How kind. This Suzuki Swace has complimented me on my ‘excellent economical driving technique’. Or words to that effect. Several puzzling things about this. Firstly, the readout on the trip computer said that the car had averaged 44.1mpg in my tenure which, compared with the official WLTP combined consumption of 64.2mpg, does not equate with an excellent technique.
The second oddity I shall discuss in a moment after first having put you in the picture re the Swace itself. This hybrid estate car is the second born child of Suzuki’s recently established relationship with Toyota. The first was the Suzuki Across, which is a rebadged Toyota RAV4. The Swace, as you can probably guess from its proportions, is a Suzuki-ised Toyota Corolla estate or to be more accurate, a Corolla Touring Sports.
Suzuki has grafted on a subtle new nose that follows the company’s current styling cues. Bland is my judgement, though no more so than the Corolla’s snout. LED headlamps have been fitted and a new rear bumper and tail lights. On the tailgate there’s a Suzuki badge that sits on a plastic plinth. Looks a bit like an amateur’s initial experiments with 3D printing.
Our test car is painted in black, which hardly helps. Perhaps the jazzier Dark Mica Blue or Oxide Bronze Metallic would make the Swace look a little less ordinary. Probably not. Our car is in SZ5 spec which is the flagship version and sits above the entry-level SZ-T. The latter costs £27,499 and the former £29,299.
As you’d expect the powertrains on offer are straight from Toyota. Make that powertrain singular because Toyota has supplied Suzuki only with the 1.8-litre four-cylinder engine available in the Corolla for which read 120bhp (the more powerful 2.0-litre unit makes 178bhp by the way). To this are joined a CVT gearbox and 71bhp electric motor.
Back to that second surprise. I tested the Corolla Touring Sports in 2019 and managed a much more impressive average fuel economy of 67.8mpg which is better than the official figures, what’s more that was also achieved on mainly motorway and dual carriageway driving where hybrids usually lose their advantage. And that was with the same engine.
Step inside the Swace and you’re faced with an identical cabin to the Toyota apart from an S on the steering wheel boss and in the SZ5 leather upholstery. I nearly committed the cardinal sin of motoring journalism by not RTFM (Read The ****** Manual). There’s a USB port in the centre console ahead of the gear selector but that’s not the one through which you can pair your smart phone. As an aside, when the Corolla was launched smart phone mirroring via Apple Carplay and Android Auto wasn’t available; the Swace has it as standard. When I pressed the map button to the side of the infotainment screen the display flashed up a message saying that this function was not supported.
I assumed that Suzuki intends you to navigate via your smart phone and Google maps or Waze. Trouble was, I couldn’t find another USB port. Eventually this elusive connection was discovered under the dashboard to the right of the glovebox. Once I’d plugged my phone in all was well and music and directions were available. There are people who don’t live by their smart phones and will find the absence of in-built sat nav rather annoying. It’s in there somewhere in the Swace because the instrument panel displays speed limits so the car does receive a GPS signal.
The Suzuki Swace is the same to drive as its near identical twin. You have a choice of three driving modes starting with Normal, Eco and Sport. There’s also an EV mode but you’ll be lucky to catch the Swace with enough juice in its battery to go more than a few blocks. The Sport mode is pointless not least because this is a car that is best driven smoothly and gently; not just to get better economy, but because there’s no pleasure in trying to hustle it along quickly. The CVT gearbox allows the engine’s revs to whoop up and own and it becomes a lot more irritating than enjoyable.
Naturally the Swace has exactly the same dimensions as the Corolla estate which means a boot space of 596 litres with the rear seats in place and 1,606 litres with them folded flat. It’s a very useful space which easily swallowed my road bike.
Thanks to its tie-up with Toyota Suzuki has very easily added a family estate car to its catalogue. Good economic sense no doubt, but it’s a shame that Suzuki has added a rather bland car to what with the excellent Swift and even more appealing Ignis, is a really interesting line-up of cars.
Not that the Swace is a bad car, but for a like-for-like family car I’d look first at a Skoda Octavia (perhaps in new PHEV guise) or the recently revealed Golf estate. Customers who might find that the Swace really hits the spot are Uber drivers who will appreciate the around town economy of the hybrid powertrain and the extra space provided by the estate body. But then they’ll have probably bought the Corolla Touring Sports.
Model tested: Suzuki Swace SZ5
Price: £29,299
Engine: 1.8-litre four cylinder petrol hybrid
Power: 120bhp plus 71bhp electric motor
0-62mph: 11.1 seconds
Max speed: 112mph
Mpg: 64.2
Co2: 99g/km
Keyword: First drive: Suzuki Swace