2008 Suzuki Sx4 Touring / Road Trip Edition on 2040-cars

2008 Suzuki Sx4 Touring / Road Trip Edition with AWD and automatic transmission.  We got it from a dealer when it had 26k on it and it’s the version with just about all the available bells & whistles.  This is an awesome car with no mechanical problems whatsoever and lots of miles left to go -  I would prefer to keep it forever but I have twin babies on the way in the Spring and I have given up on the dream of fitting them and my 7-year-old and my wife and me and all our stuff into this car.  

The Good:

- Well-maintained car with regular synthetic oil changes since we bought it.  I can provide maintenance records.  

- Highly reliable - we just it bring it in for regular maintenance … tires, alignments, brakes, etc.

- Switch lets you toggle between AWD when you need it and FWD when you’d rather save gas.

- Excellent on gas.  Fueleconomy.gov says 21mpg city/ 28 hwy/ 24 combined for the AWD but that sounds lower than the reality, probably because this car has the switch… it tacks on a few more for the FWD version.

- Super-safe car: Stability control (that works great by the way - you can really feel it and the indicator light comes on when it kicks in), dual front airbags, ABS brakes.

- Great in snow (even better in the snow than my old Subaru Forester was).  High clearance for a small car.  “Lock” button keeps all 4 wheels in sync temporarily for when you need to dig out of snow - that works awesome.  This thing barrels right through the plow-in of my driveway.

- Surprisingly roomy inside both for your people and your stuff for a car this size.  Rear seat folds down (both halves separately) for when you need to haul extra stuff.

- 2 remote starters - great for winter mornings.

- A/C blows super-cold.

- Power-everything: windows, locks, mirrors (and mirrors heat up with rear defrost)

- Cruise control

- Click into 3rd gear and back on-the-fly... good for hills.

- Rear wiper

- Really nice sound system: 6-cd player, AM/FM stereo, XM/Sirius satellite radio ready

- Audio controls on steering wheel

- Tinted rear windows and rear windshield

- Clean, never-smoked-in

- Just passed NYS inspection in November

- Clear title in hand

- I will provide auto-check report (similar to carfax) if you need one

The Bad:

- The accident that you’ll see reported on carfax/autocheck: a slowly-moving car that was trying to park bumped into the open front driver’s side door, just enough to cause it to need to be replaced.  The new door (about a year old) works perfectly and there is no residual effect from that.

- Somebody sideswiped the car on the driver’s side a few years ago when it was parked.  I didn’t bother to report or repair the damage.  There’s a small dent with some rust and scraping (see photo) on the rear left fender leftover from that.  No frame or wheel damage - just cosmetic.

- I bumped a wall during a terrible parking maneuver and the little black plastic lining (not sure what it’s called) on the front right popped off (see photo).  I still have it.  It comes free with your purchase of the car!  The part of that lining that is still on the car has a couple of cracks around the front.

- In a separate but equally terrible parking maneuver, that lining got slightly loosened on the rear right of the car.  No structural damage.

- In a less-than heroic attempt to replace my own rear-right tail light, I managed to crack the red plastic cover.  I glued/taped it backed together with a repair kit (see photo).  It passes inspection and for about 2 years now it has held fine and all lights are working.

- The rear tires are running low on tread (the fronts have a long way left to go).  

- The tire-pressure sensor is broken so the light for that is often on even when the tires are full.   This does not cause inspection to fail.  

- Center console mini-storage between the two front seats has always been a little loose and getting looser.

-  My only pet-peeve: the gas tank is too small - it only only takes 10 gallons so you need to keep filling up.  The cool thing is it tells you how many miles you have left to drive on your tank.