Our 2002 Suzuki XL-7 Grand Vitara: A Perfectly Competent SUV That My Family Could Never Love

In late 2002, my father sought to replace our beloved 1994 Ford Aerostar with something newer, more reliable, and large enough to carry our family of five. He settled on what was, at the time, the cheapest three-row SUV on the market, a silver 2002 Suzuki XL-7 Grand Vitara.

As far as I can tell, the XL-7 was selected for three reasons: 1) it was cheap; 2) it had 4-wheel-drive; and 3) it had a third row. It was not a terrible car. It had a 2.7-liter V6 that made adequate horsepower and was reliable enough to never need a major service in our ownership. It had a four-speed automatic, which, like the V6, never needed major service. It did nothing wrong and was a perfectly competent, if thoroughly mediocre, SUV for family duty. However, despite its admirable reliability, it would be the most problematic car we ever owned, and we all came to hate it in the five years it stayed with us.

The problems began immediately. Its shortcomings were evident on the drive home. My father paid for three rows, which meant we were to use three rows. Being the youngest and smallest, I was relegated to the rear-most seat any time all five of us piled into the car. Because we had to bring my brother back to the hospital, my first ride in the XL-7 was in that seat. Despite being a smaller-than-average 8 year-old, there was not enough legroom for me in there. And because I was a young child, my criticisms were largely ignored, and spent many road trips with my knees jammed against the back of the middle row. As I grew–which thankfully I did quite slowly–the rear seat only became more and more intolerable until finally, I was allowed to sit in the middle seat of the middle row. This likely contributed to my siblings’ hatred for the XL-7, as I was now taking up valuable shoulder room–especially important for my much quicker-growing brother.

My mother’s hatred of the XL-7, however, stems from the sheer number of accidents and near-misses she was involved in during the time she owned it. Within the first week of us having it, while my father was driving it, somebody nearly ran into it coming into a gas station–even after my father landed on the horn. This convinced my father that it needed a louder horn, and so he had one installed. It was then discovered by Mom that the car’s horn was improperly installed (specifically, it had been drilled into a vacuum line), and she found out her new car needed immediate service.

Then the accidents started happening.

The first accident was clearly not my mother’s fault. She was rear-ended in heavy traffic by somebody who said they did not see her. This explanation would come up so often that my mother became convinced the car was actually invisible. She was hit at least two more times just in traffic, and had several near misses by people who simply did not see the XL-7. The last accident happened in 2006, when some clown in a Ford Ranger took the XL-7’s front bumper off and then attempted to flee. Because his truck was branded all over with his employer’s phone number, he was found very quickly. He was fired even quicker than he was found. The kicker is that the driver was genuinely surprised he got caught. Eventually, nature itself turned on the XL-7 and threw an entire flock of morning doves at my mother one morning during her commute, necessitating a new windshield.

None of what befell the XL-7 was its own fault. It was always a perfectly competent SUV, and my father does not understand why we all hated it. In 2007, without any forewarning, my father traded it in on a brand new BMW 335i. I felt no sadness at its absence, and even now, with the benefit of hindsight and the ability to understand the irrationality of my hatred for it, I still do not miss it.

Note: Lead photo from the CC Cohort by canadiancatgreen.