2019 Mazda CX-3 vs Suzuki Vitara

What's the difference?

This is the good-looking alternative to a sporty city-based hatch that so many people are apparently lusting after.

There are cheaper, roomier and more practical compact SUVs on the market – like the Mitsubishi ASX and Honda HR-V – and there are even very capable purpose-built small 4WDs, such as the Suzuki Jimny, but the CX-3 straddles the great divide between city and country pretty well. 

Sure, in a CX-3, you should avoid anything more challenging than well-maintained gravel or dirt roads but you can still have plenty of adventures in something like this, even a front-wheel drive version.

And the Akari LE gives you the opportunity to tackle off-bitumen trips on the way to your favourite campsite with a real sense of confidence, style and more than a little of substance.

My eyes always light up when my inbox dings with news of a Vitara. It's a refreshing, honest car that does its job really well. While I sometimes struggle with the pricing, the 2019 re-jig has brought a few bits and pieces - like the cool Alcantara seat trim - and an uplift in quality over the older cars. Its interior space is competitive with the best in the class, as are the ride and handling.

The Vitara Turbo is easily the best of the range's trio, unless you really need the all-wheel drive of the Allgrip. The Turbo takes all the good bits of the base model, eliminates its biggest problem (the engine) and adds a whole heap of safety gear. 

CX-3s don’t get by on their looks alone but that’s why a lot of people seem to buy them and, for good reason, because they are very easy on the eyes, no doubt about that.

Inside is suitably plush – with a clear, clean lay-out and a real prestige look and feel about the entire interior. 

Fit and finish is impressive, nice and solid, and there are plenty of soft-touch surfaces.

There were nice white leather sections in our tester – the alternative is Dark Russet nappa leather in the Akari LE – but good luck keeping those bits clean if you plan on doing any adventuring outside of the city limits.

The Vitara wears its SUV heritage proudly, with a blocky, 8-bit aesthetic I'm quite partial to it, but not everybody I've spoken to is. That's okay, the clamshell bonnet is one of those cool design things that most people don't care about until you point it out.

The 2019 update left the styling mostly alone, with just a mild bumper-and-grille change and solid red rear-light clusters that took some getting used to, yet added a bit more '80s arcade-game cred.

The cabin is entirely conventional and, again, in 2019, has had little done to it. Suzuki says the the dash is less hard and that's fine, if not especially important. The diamond shapes in the Alcantara-trimmed seats are classy, though. It's an honest cabin that doesn't try to do anything fancy.

It’s on the right side of practical but it’s on the wrong side of tight. Stay with me here.

Fair enough, the driver and front passenger get room enough – head, shoulders, legs – but over the back things get a bit squeezier.

Legroom in the back seat is okay for an adult, but not great – you feel cocooned in here rather than cosy. Throw your two kids in here – or one of your vertically-challenged mates – break up the travel time into two-hour chunks, and it’ll be fine. 

There are several storage spaces around the small cabin: glovebox, bits-and-pieces receptacle in front of the shifter, two cupholders between driver and passenger, as well as two in the back-seat’s centre fold-down armrest, single-bottle holders in all doors, and seat-back map pockets. 

Boot space is 264 litres with the seats up, so that means you’ll have to pack creatively – read: don’t take much – if there are four of you.

That cargo space grows to 1164 litres with the seats down so the Akari is a more appealing packing proposition if it’s two mates or a kid-free couple.

The Vitara's cabin is very spacious, especially given its modest external footprint. It's amazing how much space you can liberate when you've got a high roof and you can lift the rear seats for a more natural seating position.

Front seat passengers have plenty of headroom and without the Allgrip's sunroof, it's quite lofty. You also have two cupholders and a space for your phone under the climate-control switches. There's also a new sliding armrest, which doubles as a cover for a storage bin.

The back seat is fairly sparse. Bereft of cupholders and an armrest, you'll be holding your own coffees back there. And keeping your inboard elbows to yourself. Rear leg and knee room are excellent for a car this size, with plenty of space for me at 180cm and even for our resident tattooed totem pole, Richard Berry, who stands another 11cm taller.

Each door has a bottle holder for a total of four. 

The boot is one of those split-level arrangements, with a false floor under which you can hide valuables or, given the lifestyle vibe, wet towels/muddy boots/sandy boogie boards. You don't know how useful that is until you use it, let me tell you.

Cargo space starts at a very useful 375 litres (beaten only by the Honda HR-V and the Nissan Qashqai) and is way above the tiny hatchback boot of the CX-3's. Fold the rear seats and space increases to 1120 litres. 

The MY19 model re-organisation of the Suzuki Vitara range means that the Turbo is the middle, at $29,990, but quite a step up from the base model with its naturally aspirated 1.6-litre engine. It's also significantly cheaper than the Allgrip I reviewed recently.

Standard are 17-inch wheels, Alcantara and fake-leather trim, six-speaker stereo, auto wipers and headlights, climate control, adaptive cruise, heated and folding rear vision mirrors, LED headlights, keyless entry and start, hill-descent control, (ill-fitting) sunglasses holder, sat nav and a space-saver spare.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto make a very welcome appearance on the 7.0-inch touchscreen, which is soldiering on after a few years in Suzuki dashboards.

The Akari has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine – producing 110kW at 6000rpm and 195Nm at 2800rpm – and a six-speed automatic transmission. 

It’s a mostly workable pairing although the CX-3 tends to hold gears for too long and it’s a much better drive if you cycle through the transmission in manual mode.

As with the Allgrip, the Turbo ships from Hungary with the 1.4-litre turbo four-cylinder Boosterjet engine, a vast improvement on the 1.6-litre in the base model. You have way more power here, with 103kW and a comparatively muscular 220Nm.

The front wheels get their twist via a six-speed automatic, which is shared with whole range.

Best fuel consumption is listed as 6.3L/100km (combined). We recorded 8.1L/100km on test after more than 400km of driving and that included on plenty of gravel roads. The Akari has a 48-litre fuel tank.

The official combined-cycle figure for the Vitara Turbo is 5.9L/100km, which is within a tenth of the much less powerful base model. Unencumbered with even a simple stop-start system to reduce fuel usage, we've consistently found the turbo engine will deliver a fuel figure in the low-eights, with the two-wheel-drive Turbo returning 8.1L/100km.

At 4275mm long (with a 2570mm wheelbase), 1765mm wide, 1535mm high, and with a kerb weight of 1309kg, the Akari is a light, compact vehicle and feels balanced and responsive when on the move.

It’s nice to drive: the tilt-and-telescopic-adjustable steering is pretty precise on all surfaces, vision is good all round, and that engine and auto work well together. Mostly. It tends to hold gears for too long – especially on long, gradual uphills – and, as mentioned, is much more lively a drive if you’re in manual mode.

It does, however, sit nicely on the road – squat and settled and composed – and its suspension is alright on bitumen, and even gravel roads, although it can be firm, even quite harsh, when driven through surface irregularities that are particularly sharp or deep. 

With a 10.6m turning circle, the Akari is an easy turner in the city or on a tight bush track.

If you've stepped out of the base model and into the Turbo, as I did, it's like night and day. While the base version has a good equipment level, it's badly let down by the underpowered 1.6-litre engine. The turbo 1.4 is so much better. Smooth and torquey, it makes much lighter work of the 1100kg-plus car and gives the automatic transmission a lot more to work with.

While it's a lot better than the 1.6, it loses almost nothing to the more expensive Allgrip. As it's front-wheel drive its off-road capability is rather curtailed, but the bonus is you can save a lot of money and some headroom if you don't need part-time all-wheel drive.

The Turbo drives as well as the rest of them and rides as well, too. It handles very securely on a decent set of tyres. The ride on this car is one of the most surprising things about it, with a smooth, easygoing gait. Cars as light as the Vitara can get a little bit bouncy and out of control, particularly on broken urban surfaces, but not this one.

While the body can roll around a bit in harder cornering, it's never chuck-inducing and, if you're a driver who likes a bit of fun, the Vitara delivers, with light steering and a reasonably eager chassis. It's all bit unexpected, even if you've driven one before.

You do sit ridiculously high in the driver's seat, something my wife mentioned. Normally she sits a little higher than me but complained the seat must be stuck. Nope, that's just how it is. You sit really high and, for some, that's uncomfortable.

The Vitara Turbo has six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls.

As part of the 2019 update, the turbo-engined cars added to the spec sheet forward AEB, lane-departure warning, adaptive cruise, blind-spot monitoring, weaving alert and reverse cross traffic alert.

You also get three top-tether anchor points and two ISOFIX points.

The Vitara scored five ANCAP stars in July 2016.

The CX-3 range has a five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty.

Servicing is scheduled for every 10,000km/12 months and costs $289, $317, $289, $317 and $289. 

Suzuki offers a three-year/100,000km warranty, but that's just the start. If you continue to service it at Suzuki every six months/10,000km, the warranty will go for as long as five years/100,000km. 

Suzuki's servicing regime works out at about $472 per year - most services are $175, with a couple of services at $359 and $399.