Suzuki Swift GLX Hybrid 2024 Review

The Swift Hybrid is available in four guises: Base manual form at $24,490 before on-road costs or, for an extra $1000 in CVT transmission form, $25,490. The range then becomes all-CVT and steps up in $1000 increments to the Hybrid Plus at $26,990 and $27,990 for the premium-spec GLX variant reviewed.

The Suzuki has a clear pricing advantage over light-class but slightly larger-footprint hybrid rivals such as the MG3 and Toyota Yaris.

Hybrid MG3s come in base Excite form at $27,990 pre-ORCs, or $29,990 for the plusher Essence, while the Toyota Yaris hybrid range begins at $28,500 pre-ORCs for the Ascent Sport, progressing through $31,960 for the SX to $34,530 for the top-spec ZR.

At all levels, the Suzuki Swift Hybrid tends to change perceptions of what a light car should or shouldn’t have in its standard-goods bin.

Bearing in mind this is a light car of not particularly massive proportions, there’s acceptable inner space, especially in the front, and the seats are comfortably supportive. The stylish presentation comprises discrete visual elements to help avoid blandness.

For the price, the lack of rear air vents comes as no surprise. And the narrow cabin leaves shoulder room at a premium for more than two adults.

Standard across the three-model Swift range are manually adjusted front seats, various grades of fabric trim, keyless entry/startup, self-dipping LED headlights and heated external rear-view mirrors.

The Hybrid Plus model adds niceties such as 16-inch alloy wheels (base models run on 15-inch steel wheels), a leather steering wheel rim, up-rated fabric seat trim with heating for the driver and front passenger, plus driver’s side height adjustment.

GLX Swifts add paddle shifters for the CVT transmission, climate control, wireless phone charging, power-folding rear-view mirrors with built-in indicators, a heating duct (not vents) for rear-seat passengers and a bit of spit and polish for the 17-inch alloy wheels.

Warranty cover is the usual five-year/unlimited-kilometre arrangement with roadside assist over the course of the full warranty period. Servicing is required every 12 months or 15,000km with no costs published – although they can be calculated via desktop.

Safety tech across the board is comprehensive but not quite consistent. The base Swift Hybrid comes with autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane-departure warning with lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, traffic sign recognition and self-explanatory “weaving alert”. But if you want blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert you’ll need to step up to Hybrid Plus or GLX level.

The new Swift has six airbags but no current ANCAP safety rating. How its lack of a front centre airbag – an increasingly common fixture in five-star-rated passenger cars – will affect its ANCAP score remains to be seen.

From entry-level upwards, the Swift Hybrid comes with an expansive, GPS-enabled nine-inch touch-screen, keyless entry/startup, heated door mirrors and a tech-laden list that includes things such as traffic sign recognition and self-dipping headlights.

Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity are standard (CarPlay is wireless, Android Auto is wired), as is DAB radio, although only Hybrid Plus and GLX models boast the full six-speaker audio system. The base Swift relies on just two speakers.

Though embedded satellite navigation makes the cut, USB points are not prolific – they don’t even get a mention in the base model – with Hybrid Plus and GLX variants getting single A and C ports in the front of the cabin.

The hybrid Swift’s three-cylinder engine employs a torque-friendly long-stroke configuration and displaces just 1.2 litres. Its outputs are relatively meagre at 61kW at 5700rpm and 112N/m at 4500rpm with some help from the integrated belt-driven starter-generator (ISG) when taking off or under load. The Swift's mild-hybrid status is evident in the 2.3kW and 60Nm the electric motor/generator unit contributes.

It's small but better than nothing, and it provides an incremental boost for acceleration, fuel consumption and charging the lithium-ion hybrid battery, which also feeds on regenerative braking. Another of the ISG’s benefits is the seamless firing up of the engine, whether on initial startup or during activation of the Stop-Start system.

This is helped a lot by not just the minimal 7kg the hybrid system adds to the Swift, but also by the light weight of the Heartect platform. All up, the Swift Hybrid GLX weighs just 957kg.

With the Swift being a mild hybrid, drivers can expect reasonable fuel-saving outcomes. At 4.0L/100km it’s right up there with its competitors, slightly better than the MG3’s 4.3L/100km and not too far behind Toyota’s claimed 3.3L/100km for the hybrid Yaris. Our review Swift hybrid returned 4.9L/100km over a week in a mixed bag of driving conditions.

The Suzuki Swift is as zippy as ever on the road, not afraid of the odd blast on a freeway and happy as can be when paddle-shifting through the tight and bendy stuff. The light overall weight comes into play here, making the most of the throaty three-cylinder mild-turbo driveline and responding nimbly to the quick steering. Despite the short (2450mm) wheelbase, the Swift provides a pretty impressive ride on its MacPherson Strut front/torsion beam rear suspension. Suzuki has had generations of quick Swifts to practice its chassis-tuning expertise.

The only niggles were the sponginess of the brake pedal, the closely-grouped floor pedals, which are not well-suited to size 12 or more boots, and the microscopically small digital readouts on some of the instrument panel functions. In the boot, which opens from inside the cabin via a 60/40 split-fold rear seat, luggage capacity increases from a minuscule 265 litres to a reasonable-for-class 980 litres. That's comparable to the MG3. There’s no spare wheel in the Swift, just a temporary repair/inflator kit.

It’s not necessary to look far to find hard-touch surfaces in the Suzuki Swift, but these are largely inoffensive.

There’s more solidity, not only in the way the Swift rides and handles, but in the cabin architecture where there’s plenty of interplay between the functional and the decorative, and there is enough colour contrast to keep things interesting. It’s not merely a cheap and cheerful environment.

There is no power adjustment for the front seats – in fact, apart from four power windows and two power-adjusted wing mirrors there’s not much power anything. And there is hardly any piano black or faux-leather trim, but the mood is inviting and generally cosy.

The cabin isn’t bad at all for the space it offers, and the general visibility is pretty good too, hampered slightly by the Swift's signature design trait, the blocky, C-pillar design.

Truly, the Suzuki Swift has come a long way since it first appeared in the mid-1980s – and even had Holden connections at one time, as the basis for the first-generation Barina.

Dynamically, it’s as fun to drive as ever and makes an unarguably low environmental impact. It’s a light car but makes a pretty good show of being a relatively spacious one, and certainly showcases itself in an unapologetic way. There is an element of cheeky charm at play here.

Where the Suzuki Swift GLX Hybrid borders on apologetic is in its humble-hybrid approach. It’s not exactly mild-mannered in its road behaviour, but it could nevertheless do with more bravado.

2024 Suzuki Swift GLX Hybrid at a glance:

Price: $27,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol-electric
Output: 61kW/112Nm
Transmission: CVT
Fuel: 4.0L/100km
CO2: 90g/km
Safety rating: Not tested

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