The new Suzuki Dzire.
Suzuki has experienced great success recently with the new Swift, which was the highest-selling car in the country in the first quarter of 2025, at 6 587 units.
The Swift was also victorious in the budget segment at the 2025 SA Car of the Year awards and finished second overall, behind the BMW X3.
Suzuki Auto South Africa has not rested on its laurels and is back with yet another car in the budget segment.
It was initially known as the Swift Dzire but Suzuki gave the Dzire its own identity in 2017, instead of labelling it a Swift variant. Now, the Japanese manufacturer has released the fourth-generation Dzire into the South African market.
It’s interesting that the marque has opted to release a new sedan into a market dominated by hatchbacks and compact SUVs, but more importantly, it is yet another of their products that South Africans will not have to sell a kidney to buy.
Like the new Swift, the Suzuki Dzire is a good-looking vehicle. The exterior begins with a wide, sassy front fascia. The badge is slap-bang in the middle of the headlights and the clamshell bonnet brings the very neat and stylish front together.
The back looks slightly boxy but the assertive C-pillar that flows into the compact boot lid and T-shaped LED taillight clusters help round off the shape.
The Dzire borrows its interior architecture from the award-winning fourth-generation Swift. This means it features a wraparound dashboard design with horizontal air vents and centre controls angled towards the driver for improved ergonomics.
I guess it’s a matter of, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
But Suzuki has managed to elevate this interior with the colour scheme. The beige-and-black interior brings an upmarket feel to the vehicle. The only worry I would have is how dirty those beige cloth seats might get if you are not careful, especially since the vehicle is now being marketed as a family car.
The Dzire has a 7-inch infotainment screen that is equipped with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
All in all, Suzuki has produced a really comfortable and neat interior.
A short drive around Johannesburg in the Dzire showed me three things about the car: it is comfortable for passengers, it has enough to keep you entertained and it requires a heavy foot but is not underpowered.
It uses the same 1.2-litre engine as the Swift and delivers 60kW of power and 112Nm of torque.
Suzuki claims a fuel consumption of 4.4 litres/100km but a figure closer to 5 litres/100km is more realistic.
The Dzire comes in three options: a GA manual which is pretty basic and you only get steel wheels; a GL+ manual which is the top-spec manual and a GL+ CVT that has everything the manual has but comes in a CVT transmission.
The basic GA+ comes in at R224 900, the GL+ manual is priced at R246 900 and the CVT completes the line-up at R266 900.
This could become an extremely popular vehicle as the cheapest compact sedan in the country — or it could fall into the “next most popular Uber ride” category.
However, I don’t think this is top of mind for Suzuki. It won’t mind what the car is used for, as long as it continues to contribute to the brand’s upward trajectory in the country.