SMARTER SWACE ACE? (some text hidden) SECTIONED_new_suzukiswace_2023

By Jonathan Crouch

Introductionword count: 116

By 2023, Suzuki was, literally, on a charge. By then, not only had it electrified its entire range, but it had also expanded it, albeit with more than a little help from its technical collaborator, Toyota. Launched in 2020, the Swace was the second model of that partnership, this curiously-named model borrowing the design of the familiar, respected Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Estate to give the Suzuki brand an entrant into the lucrative C-segment compact estate sector. By 2023, the car had been updated, with a punchier Hybrid engine, more equipment and an improved cabin. That's the version we look at here as a used buy. Is it convincing enough to win Suzuki some new friends?

Modelsword count: 4

5dr Estate (Petrol -1.8)

Historyword count: 360

When is a Suzuki not quite a Suzuki? For mainstream visitors to the brand, the current answer to that question is when it's a Swace, this car, the company's version of the Toyota Corolla Sports Tourer estate. Here, we look at the improved version Suzuki launched in 2023. With most shared product designs, the manufacturers involved take quite a lot of trouble to change the bits you can see to further the pretence that the products concerned are actually different. This isn't one of those designs. Back in 2020, Suzuki needed a quick fix to reduce its average CO2 output in Europe and avoid punitive fines from Brussels. So they turned to Toyota, with whom the brand had a long-standing history of business partnerships - and this was the result. With this improved Swace, as with the original, virtually no attempt at differentiation from the donor car was made, apart from a subtly different nose design and different badges on the wheels and, inside, on the steering wheel. At least you know what you're getting. And what you're getting is the estate version of a car we've previously recommended, the Toyota Corolla, one of the very few family hatchbacks available with a self-charging full-Hybrid engine. The Corolla was substantially improved for the 2023 model year, so the Swace got an upgrade too, creating the car we're going to look at here, which like its predecessor was still British-built by Toyota at Burnaston in Derbyshire. The Swace brought Suzuki back into a market sector that previous to 2020 it had been absent from since it offered the Baleno estate at the turn of the century - but that car never sold very strongly. With the added draw of electrified technology, the brand hoped it would be a different story for its prospects in this segment. But the Swace sold slowly and was discontinued in 2024. What You Pay Prices for this updated Swace model start from around £17,700 (around £19,900 retail) for a '23-plate base 'Motion' version. It's around £1,300 more for plusher 'Ultra' trim. For one of the last late-'24-plate 'Motion'-spec models, you're looking at around £19,750 (around £22,000 retail).

What You Getword count: 309

Visual changes to this updated Swace were slight; a few exterior styling tweaks and some different lighting finishes - that's about it. Otherwise, it's as you were, which means it's an almost carbon copy of its Toyota Corolla Touring Sports donor model. As before, unlike its Corolla cousin, the Swace is only available as an estate. Moving inside, the Swace offers little differences over its Corolla cousin; apart from the badge on the steering wheel and 'Swace' branding on the mats, there are no differences. Still, perhaps that's a good thing because it means that this this upgraded design got the much improved standard of media connectivity that by 2023 Toyota had introduced into its version of this model. The centre screen remained a modest 8-inches in size (unlike the 10.5-inch screen by 2023 fitted to the Corolla), but in this updated model it was of higher definition and included 'Apple CarPlay' wireless smartphone-mirroring. For the instrument binnacle, there's an upgraded central 7-inch multi-information display. What else? Well the cabin ambiance (just about) matches what you'd expect for the asking price, helped by shiny black finishing, white stitching and silver detailing. These touches, along with soft-touch plastics, help lift the ambience of a slightly dark interior. As before, there's a pretty exemplary, fairly high-set driving position which sees almost everything falling naturally to hand. It's fairly tight space-wise in the rear by class standards, both in terms of leg and headroom, restrictions rather emphasised by the way the curved roof lining slopes down ahead and to the side of you. Out back, there's a class-competitive 596-litre boot. That's better than a Ford Focus Estate (575-litres) but way short of the class-leading Skoda Octavia Estate (640-litres). The rear seat can be flattened in a 60:40-split by using cargo sidewall catches, which creates a total loading space of up to 1,232-litres.

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