1997 Suzuki Esteem GL from North America - Comments

Leaky radiator hoses resulting in a messy driveway and poor performance of the interior heating and cooling systems.

Suzuki uses a muffler-within-a-muffler on the Esteem. The outer layer of muffler has rusted out, but there is an inner layer which is still solid. The muffler is still fully functional because of these two lines of rust defense.

Windshield washer fluid doesn't squirt properly. The hose that connects the reservoir to the nozzle keeps coming off. It is a bad situation when you are driving on a slushy spring day and you cannot clean your windshield. That said, I haven't bothered to get a mechanic to fix it.

This is a fuel efficient and practical little wagon. It's fun to drive with the manual transmission and actually has pretty good pick up and handling.

I get about 600km out of a full 45 litre tank.

I live in Nova Scotia, Canada. The winters here can be very cold and snowy. Our Suzuki starts right up, even on the coldest mornings and bombs through the snow without any difficulty. We do put winter tires on. The edge the Esteem has is that, unlike many small cars, its tires nice are wide and have plenty of surface area to stick to the road.

The Esteem is very nimble on dry roads as well.

The wagon is surprisingly roomy. It has ample room for me, my wife, our baby daughter and our dog. We could probably fit another car seat in the back, but there wouldn't be much room left for groceries.

The interior is quite comfortable for trips around the city. We haven't taken any trips longer than two or three hours, so I can't really say how comfortable it would be on a long road trip.

The fit and finish are almost perfect. There are no annoying squeaks and the body panels all line up like they should do. The only complaint I have about the finish is that the driver's window leaks when there is heavy rain.

Original poster here.

My family fell out of love with our Suzuki Esteem when it took THREE WEEKS to get a part for it.

The engine was making some serious noises, so I dropped it off at our mechanic on June 27, 2007. We were told it would take four business days to get the crank pulley it needed.

Four business days passed. Then two weeks. Then three weeks. The part finally arrived (presumably by pack mule) on July 19, 2007.

While we were waiting, my mechanic, my wife and myself contacted Metro Suzuki in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia numerous times. The typical response was that the part was back-ordered, but it would be there in a day or two.

I actually walked over to the Suzuki dealership (no car = walking). The staff were indifferent and did not offer any apologies. Again, I was assured the part would be there soon.

We live in Halifax, Nova Scotia which is the largest city on the East Coast of Canada. Despite that fact, Suzuki could still not get their act together enough to get the part to us in a reasonable time. Moreover, the people at the dealership didn't seem to see anything wrong with us being stranded. No apologies were offered, let alone an honest explanation or for that matter a discount on the part when it did arrive. I emailed Suzuki Canada and got no response.

The moral of the story is that even though these are cool and quirky little cars, don't buy one unless you've got another car to get you around when Suzuki leaves you stranded for weeks at a time.