements with fake air inlets or silly LED strip lights.
Should you get the 3- or 5-door?
With prices starting at R429 000, the Jimny 5-door is expensive, but great value. Confused? Don’t be. Paying R457 900 (which is the list price of the test unit – a 1.5 GLX AllGrip 5-door manual) for a car with such limited cruising and overtaking performance isn’t something that even the most ardent Jimny supporters can defend. But it’s everything else you get for your R457 900 that really matters.
Like what? Well, robust residual values (the kind that German luxury brands can only dream about) are a true reflection of the Jimny’s market demand and perceived quality. Some luxury car brands spend wildly to build the calibre of brand loyalty and public acceptance that the Jimny has – but without success.
The greetings/headlight flashing on the part of other drivers (from behind the ‘wheels of their Jimnys) isn’t Suzuki’s doing; it’s a true community dynamic. Brands spend millions without creating even 1% of Jimny’s authentic sense of ownership community. How? Because it never tries to be something it’s not.
No matter if you drive slowly, nobody rages against the Jimny. It’s cuteness factor and honesty are disarming. How do you price acceptance and tolerance in a driving market like South Africa, where so many drivers that frequent our national highways are openly hostile? Because a Jimny is a road-rage vaccine vehicle. With this little 5-door adventure wagon, nobody rages against your chosen pace.
It is accepted and understood that you won’t be driving quickly. Nobody tailgates you. Nobody flashes their headlamps at you. There’s just so much tolerance for the fact that in your little Kei-sized exploration wagon, you are on a journey of some destiny at an acceptably slower pace, even if it’s just to the shops.
Summary
Final thoughts? A black Jimny is awful. Don’t listen to Henry Ford’s “any colour as long as it is black” wisdom and get any colour but black. The Jimny 5-door is a more stable, practical version of a popular, justifiably admired and loved vehicle. Now, if only Suzuki could give the Jimny a little more power, to make it a less anxious long-distance cruising vehicle, replete with better overtaking performance…
A turbodiesel engine solution is unlikely, but a hybridised petrol isn’t!
