The Kizzy makes top list for Teens (Again)

Sluggo · Sat Oct 10, 2015 2:22 am

golftango wrote:Suzuki Kizashi 2010-13 $4,500

Yeah right!

All those prices seemed a little off. How about a Saab 9-5 for $2700.
Remember the Kizashi was only in the Good and not the Best category.

redmed · Sat Oct 10, 2015 4:43 pm

The Kizzy still tops my list. I'm having fun driving around with my unbadged (except for Kizashi on the rear) get many driving to the rear, side and front trying to figure out what kind of car it is. Get challenged to race too.

Fritz2 · Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:01 pm

Plus the giant A pillars highlight the cheesy headliner material. One of the very few cheap looking parts of the car. To be fair, lots of cars use similar material, but you don't notice it as much.

paininthenuts · Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:08 pm

I have to say it once again. The thought of giving a teenager a car with a 2.3 engine and 180 BHP is too much for me to handle.

Fritz2 · Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:33 am

Here in the USA, 180 Hp is on the low side anymore, and the superior structural rigidity and multiple safety systems make the Kizashi a car I'd gladly have given my kids if I were in that position financially. Just my opinion.

FrankoLaMoya · Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:26 pm

Here in the USA, 180 Hp is on the low side anymore, and the superior structural rigidity and multiple safety systems make the Kizashi a car I'd gladly have given my kids if I were in that position financially. Just my opinion......

agreed!

paininthenuts · Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:15 pm

Fritz2 wrote:Here in the USA, 180 Hp is on the low side anymore, and the superior structural rigidity and multiple safety systems make the Kizashi a car I'd gladly have given my kids if I were in that position financially. Just my opinion.

===================

In the UK it's considered a powerful car. I wouldn't allow a kid of mine to drive anything over 1 ltr or about 90 bhp. There are very few insurance companies at any cost that would entertain giving anyone under 25 insurance on a car with 180 bhp under the bonnet. Don't get me wrong, we have powerful cars the same as you, but allowing kids to drive them is considered insanity over here. Perhaps your teenagers are more sensible than ours ???????????

What is really strange is that our speed limits tend to be higher over here, and our police are far more tolerant about speed than yours, but you have more powerful cars on the whole, strange !!

Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:00 pm

paininthenuts wrote: In the UK it's considered a powerful car. I wouldn't allow a kid of mine to drive anything over 1 ltr or about 90 bhp. There are very few insurance companies at any cost that would entertain giving anyone under 25 insurance on a car with 180 bhp under the bonnet. Don't get me wrong, we have powerful cars the same as you, but allowing kids to drive them is considered insanity over here. Perhaps your teenagers are more sensible than ours ???????????

What is really strange is that our speed limits tend to be higher over here, and our police are far more tolerant about speed than yours, but you have more powerful cars on the whole, strange !!

I haven't been to the UK but I have a hard time believing you guys have higher speed limits than us in the US. In urban areas, it can be rather low, but as it gets more open, speed limits go up. The Interstate 10 in Texas has speed limits of 85 MPH for hundreds of miles. The freeways I just took back from North Carolina has limits of 70 MPH meaning many of the truckers are pushing that.
Not only that, we simply don't have small cars with 1.0 liter displacements in the US. Cars that small wouldn't have the structural strength to pass US crash tests and would be a hazard in simple things like freeway merging. So while the Kizashi's modest specs may seem too much for a teen in the UK, they are actually ideal in the US. The Kizashi has stellar safety while being neither too slow nor too fast.

Lastly, I want to add that while the Kizashi made the "Good" category and not the "Best" in this list, it's because of the roof crush test rating. The Kizashi has an "Acceptable" instead of the top "Good" rating by the IIHS. However, if you view the data, the Kizashi scored a 3.8 in that rating while the "Good" threshold was 4.0. Also consider that the Kizashi has superior "Small Overlap Crash" test scores than most other cars even newer than it (something the article highlighted about the Kizashi). I'd personally value this rating more than roof crush given small overlap crashes are far more likely than crashes involving roof crushing.

Speed_Racer · Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:35 pm

Even with 180hp, the Kizashi still weighs in the neighborhood of 3300lbs. It's hardly a dangerous race-car.

With the CVT and AWD, it does 0-60 in over 9 seconds which these days is somewhere between "barely getting out of its own way" and grass growing. By comparison, the 2012 V6 Camry could do 0-60 in about 5.8 seconds.

The benefits to a teen would definitely be the very high ranked safety scores (Top Safety Pick +) and available electronic aids.

SamirD · Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:29 am

I thought it was just me with the a-pillars!

KuroNekko wrote:I haven't been to the UK but I have a hard time believing you guys have higher speed limits than us in the US. In urban areas, it can be rather low, but as it gets more open, speed limits go up. The Interstate 10 in Texas has speed limits of 85 MPH for hundreds of miles. The freeways I just took back from North Carolina has limits of 70 MPH meaning many of the truckers are pushing that.
Not only that, we simply don't have small cars with 1.0 liter displacements in the US. Cars that small wouldn't have the structural strength to pass US crash tests and would be a hazard in simple things like freeway merging. So while the Kizashi's modest specs may seem too much for a teen in the UK, they are actually ideal in the US. The Kizashi has stellar safety while being neither too slow nor too fast.

I can vouch for the higher limits and driving in the UK. My uncle has been in London most of his life, so I've spent my fair share of time there too. And on tiny roads where we would barely poke along, they're flying! And that's normal.

And the 1L there are no slouch compared to what we have here. I don't know if it's the regulations or what, but a loaner 1.0L was able to hit 110mph on the M25 with 5 of us squashed in there quite easily. 0-60 had to be sub 10s for sure. It used a lot of fuel doing that though.