Car Gazing
Suzuki SUV needs to pick sides
XL7 neither comfortable city cruiser nor off-road bruiser
By Derek Price
The Suzuki XL-7 has always been a plucky SUV.
Even as its competitors switched to car-based platforms that are immensely more comfortable and better to drive in town, the XL-7 stuck with a truck frame that seemed to be made from pine logs and mud. It drove like a four-wheeler that suddenly sprouted a roof and some doors.
That's fine for people who need the off-road capability of a real SUV, but it was torture for people like me – people who wouldn't drive off-road if they were being chased by a nuclear-armed Godzilla.
So, I was relieved when the new XL7 – yes, suddenly without its hyphen – showed up at my doorstep looking like a car-based crossover. I figured Suzuki had finally gotten some common sense kicked into its head and turned its off-road SUV into an on-road one.
I stepped into the cabin – a nice improvement over the old XL-7 – and drove two feet in the parking lot before I realized this wasn't a car-based SUV at all. The pine logs underneath had merely been upgraded to oak.
Turns out the new XL7 has an unusual chassis design that is part crossover and part truck. It's built with a unibody frame just like a family car, but it also has full-length rails under the body for added strength.
That means, on the comfort spectrum, it drives somewhere in between a really nice truck and a really bad car.
The ride is certainly an improvement over the old XL-7. But that's like becoming the best pitcher in the Rangers' bullpen – it's just not that hard to do.
Inside, you'll find the same value-minded interior Suzuki SUVs are known for. It's not too luxurious, although a wide expanse of fake wood trim in high-end models makes the same statement as a fake Louis Vuitton handbag. It shows you know what nice stuff looks like, but you can't afford the real thing.
Space is the XL7's strong point. It comes with three rows of seats that are surprisingly comfortable and roomy, and the back two rows easily fold down for carrying cargo. If that's not enough, the front passenger seat folds flat, too.
It's an awful lot of SUV – or crossover, or whatever it is – for the money. It starts around $23,000, which is a bargain for a seven-passenger SUV.
Still, I think this vehicle needs to pick sides. Either it's an off-road SUV or an on-road crossover.
Otherwise, it will remain what it is today – an affordable SUV that's mediocre both on and off the pavement.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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