Is it smart buying a used Suzuki? Concerned about parts

“Remember the Cadillac Catera? A rebadged Opel Omega, actually. It was also considered a pretty decent car in Europe, but bellyflopped in the US”

That was one more of GM’s US marketing disasters in the realm of smaller cars.
In Europe, the Opel Omega was pretty much the standard taxi in many areas, but then GM decided to put nicer upholstery and wall-to-wall tail lights on it, and try to fool US consumers into thinking that it was a small luxury car.

The slogan (accompanied by the cartoon image of a duck–which I could never figure out the significance of) was, “The Caddy that zigs”. Apparently that was supposed to indicate that this was one Cadillac that wouldn’t handle like a tugboat, but the message was lost on the US consumer, apparently, and it was pulled from the marketplace after a few years.

Just by coincidence I happened to see one yesterday, in the parking lot of my local supermarket, an it appeared to be in very good condition. In retrospect, it certainly wasn’t a good-looking car, but because it was an Opel, it was probably a decent car mechanically.

@VDCdrive

How is the Cadillac Catera considered a smaller car

Unless I’m mistaken, it was technically a mid-size rwd car

But I guess anything is small, compared to a Fleetwood Brougham

@jtsanders

How is the Catera related to the Cimarron

The Catera was rwd, while the Cimarron was fwd

I don’t think they shared anything in common, except for the Cadillac badge

^
I was referring to GM’s historical problems in marketing anything smaller than a full-sized car.
Their failures (in the '70s, '80s & '90s) at marketing anything smaller than a canal barge are legendary.

;-))

You are, of course, correct about it being a mid-sized RWD car, which makes me wonder about the other member’s comment about it being related to the Cadillac Cimarron.

???

@db4690 The Cimmaron was a jazzed up version of the FWD GM J cars, very mediocre transportation. The Caterra was a rebadged Opel which in Germany was a reliable family car. Also very popular as a company car. Like so many transplants, e.g. the Ford Mondeo, it did not work out because Americans expect more space as they go up the price ladder.

Even Lady Bird Johnson, touring an auto show, was heard to remark to LBJ when seeing a Rolls Royce: “That’s a lot of money for a compact car”!

@Docknick

As for the Opel Omega being a reliable family car in Germany . . .

You are mostly correct. It was indeed a family car, but more for upper middle class families, not the working class stiffs.

I’ll say this . . . when I was living in Germany, my family would not have been able to afford to buy an Omega, or any car in that size class. Meaning we couldn’t afford to buy a mid-sized car.

The Omega was more of a regular sedan, like the Ford Mondeo that was sold here around that time as the ford contour. Putting fancier duds on the car didn’t fool american customers for long. The CTS has proved to be a better car by far.

@db4690, they are distantly related in that they are both small Cadillacs. As such, the Catera reminded people that did not pay a lot of attention to the details of each of the Cimarron. Lots of people look at a new GM Diesel engine in a car and think of the 1980s diesel Oldsmobile, even though the only similarity is that they use diesel fuel. Many post on this board, in fact.

For most of the good reasons listed in these posts I’d be reluctant to buy this car at anywhere near the sking price. However, one poster got a major fact wrong. While many ‘Suzukis’ of the last decade were rebadged Daewoos and generally pretty poor cars (in another irony, those same cars were sold in Europe as Chevrolets), but the SX4 was not a Daewoo, but a genuine product of Suzuki, as was the earlier Aerio and the more recent Kizashi. None were bad cars, but they were quirky and a little hard to sell to Americans who thought of Suzushi as strictly a motorcycle maker. In Japan they are one of the biggest in unit sales, but almost all those units are kei cars, the highly regulated tiny city cars with thheir half-liter engined and all. Suzuki has mad many efforts to sell larger vehicles but only had some success with mini-utes, like the Suzuki and Grand Vitara. Car models like the SX4 and Kizashi have hardly sold at all, a shame since they are both good cars, reliable, practica, and reasonably priced. The SX4 was the cheapest awd car sold, and it was a good one, especually the wagon/hatch. The sedan looked kind of weird. I would buh one at the right price, undwrstanding that parts may take some tracking down. It’s not as if the company has gone away - they still make cars for other markets, probably including some that share parts with the SX4. It’s a much better situation than a car company going completely out of business. Subaru is still making and stocking parts for repairs, just not primarily for US owners. The lack of a committed dealer network was always one of their problems. The dealerships were small and unimpressive, or just a dusty corner of a GM mega-dealer. It didn’t help that the ads made no sense. The Kizashi was supposed to compete with European sports sedans - with Samurai integrity. Or somesuch. Too bad the car was not especially sporty and fell into a hold between the Corolla-Civic compact class and the mid-size class dominated by Camrys, Accords, and Altimas. I thought the Kizashi was a just-right size for a car, perfectly comfortable in front, and acceptable in back if you weren’t super tall and weren’t going to be stuck back there for days. As a standard small family car it was great. The SX4 sbould have been pushed as the frugal eccentric that can take you and three friends just about anywhere. It was surprisingly roomy (gobs of headroom, and the straightforward awd was adequate for most winter driving. The interior was a bit plain, but that fits in with the lifestyle vehicle concept. They should have sold a fair number to Matrix/Vibe and Impreza. Sure, they were cheaper and smaller, but not everyone needs bigger.

I hope you find an agreeable (much reduced) price, as these are tough cars and this one still has a lot of years of solid driving ahead of it.

The lack of marketing for the SX4 Crossover wagon AWD was a total mystery to me. I never saw an ad for one. Yet when my mother wanted a small AWD vehicle, I did some research and found the SX4 Crossover AWD wagon, which fit her perfectly because she is small…it was the smallest AWD vehicle sold in the US. Where I live, in the Northeast, the SX4 Crossover AWD could have sold like hotcakes if Suzuki had bothered to market it as an alternative to Subaru AWD’s, which are quite popular in these parts.

It’s been a great car for my mom, yet it’s a virtual unknown. Why Suzuki didn’t bother to spend a dime on TV advertising is a total mystery to me, because they could have sold hundred of thousands of units if they had only tried.

@MarkM
I agree 100% with your general assesment of the car, especially those made by Suzuki. My Suzuki was generally quite reliable and my other Suzuki products were advanced and reliable too. But, nothing could make up for the inability to find parts and knowledgable provider. Unless the car was practically given to me, it would be hard for me to accept it given these facts. I would much rather buy a less reliable car from a company that at least backed them or provided what I needed to keep it on the road. Therefore, I would totally disregard purchasing it. Waiting a week or more or using makeshift parts, like what happened to me on more then one occasion that ultimately didn’t work either is just too inconvenient and unsafe.

I agree with dagosa and others that not having parts available is not worth the inconvenience. I once owned a 1965 Rambler and when I went to graduate school, there was no AMC dealer in that university town. I had a problem with the manual transmission. I did locate a good transmission expert, but had to wait most of a week while the parts were shipped by bus from a large city dealer. I had to pay the shipping cost for these parts. Fortunately, I lived in married student housing and had bus service from the apartment building where I lived to campus.
Now I know a lot of parts are available at places like NAPA such as batteries and spark plugs, but when it is a part specific to the make, then you have to depend on the dealer. I won’t buy a car unless there is a dealer for that make in the community, even though I use an independent garage.

I remember seeing print ads for the SX4 but the problem for most was finding a Suzuki dealer, the last one here in Olympia was only open for a few months, although they had a brand new showroom and lot to pay for. The previous dealer was in a much more basic location. After that you had to go to Tacoma to buy one. When Suzuki was finally moving past selling daewoo’s and making their own decent cars most buyers had gone to other makes.

Frankly I think Suzuki got the smackdown from the Karmic Mullet.

Just before announcing leaving the US market, Suzuki featured commercial where they catapult a “Flaming Chicken” Trans-Am out of a choice parking spot. The cheek!!

After all, the T/A–Firebird is the mulletmobile of record…and the Flaming Chicken is the national bird of Mullet-land. (And, while Burt Reynolds never sported the 'do, he surely counts as an honorary mullet…or proto-mullet.

So, when you a be-mulleted brother or sister out there, before you make some snide “Freebird” reference…beware the Karmic Mullet!!!

I almost bought my wife the SX4 AWD one. It was the perfect car for her and the price was right. Then rumors started about them pulling out of the market and I dropped the idea. When I travel abroad I see lots of them, especially the Vitara which looks like a shrunken CRV/RAV4

In 1963, my dad bought a new Studebaker Lark. By 1966, Studebaker was gone. Even in 1964, Studebaker dealers were closing and parts were hard to obtain. My brother bought the car from my dad in 1965. The alternator, a Prestolite unit, needed new brushes. My brother had a very difficult time finding them. He also carried a spare fuel pump in case the pump failed.
Fortunately, in 1968, my brother saw an ad at a Buick dealer for a 1963 Buick LeSabre for a very low price. When he checked out the Buick, it seemed to be in excellent shape with low mileage. When he returned to the dealer, he said, “The price is way lower than book price, yet the car seems to be in excellent condition and I can’t find any sign of accident damage”. The salesman replied, “You drove the car and you should have picked up on the problem. It is a manual transmission with no power steering or brakes. Nobody wants a Buick without these features”. The salesman then offered him a great trade-in price for the Studebaker. When my brother looked shocked, the salesman said, “See that young lady over there. She has been here every week looking for a Studebaker Lark. I called her and she was checking your Studebaker while you drove the Buick”. My brother traded cars and I guess everyone was happy.
I guess if the OP just has to have a Suzuki, that is one thing. However, even though my brother liked the Studebaker (it was a manual transmission V-8), hunting parts was not his idea of a fun past time. I recommend you take a pass on the Suzuki.

As a kid we had a ‘63 Buick Special with no power anything. My mom put up with that for about two years. First significant repair bill and it was traded in for a’ 68 Beetle. My dad mainly drove it and adored it, haven’t spent the happiest year of his life in Germany in the mid-fifties, courtesy of the US Army. Even though it was smaller, we all found the VW more likable. It was like being in a small plane where the Buick was an Armored Personnel Carrier. The Buick smelled of damp and had horrid seats. My mother was used to unpowered brakes, but the brakes in that car scared her when it rained.

Then along came our buzzy little Beetle and the interior was bright and simple and everything fit right. Sure, it was cheaply made and obsolete, but it had spirit and we didn’t make long trips in it. It was my dad’s commuter car and for minor errands. The big station wagon was for vacations, grocery runs, and anywhere all six of us had to go.

A few years later my dad was rearended on the San Diego Fwy on his way to work, hit and run. My parents made the mistake of a 1975 B210 with an automatic! This was a deadly slow car even with a stick. It did 0-60 in about 30 seconds with the autobox. It was just as cramped as the VW and as gloomy and dull as the Buick (they were even similar shades of blue) . We loathed that car. The only reason my folks got one is because it was the model the HS was using for driver training at the time and my brother had it that year. A year later it was my turn and they had switched to Plymouth Volares. Four cylinder automatics, of course! Nearly as slow as the Datsun, but you could realistically fit an instructor and four teenagers (segregated by sex, so four pubescent guys in mine). The Datsuns looked like clown cars in comparison. We were stuck with ours at home, becauseI wasn’t about to agitate for a Volare. I had some pride. I would have failed anyhow, despite none of us liking the horrid Datsun. It later was traded for a Renault Alliance, another underpowered model, but compared to its predecessors it felt perky. And had great seats and plenty of room for four. Too bad it was always breaking down, as it had such a pleasant personality. I rode in the back seat from San Francisco to West Virginia and back and was comfortable the whole way.

So how is it we sometimes love (or strongly like) cars we know aren’t good, but other cars with similar weaknesses get on our nerves? The cars I disliked were dull, dark, and lacking in any delectable personality. A late seventies Impala wagon was another blah one, but I liked my parents’ early Dodge minivan. It had problems, but it was such an honest vehicle, roomy and clever (if not as clever as modern minivans.)

My brother finally just gave up on a decade-old Odyssey with 350k that he bought new. Yup, it was on its second transmission, but other than that it was super reliable, so he went out and bought a new one that’s equipped as simply as the last one. He’s thrilled. I don’t blame him, as that’s a seriously comfy van and he drives delivery and spends long days in the thing. In and out, all day long, mostly city driving, and he got 350k comfortable miles out of the old one, so no conplaints.

@meanjoe75fan

I thought the 70s/80s El Camino was the mulletmobile

@MarkM

0-60 in 30 seconds . . .

Did you ever get rearended on the freeway on ramp?

LOL

As soon as a make leaves the country, you may as well consider the warranty expired. Since nobody servicing it will get reimbursed by the manufacturer you’re on your own.

And it’s overpriced. And you’ll have to order parts over the internet and wait patiently.

I’d suggest continuing to look. Preferably for something still being sold here.