Suzuki S-Cross review

This is the S-Cross’s strong suit. However neatly judged its dynamics or prosaically trimmed its interior, the big draw of a Suzuki is its price and buying experience. Spend £25k on a Nissan Qashqai and it has steel wheels lurking behind the kind of plastic trims last seen resting at the side of a challenging multi-storey kerb, not to mention a dingy radio without a semblance of a screen to mirror your phone.

The S-Cross arrives with just two options boxes left to tick – colour (£550 if you want anything other than Washing Machine White) and gearbox (a six-speed manual is standard, a six-speed automatic a £1,350 option that 40 per cent of buyers will go for).

Which of the two specs do I want?

Unless you absolutely need four-wheel drive, we’d be tempted to stick with the base Motion spec. The car is lighter, simpler and greener with front-wheel drive, and the most tangible thing you’ll miss out on beyond the Ultra’s 4WD is its big sunroof, which we suspect eats into rear passenger headroom anyway. CarPlay and a load of safety stuff is standard across the range, and you can have the auto box with either trim level. Suzuki expects two-thirds of buyers to go for the base FWD manual, and we’d advise you save £5k by following the herd.

A fully hybrid S-Cross will come in 2022, but for now you’ve just a mild-hybrid 1.4 petrol on offer. Suzuki wants to cut the jargon when it comes to hybrid tech, and merely sell each car it makes on how it’ll affect buyers’ lives. So it’s calculated that the car will save you around £20 a month on fuel compared to a Qashqai, Tucson or suchlike (if you’re achieving the base car’s full 53mpg and covering 12,000 miles a year, anyhoo). 

Suzuki’s also proud to shout about being rated the UK’s most trustworthy car seller, at least according to the very stoic-sounding Institute of Customer Service. It ranks behind John Lewis and First Direct as the third most trusted company in Britain overall, the next automotive entry being Dacia in 29th.

And if you don’t really believe in surveys (who truly has time to fill them out properly, after all?) then know that if you buy an S-Cross from a Suzuki dealer, you’ll have a 14-day period to change your mind and return the car for a full refund, like buying a top from ASOS before realising it hugs your biscuit belly too tightly.