On of my neighbors seems to rather like Aerios. And what’s not to like, if you like tall, narrow roomy boxes on little wheels? Right up my alley; or down the street, actually. I could see myself in one of these, for an around-town scooter. They must be pretty brisk too, given the 155hp 2.3 L engine that powered US versions starting in 2004. Hmm; so why didn’t these catch on more?
Is it because of its little wheels, at a a time when everyone was sporting ever-larger dubs? It does make the Aerio look a bit top-heavy. But then cars like the Fit and gen1 xB weren’t much different in that regard.
In other markets, the sedan version, called Liana, was a classic low-end economy car, with smaller engines (1.5 and 1.8L) and modest trim. The Liana achieved some fame as Top Gear’s Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segments. It served for three years and covered over 1600 laps, proof enough of its toughness.
What exactly was the Aerio? A mini-CUV? It was available with AWD. A roomy economy car? A tall-boy wagon? The Aerio did seem to have a bit of a perpetual identity crisis. But its owners tend to be the kind of folks who saw it as something just right for them. There just weren’t quite enough of them.
If these were like most Suzukis, they were pretty well screwed together. It’s a bit ironic that Suzuki failed in the US, because it’s pretty hard to think of one that wasn’t a pretty decent car, at the minimum. There’s still some ancient Chevy Sprints from the ’80s running around here, as well as plenty of Metros. Never mind all the little 4×4 mini-Jeeps, that have now become essentially irreplaceable. A lost market segment. And a lost brand, in the US.
I miss Suzuki already.
I recall seeing a few of these out and about around 2006-07 when I bought our Honda Fit. They always seemed to be bright yellow. I still have not decided whether I like their looks or not. They seem to have gone extinct around me.
They’ve apparently gotten so rare that Murilee Martin did a “Junkyard Find” on one a while back. Its replacement, the SX4, isn’t that much more common – except in Vermont!
Murilee has a blog? I’ll go pay a visit as long as it’s not at TTAC.
“Junkyard Find” is at TTAC.
Oddly, these three Aerios were shot within a few blocks of my house, and there’s another one nearby, tucked into a driveway. Another “Eugene-mobile”.
I may or may not have seen these around my neck of Vermont. Subarus and Honda Fits are more common.
The Aerio is rare everywhere; Vermont streets weren’t exactly filled with SX4s (nothing like Subarus or even Fits) when I was there this past winter, but it seemed like I noticed one…and then another…and so on more than in my home state of MA. Maybe it’s the AWD.
These were really pretty great. But I guess that unless one needed AWD, the first gen Xb did the same things better and (arguably) with a bit more style.
Big-wheeled CUV pretensions aside, the current Kia Soul now satisfies that niche and seems reasonably popular.
And you mean Chevy Sprints from the ’80’s, not the ’70’s. And it is kind of sad, as Suzuki cars are some of the best made and most reliable ever sold. I know people who swear by them, not at them.
You’re quite right; never write just before bed time, as the brain is starting to switch into dream mode.
Why didn’t they catch on? When you’re dealer network rivals Renault in the 60’s and 70’s, it might be a bit off-putting for a potential customer. I know that’s what stopped me, and I was real interested in one of them when they were new. Unfortunately, the only Richmond, VA dealer was on US 1 between Richmond and Ashland in what had obviously been a buy-here-pay-here used car lot (nothing like starting out classy), was obviously started on a shoestring, and was back to being a BHPH lot way too quickly. And the site has been abandoned for the past couple of years.
About the only Suzuki dealer I noticed that seemed to be making it was in Altoona, PA; to the point that he was heavily advertising in Johnstown, 60 miles away.
Next problem: When you’re just starting out in a new market, rebadging third rate Daewoo’s isn’t exactly the best marketing strategy.
I’d agree with the dealer network problems. A couple years ago, I was looking at a Nissan Frontier and was curious if I could get a Suzuki Equator, which was a rebadged Frontier. I discovered that there was no Suzuki dealer in the Baltimore area – there was one in Belair MD (shared with a Jeep dealer) considerably north of the city, and the second closest one was in York, PA.
Here the local Buick/Subaru dealer sold Suzukis for several years so it wasn’t necessarily lack of opportunity or having an untrustworthy dealer. I think that part of the reason Suzuki never really caught on was the presence of so many other brands on the market, making cars for the same segment. It was hard to convince people to buy a Suzuki when they could go to the Toyota store or the Honda store and get a similar vehicle with a brand name that had been around for 40 years. Another reason for Suzuki not making it as a car brand might be that too many people remember them for their motorcycles, and they had a reputation of not being well made. I’ve never owned a Suzuki motorycycle but got to ride several of them back when I was younger (& braver). I remember them as being stupid fast but their owners were always complaining about them being out of service for various reasons.
I’ve had two suzuki motorcycles. A GS250 and a S40. Neither one was a bad bike but I didn’t keep them long enough to experience any reliability problems. I’d have another S40 if I could get it modified with a Corbin seat and then custom paint the tank. That huge single cylinder was oddly charming in it’s own way if a bit v-v-v-vibratey at 70 and adjusting the valves was super easy. Belt drive meant I didn’t have to deal with chain lube either.
Suzuki motorcycles usually sold a bit cheaper than their other three Japanese competitors (my Kawasaki dealer buddy was constantly losing motocross sales to the Suzuki dealer, totally based on price), so they were invariably bought by the “first-motorcycle-look-at-me-I’m-cool” crowd, aka squids. If you had someone riding obnoxiously on a beaten to death sport bike, it was almost invariably a Suzuki.
This is not a good impression for someone who’s looking for a car.
Wasn’t it Suzuki that had the motorcycle that ended up being referred to as “The Widowmaker”? This was 40+ years ago but a couple of friends had two stroke triples that I’m pretty sure were Suzukis. They were ungodly fast, at least in a straight line, but were not very reliable, even for motorcycles. I do remember being told that it was a good idea to keep your left hand on the clutch lever, with any slack taken up. That way, when (not if, but when) the engine seized you might be able to declutch before the back wheel locked up and sent you into a tank slapper. Fortunately on the few occasions I rode them this theory was not put to the test.
jpj: No, you’rehttps://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/sunday-salon-the-kawasaki-2-stroke-triples-a-family-of-four/ thinking of the Kawasaki triples. We did a feature on them here:
I’m thinking we should re-run more of these old bike posts
I think the real widowmakers were the specials. A guy named Alan Milyard(sp?) made a bunch of them. I think we did a special on them too but it might have just been one I was working on when I got sick. His latest is a big V twin that’s just sick.
Maybe the sickest was the michigan madman (Potter) who ran the harley frame (mostly) with a sbc.
Ooh, good point about the faint dealer network. That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
My mother thought of buying one of these in wagon form as a smaller and more fuel efficient alternative to her 95 Voyager. This was also when we were down to two vehicles since the 87 900 had rusted to death. In the end it was frugality, some other reasons, and maybe Consumer Reports’ review of these that caused her not to buy one. Now that I look at these some more I realize that they are probably not well suited for Central New York due to the low to the ground overhangs and lack of wheel arch gap.
These were kind of doomed from the get-go. For starters, it’s not like there were a whole lot of Suzuki dealers to begin with. Then there’s the somewhat strange appearance.
But I suspect what was worst of all was simply the name: Aerio. Besides being hard to pronounce, it’s almost identical to the Chevy Aveo. The Aveo got pretty miserable reviews, being one of the worst small cars available, so I’ve always wondered if car buyers thought the Aerio was in the same camp simply by name association.
I’m a bit surprised by Paul’s positive comments on these. I thought Suzuki’s were usually known for lagging engineering, cheap components, and poor reliability. I have the 2002 Consumer Reports Sport Utility Special edition in my 2002 Durango file. It lists the Esteem wagon as “No compelling reason to buy…..mediocre, no price advantage, limited dealer network, harsh, insufficient sales to predict reliability, much worse than average depreciation”. A final note was that the Aerio would replace the Esteem. It’s predecessor was not a compelling case to buy.
The Vitara on the next page didn’t fare any better. “Crude, unresponsive, stiff, vague, clumsy, seat lacks support, not very comfortable, worse than average reliability and depreciation”.
My one interaction with a dealer was to respond to a prize mailer. After waiting in a lobby reeking of stale smoke (long after smoking in public places had been banned), I got the hard sell from one of the sloppy looking salesmen, and was treated almost abusively after it was clear I was not in the market for a vehicle. As it turned out, my prize was a worthless lottery ticket. Other respondents looked ill prepared to deal with aggressive salesmen. It was not one of humanity’s prettier scenes.
Current generation of Suzuki Swift is pretty popular in my country. It has distinctive design that stand out from the crowd, 5 Euro NCAP stars, excellent road manners, with 94 HP it is the most powerful non-turbo 1.2 l engine that is available on the market, and the one that can be very thrifty if driven gently. Quality and reliability is considered to be similar to other Japanese cars, and the price for the stripper is currently about 2000 Eur less than cheapest Fiat 500 1.2 with 69 PS.
And that stripper has 7 airbags, ABS, ESP and manual AC, but no tacho 🙂
Who needs a tacho anyway, you know when it starts pulling that you are over 4000 rpm, and it won’t pull any further when you hit the limiter on 6500 🙂
Many small-car lovers in the US lamented that the more recent Swifts did not make it to the US; a rather attractive little car. A MINI without the ridiculous price.
Definitely you needed the Swift. They’re very common in Australia, and the magazines rave about them. But they’re the only Suzuki that seems to sell in any numbers.
I had a 1300 Swift as a loaner I wasnt greatly impressed but that could be due to being used to a 2.1L turbodiesel Peugeot406 the little Swift ran ok I guess it was noisy on the road and didnt handle particularly well however my Pug was quiet and handled like on rails so that I guess coloured my opinion.
Suzuki products fall into the category of ‘cockroaches of the road’ in that, for all intents and purposes, they’re a Japanese version of a Chevy Vega, a true bottom-feeder on the lowest automotive ladder rung in all respects.
Yet, against all odds, Suzuki vehicles, somehow, manage to keep running for years, even decades, after they were sold as new.
I was mainly thinking nostalgically about their smaller cars and 4x4s from the 80s and 90s or so. I agree that some of their more recent vehicles may not have been fully competitive, and undoubtedly, the dealer issue was a very big one.
We owned a ’98 Suzuki Esteem wagon. Bought it with 60K miles and it provided great service until 180K, when the engine was pretty much used up. It was reliable, fun to drive and always returned 33 MPG-with an automatic. I would buy one again in a heartbeat.
A shame that they did not catch on. The car never let us down.
I started as a fan of Suzuki motorcycles when they (along with the first Samari type jeep) were two stroke. Had to have a Suzuki Swift but somehow never did. I thought their engineering was great but I always needed a truck. One of my servicemen used a Suzuki to pull a small trailer and it worked for him.
There are other cars that I just had to have but never did. When you choose an occupation that requires a service truck you get used to it. Most of my cars from that period belonged to my wife and her taste ran to Town Cars. Not suzuki jeeps or swifts.
These would’ve made a great update of the Tercel wagon–the old tall one with 4wd. Or maybe a Subaru Justy (I think Subaru & Suzuki had some sort of tie-up?)
Of course, neither of those were mass-market successes; probably the wrong car for these times, even if it had a real dealer network.
Suzuki’s demise in the USA was very sad. They made some good cars that were reliable but due to a non-existent dealer network, they were doomed to fail. I looked into a used Kizashi at a local Ford dealer but I got cold feet as I worried about finding parts for it.
I cannot say I have ever seen a Suzuki car dealer in person.
The only Suzuki dealers I ever saw were part of sketchy, run-down BHPH lots.
To put it in perspective, one in my area used to have a commercial saying, “Why buy used when new will do?”
The Kizashi never caught on here either.
My local Lincoln dealer had a Suzuki dealership. It was back when they were Lincoln-Mercury. I always thought it was an odd combination – Lincoln, Mercury and Suzuki. They even remodeled one end of the dealership exclusively for Suzuki – with a big sign and everything. Not long after that the Suzuki’s were gone and the sign was covered up. And then the Mercury’s went as well – now just Lincoln is left.
My neighbour’s family has one in blue, along with an Altima that he drives and a Golf that must belong to his daughter. Despite its odd proportions I thought that it must have a lot of cargo room, making it practical. It’s a shame that Suzuki has pulled out of the Canadian auto market as well. My dad’s first car was a basic manual ’89 Suzuki four door hatchback which I think is still running around somewhere.
There was a Suzuki dealer in this area who advertised on television – his ads were memorable to me because he pronounced Suzuki to rhyme with Snooki.
I found their styling quite striking at the time, especially that front end that drops straight down to the ground. Sort of a hovercraft look. I never could decide whether I actually liked it or not, but it always caught my eye.
Running that low, I wonder if it gets all banged up by parking lot barriers and curbs like my Prius’ air dam.
I recall period reviews harping on high fuel consumption.
Always thought these were cool little cars in search of a market segment, and then when one started to gel, they were outclassed (for people who did not need AWD, anyway) by the xB and the Fit.
While some of Suzuki’s products of the late 90’s/early 00’s were pretty forgettable (never heard a good word about the Esteem, and have only heard bad things about the Verona despite it being a now-rare I6) they seemed to have turned it around at the end. The last SX4 looked like quite an interesting subcompact and the Kizashi was, by all accounts, excellent. Too little, too late though.
Looks like a homely little minivan to me. Plenty enough reason not to be interested.
I notice in the interior pic that it’s got the typical OCC – ‘Oregon Carpet Crud’ syndrome….. Never had such a problem keeping my carpets clean in So Cal……..
They seem to be a Liana wagon here not Aerio Suzukis are still quite popular in NZ and even the Chevy badged ones from early this century are everywhere Suzukis were badged Chev Cruz long before Daewoo got in on the act.
It’s been touched on here by nearly everyone: poor/spotty dealer network, cars that at best were quirky and at worst poorly conceived for North America…available AWD notwithstanding and even the SX4 and Kizashi got mid to bottom of the pack fuel numbers.
It’s sad that the Swift was not imported in it’s later generations as the latest versions were 100% better than the versions sold here in the 90s.
Not sure if Subaru and Suzuki had a “tie-up”(in Japan, some cars are sold by “rival” car makers that don’t have a suitable model in their lineups) but Suzuki and VW were close several times to a “tie-up” but Mr Suzuki himself nixed any non-Japanese partnership in the end.
This does bring up another salient point about why Suzuki eventually had to leave the US market, and that was the close ties with GM (the Geo/Chevy Metro and Tracker were built by Suzuki and identical to the Swift and Sidekick). Things were generally okay between the two until GM started going under (big time) and they had to cut Suzuki loose. There wasn’t a whole lot of support from GM, anyway, other than money, and when the GM cash flow stopped, well, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that Suzuki wouldn’t last much longer in the US.
As others have pointed out, it’s kind of a shame, because Suzuki products usually held up pretty well, even if the driving experience was…lacking. I mean, at least they survived the Samurai flipping-over debacle.
We looked at the Aerio when we needed to downsize from a Chevy van. Ended up buying a Mazda Protege5 instead – similar setup, but much more pleasing to the eye.
always thought this was a nice looking car. Not a work of art but nice with a simple, ergonomic interior. I used to drive past a Getty station where a yellow AWD was sitting on sale for ages…I felt like it was calling me. Weren’t a lot of these built in Eastern Europe?
If nothing else-it sure beats a Suzuki (low self) Esteem….
“I’m thinking we should re-run more of these old bike posts”
You are correct Paul, they were Kawasakis and not Suzukis. Under any name they were incredibly fast and incredibly scary to ride; as someone in the article mentions, they felt like they were hinged in the middle. I suspect that very of few of these exist today; the ones that didn’t get wrecked by insufficiently skilled riders probably blew up. It’s a wonder that any of us survived our youth; to paraphrase a Drive-By Truckers song, we did a lot of stupid sh*t but lived to tell about it.
Fun fact: the home market name Liana was an acronym for “Life In a New Age” according to the Suzuki’s marketing.
With their little gun-slit digital dashes, they definitely do have a new-age-ish quality. Maybe.