Suzuki S-Cross

• Report 1: We welcome the Suzuki S-Cross to our long term fleet
• Report 2: Less time in the lay-by than expected…
• Report 3: Long-haul lothario…
• Report 4: The ice man cometh
• Report 5: Load lugging for Christmas

Report 1: We welcome the Suzuki S-Cross to our long term fleet

We'll be living with the latest mild hybrid version of the Suzuki S-Cross for the next six months. So what are our first impressions?

Date: 11 September 2025 | Current mileage: 1153 | Claimed economy: 49.5mpg | Actual economy: 45.5mpg

Well this’ll be interesting: a larger, more spacious and slightly more standard equipment-heavy all-wheel drive SUV than Suzuki’s Vitara, which bounds into the fray in a market every bit as crowded as that of its smaller sibling, leaving the S-Cross jostling for position - and your attention - with the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, Ford Kuga, Peugeot 3008, Seat Ateca, VW Tiguan and Mazda CX-5.

Suzuki says that, after its latest session with the design department, the S-Cross ‘now looks right’. Where the front end is concerned it’s hard to disagree with those chunky, gently pugnacious looks. But in profile the car is a somewhat less enthralling proposition – especially on unfashionably small 17-inch wheels that at least offer the promise of less gristle in the blancmange when it comes to ride quality. 

And for me, despite the full width light bar which is becoming a ubiquitous hallmark of the SUV world, the back end just doesn’t bring enough heft to the car, leaving it looking more teetering than properly planted. The whole, then, though dramatically different from its predecessor, is several Yorkie bars short of emulating the clean, rugged good looks of the latest Vitara.

On board, a more modern infotainment system and a gentle soft-touch upgrade to the dashboard materials aside, the interior is pretty much as we left it at birth in 2013. For many, that will be a Good Thing – proper switchgear for air-con et al, even if it does leave the interior looking somewhat behind the curve compared to many rivals.

Suzuki has developed a completely new infotainment system for the latest S-Cross. It’s delivered via a seven-inch touchscreen in the lesser of two available trim levels – Motion, and a nine-inch screen in posher Ultra trim. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are fitted as standard across the board, but there is no option of wireless charging, so you’ll probably have to plug your phone in anyway on longer journeys. Alas, charging points are scarce, with just on USB-A port and a 12V port in the cabin.

It may look a tad drab inside the S-Cross, but the ergonomics can’t be faulted; at least not from the driver’s perspective. The front passenger seat has no height adjustment, and the elder hooligan complains that his hair is constantly assaulted by the rolling screen under the huge sunroof. That aside, the front seats are comfortable and, because Suzuki has managed to get it just right, the lack of lumbar support adjustment isn’t an issue. As to the entirely modest degree of lateral support, I’ll report back on that…

There’s plenty of legroom for adults in the back seats, but once again that panoramic sunroof - standard with Ultra grade – makes headroom somewhat tight. The split-folding backrest reclines through two positions, but that doesn’t really compensate for the absence of air vents or USB ports astern. The 430 litre loadspace is adequate and its movable floor useful, but there are no little touches like emergency slop curry hooks or partitioning dividers.

As to versions: there are just two powertrain choices for the S-Cross; a 129PS 1.4 litre turbocharged mild hybrid engine with a six-speed manual gearbox and a choice of front- or all-wheel drive, and a 115PS, 1.5 litre full hybrid with automatic transmission and front-wheel drive.

Neither engine is especially sprightly on paper, the mild hybrid reaching 62mph from a standstill in 10.2 seconds, the full hybrid an even more relaxed 12.7. Top speed for the former is 121mph, the latter just 108. WLTP fuel consumption and emissions figures are 49.5mpg and 131g/km for the mild hybrid engine, and 55.3mpg and 116 g/km for the full hybrid.

Then there are two trim levels – Motion and Ultra. Motion has most of what you need, but an extra five grand affords you Ultra, which adds four-wheel drive, a 360 degree camera, part leather upholstery, a panoramic sunroof and a larger 9-inch touchscreen with sat nav.

However, the full hybrid is only available in Motion trim, and if you want all-wheel drive, it must be with Ultra spec’. So the four model line comprises: 1.4 mild hybrid, front-wheel drive Motion, from £23,999; 1.4 mild hybrid, front-wheel drive Ultra, from £26,499; 1.4 mild hybrid, all-wheel drive Ultra, from £28,299; and 1.5 full hybrid front-wheel drive Motion, from £25,749.

And if all of that seems something of a bargain it’s because, at the time of writing, Suzuki is offering £4050 off every model in the range.

We’ll be living with the 1.4 mild hybrid, all-wheel drive for the next few months, with the missus, two hooligans and the evil-smelling dog guaranteed to be adding their sixpence-worth of feedback on life with the car. Initial impressions? No nonsense, frill-free family motoring that’s surprisingly good fun to drive, and a speed limit warning bong that’s almost impossible to turn off. Stand by to stand by…

Report 2: Less time in the lay-by than expected…

Turning off the speed limit warning in our Suzuki S-Cross is proving a far more long-winded process than it shoud be...

Date: 6 October 2025 | Current mileage: 1897 | Claimed economy: 49.5mpg | Actual economy: 43.2mpg

Just how much time you spend in a lay-by tailoring the Suzuki’s infotainment system and safety features to your needs really depends on how much you’re prepared to put up with. Pairing the phone, for instance, is every bit as much of a doddle as we’ve come to expect from today’s cars, though the Suzuki S-Cross does display a worrying tendency to forget that you’ve actually done it, and randomly require that you repeat the process.

I don’t tend to use Apple CarPlay because it likes to take over once activated, and I have no beef with the technology - such as navigation – provided by the car’s infotainment system.

What I do have a major beef with, however, is the fabulous, technicolour faff involved with switching off the speed limit warning bonger. Killing the lane-keeping nanny is easy - simply press and hold a button on the dash until your fingertip goes numb and the little logo turns orange.

But the speed limit warning is buried in a litany of unintelligible acronyms disguised as a menu on the information screen between the deliciously analogue speedometer and rev counter. Scrolling through said menu involves twisting and then pressing a prong that sticks out of the instrument binnacle like the pre-
chewed cap of a cheap biro. The sort of thing we used to use to reset the trip odometer in our Austin 1100s.

Thing is, when you twist it it doesn’t feel as if it’s rotating at all and when you press it there’s a similar lack of positive action. It makes the whole exercise feel something of a lottery, with an equally slender chance of winning. This one random knob rather ruins the pleasure of being confronted with a dashboard which sports a proper array of old fashioned knobs and knockers, all of which simply do what it says on the tin.

Happily (because I really can’t be arsed to mulch about trying to shut it off), the speed limit warning bonger only just manages to do what it says on the tin. You can set the volume so low (more faff but only the once) that - the S-Cross specialising in that old Japanese stalwart, thinsulation – it’s quickly overcome almost entirely by wind noise as speeds build.

Setting up the climate control is a blissfully switch and button-oriented experience. And while that does leave the radio and sat nav entirely reliant on screen stabbing, the thoughtful - nee accidental? – placement of a little blank panel between the air vents under the screen makes an ideal resting place for a couple of other digits to stabilise your index finger on the move, giving you a better than even chance of actually hitting what you aim for…

Report 3: Long-haul lothario…

The Suzuki S-Cross makes for a surprisingly good motorway cruiser, even if it isn't exactly the last word in hushed peace and quiet.

Date: 3 November 2025 | Current mileage: 2891 | Claimed economy: 49.5mpg | Actual economy: 43.6mpg

Having just been lulled into left hand laziness by six months with the Renault Captur’s automatic transmission, a long lope to the West Country provides the ideal opportunity to get used to a manual gear change again, without too many traffic lights at which I can stall embarrassingly while still expecting the gearbox to sort itself out unstirred…

No complaints about the gearshift, though. It’s a really nice meld of accuracy, ease and involvement. But I do find I have to keep double-checking I’m in 6th and not 4th once in the cruise. And that’s because: firstly, I’m clearly the arse of a horse and, secondly, there’s quite a lot of background noise in the cabin at speed - a combination of wind and tyre. And it isn’t always easy to hear the 1.4 litre turbo petrol engine at work. 

That means checking the rev counter. But with the gear ratios quite tightly stacked, there’s surprisingly little indicated difference between 4th and 6th at 60mph, especially if you’re restricted to quick glances… Spend too much time peering at dials rather than the road ahead and the nanny camera atop the infotainment screen will activate the Driving Matron. And she will have words with you. 

Certainly, Suzuki could add more insulation, especially round the wheel arches. But, by today’s standards, this is not a heavy car, weighing in at just 1305kg. The reward for which is surprisingly lively performance through the gears that belies the quoted 0-62mph time of 10.2 seconds – the small dollop of hybrid-sponsored electrification making a very decent fist of adding torque while you wait for the engine to climb into the turbo-rousing rev range. In truth, though, I’d rather have the performance than the additional hush. 

That does mean that the radio tends to be on somewhat loudly at motorway speeds. But the missus and I have long come to an harmonious understanding whereby she has her own pop-tastic crap on earbuds. And if she does have something to say, the Suzuki is blessed with one brilliant physical button – a one-stab stereo mute tab just above the volume control on the steering wheel rim. Hunt for the mute button in any posh, screen-heavy, switchgear-light car these days and your well down the road to divorce before it’s first located and then activated.

Anyway, the S-Cross is not only brisk, but also rather entertaining to drive in a gently old fashioned way. 17-inch wheels make for tyres with proper side walls, so the first thing you notice is a delightfully pliant, comfortable ride remarkably free of thumps and crunches over even the nastiest surfaces. Said suppleness, combined with a fine driving position – despite the absence of either seat height or lumbar adjustment, and fine all-round visibility, makes light work of long-haul journeys for even the most hastily constructed amongst us.

You wouldn’t expect a comfy family SUV to major in the handling stakes, but the Suzuki S-Cross actually makes a pretty decent fist of the twisty stuff. The steering is by no means the last word in communication, but it is easy and accurate, while the undercarriage is pleasingly tenacious well beyond the point where you expect the front tyres to make a bee-line for the shrubbery, and that, allied to the pleasure of the deft, accurate, snicker-snack gear change adds up to far more fun than I’d hoped for.

Gripes? Well, not being arsed to go through the numerous flaming hoops of deactivating the speed limit warning bonger, as previously discussed. And – only when I’m on a motorway, mind - the Driving Matron telling me that there’s traffic merging every time I pass the down ramp of a junction. 

That’s the only piece of driving assistance the Matron has ever given me, and the one piece of driving assistance I really don’t need. Who, in what darkened basement room, decided that this was the most important and dangerous driving scenario out there and should be highlighted volubly every time there’s the punch-line to a good joke on Radio 4 Extra to interrupt? 

How about her reminding me to change down through the gears then depress the clutch as I approach traffic lights to avoid stalling? Now that would be properly useful…

Report 4: The ice man cometh

As the weather turns distinctly cold, we're left waiting for our Suzuki to defrost of a morning. Can't this go any quicker?

Date: 29 November 2025 | Current mileage: 3219 | Claimed economy: 49.5mpg | Actual economy: 43.5mpg

We always forget. But every year, as the season of mellow fruitfulness succumbs to the first frost, we’re bought back to earth with a chilly bump. Sitting in the car, engine running, waiting for the windscreen to defrost on the outside and, inexorably slowly, demist on the inside.

And this is the moment – or rather five minutes – at which those of us who own a car which was conceived in a country wherein they drive on the right are reminded that, though the steering wheel may have been shifted for our benefit, the air vents along the bottom of the windscreen almost certainly have not. Meaning that if they have been thoughtfully designed to favour the driver’s side of the screen during demist, us right-hookers are in for an especially long wait…

Remember when they couldn’t even be arsed to change the windscreen wipers – and French manufacturers were always especially slack about this – so the driver had to live with what should be the passenger’s somewhat more restricted view out?

Anyway. Mercifully, the Japanese drive on the same side of the road as us, so the S-Cross is guilty of neither of these irritating cost-savers. And happily, the Suzuki’s air-con’ panel includes a couple of big, proper buttons for front and rear screen demist activation, so that’s the work of an instant. Sadly, faced with a gently vicious first frost, de-icing and demisting isn’t. 

Every winter starts with me wondering if I’m doing it right: use the air recycle button, or not? Open the windows a crack, or not? Increase the engine revs to get the thing hotter faster…? The family motto being ‘If all else fails read the instructions’, I thought I’d check in with AI to see what it/he/she/they suggests.

So. Apparently you must not use the recycle button - which just recirculates the moisture-laden cabin air, but, rather, let the system work with fresh, less humid air being fed in from outside. Well that’s all very well, but surely the humid air has be removed from the cabin anyway. So I’ll open the window a crack… Nope, all four are resolutely frozen shut.

All I can do, then, is switch on the heated driver’s seat – known in ff-C Towers as the Hot Bot – raise the revs of the engine a tad (AI tells us that larger displacement engines warm up faster, and this S-Cross only sports a 1.4 litre unit) and watch the grubby finger smears appear on the inside of the screen where someone with zero patience has tried to wipe the fug away. Disastrous idea.

The rear screen, of course, is laced with heated wiring, so clears in a jiffy. But Ford seems to have the monopoly on ultra-fine filament submerged in windscreen glazing, and has, effectively, huffed off the playground with the only ball available. Why won’t they share? After all, even in Scandinavia there can’t be that many people who will only ever buy a Ford simply because it has a heated windscreen. Can there..?

Report 5: Load lugging for Christmas

The S-Cross is pressed into action hauling our rather large Christmas tree home. Is it up to the job?

Date: 15 December 2025 | Current mileage: 3713 | Claimed economy: 49.5mpg | Actual economy: 43.6mpg

So large has the collection of diverse manufacturers’ luggage covers in my shed become - both in roll-up fabric and solid(ish) hinged platform guise – that I reckon in 50 years or so it’ll make a pretty respectable exhibit at Beaulieu Motor Museum. Guess the car for each cover and win a free, um, luggage cover.

And I blame Christmas. Because it’s the one time of year when I can absolutely guarantee that, however stout the occupant of my diminutive driveway at the time, not only must the rear seats be collapsed, but the luggage cover will have to come out as well to accommodate the Christmas tree…

Mercifully, in the case of the S-Cross, this process is something of a doddle. No need to remove the rear headrests, just shove them as far south as they’ll go on the 60:40 split seats, grab the flushed-in levers on the outer corners of the seatbacks and flop them flat.

But where to store the cover? Roll-ups often go under the loadspace floor these days – once you’ve wrestled them free of their spring-loaded mounting. No such luck, though, with the Suzuki’s solid, lipped platform – doubtless wrought in eco-friendly compressed rhino spore. So, either it stays flat on the loadspace floor to collect thousands of non-drop pine needles, or it joins the party in the outside shed. B, then.

So, the tree: Tip in first, right up through the gap between the front seats. When the children were little we used to have to leave a part of the rear seats up so that both could accompany the tree home. Split 60:40 makes that perfectly possible with the S-Cross, but the hooligans are no longer so over-full of jelly and excitement at the very onset of the festive period that they simply have to be there for the selection, purchase and lugging home process.

The only snag with having the fat of the tree trunk at the back of the loadspace is the danger that a well-slammed tailgate can result in a smartly shattered rear window. No such problems with the Suzuki, mercifully.

However, I invariably forget to put the luggage cover back. Which is odd, because its absence utterly changes to on-board acoustics of the car. This is far more noticeable with solid covers, which do a fine job of isolating the passenger compartment from rear tyre roar and other sunder undercarriage intrusion noises off. 

Interestingly, a key difference between Japanese and European cars lies in the frequency of the sounds most readily tolerated by their manufacturers. The Japanese don’t like the lower frequency intrusions, while Europeans tend to favour them over higher frequency noises. Hence a tendency for some Japanese marques to suffer from what we might call Thinsulation…

This doesn’t really matter in the ff-C S-Cross, though, because I’m Sorry I Haven’t Any News For You on Radio 4 Extra, plus attendant chortling, is usually doing an excellent job of drowning out all else. And just as well, because putting the cover back in place turns out to be something of a nightmare. It seems too narrow to re-locate on the fat pins either side. And the collected might of two substantial intellects (no; I was merely spectating) spent quite some time trying to clip the damned thing back in place.

Now all I have to do is Hoover up those errant needles, which stick like Velcro to faintly furry loadspace finish. Still, could be worse, could be mud.