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2008 Suzuki - Comfort
Front Comfort
Most of us had a hard time finding a comfortable seating position in the SX4. There’s plenty of head, leg and shoulder room, but the steering wheel-to-driver’s-seat ratio is all wrong. If you’re built with long arms and short legs – think of an orangutan – you’ll be fine, otherwise you’re in for a lot of fidgeting. A telescoping steering wheel would do wonders. The seat itself is covered in soft but durable feeling fabric, and although the bottom cushion is too short for long-legged drivers, the overall shape is good. We like the leather covered steering wheel, but wish that the door-mounted armrest was padded.
Rear Comfort
Like the front, the rear seat is fine for shorter legged occupants. Knees will touch the front seatbacks otherwise, but unless you’re more than six feet tall, nothing more than your hair will ever touch the stratospheric ceiling. There’s not a lot of shoulder room, so although five can theoretically fit, they’ll have to watch their hands to avoid harassment lawsuits from their seatmates.
Interior Noise
One of the places manufacturers cut costs on inexpensive cars is in sound deadening, and Suzuki is no different. You hear plenty of engine noise at all speeds, wind noise from the windshield wipers and large outside mirrors at speed, and road noise above anything more than a slow-commute crawl. That said, in the world of cheap cars this is about as quiet as it gets, and the youngins who will likely make up a good chunk of SX4 buyers won’t mind cranking the excellent nine-speaker audio system to drown out the other noises.
Visibility
Couple a tall roof with big windows and you usually end up with excellent visibility. It turns out the SX4 is only pretty good because of two blocked views. The first is in front; Suzuki tried to compensate for the far-flung windshield with a small quarter window between the windshield and the front door glass. Taller drivers wind up looking at the top of this small “A” frame, defeating the purpose. In back, that little upkick in the rearmost pillar evokes a BMW sensibility, but it’s hard to see around. Luckily, the large outside mirrors and big rear glass mostly compensate for this.
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