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Suzuki Grand Vitara 2006 through 2008

1048 messages,  Last post on Jan 14, 2012 at 11:29 AM

You are in the Suzuki Grand Vitara/Vitara Forum.

What is this discussion about? Suzuki Grand Vitara, SUV

Messages Page 103 of 106

#1012 of 1048 Re: another bad review [budman3] by denverleigh

Mar 13, 2010 (9:41 pm)

Replying to: budman3 (Mar 13, 2010 4:05 pm)
It's good to read everything, the good the bad and the ugly - thanks for posting... even the nasty stuff on the GV. I've used some posts to my advantage, especially with respect to tire wear, and a noise from the driver's seat (tech bulletin on that cleared things up).
 
However, here is a "good" review for the 2006 Grand Vitara, at least for the one I was privileged to purchase.
 
It rocks. It's a big reason my family walked away from a serious rear-ender 2.5 years ago - the read door took a beating, and the rest of the vehicle stayed true.
 
It gets me around in any season, and it saves me from shoveling my steep long driveway in the winter (our friends with sedans and min vans park at the bottom and walk up). The ESP keeps it straight on slippery, slushy roads, while other vehicles (including some SUV's) end up in the ditch.
 
And although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, it's a big reason we opted for the GV over the Hyundai, Honda CRV or RAV4. It just plain looks better, inside and out. But that's my opinion only, and it's not even up for debate, even if you took a survey and found 98% of respondents thought otherwise. I still remember sitting in it for the first time, after trying out all the rest, and smiling - from that moment on, I owned it.
 
Sure, there are better options if you want more power, better fuel economy, diesel or hybrid... but I'll be keeping my GV for a bit longer (and if my 15 year old has her way, she'll be asking for the keys !).
 
Oh, and by the way, Suzuki GV has the best commercial.... ever.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM9SCiTjwD8
 
Cheers !

#1013 of 1048 GV Commercial by xostnot

Mar 15, 2010 (9:03 pm)

They never explained how he got home, though. Glad to hear you got the tire wear problem sorted out.
 
An externally rear mounted spare tire may be very costly to fix in a minor accident, but it may provide substantially more protection in a really bad one.

#1014 of 1048 Rear Tire Wear by boydp

Apr 25, 2010 (8:07 am)

We have a 2007 Grand Vitara with 64,000 miles on it and we're on our fourth set of tires on the rear of the vehicle. We took it to the dealer who insisted "over inflation" was the problem and that the alignment was "dead on. It came from Suzuki with Yokohama tires, they wore out on the rear after 26,000 miles. We put Bridgestone Turanza tires on the front and moved the original Yokohama’s (which were still in great shape) from the front to the rear. At 47,000 miles the Yokohama’s were bald. We put new Bridgestone Turanzas on the rear at that time and had the alignment checked, it was perfect. At 64,000 miles the Bridgestone’s on the rear were bald and needed to be replaced. Meanwhile the Bridgestone’s on the front are still in great shape after 38,000 miles. The tires wear out in the center . Excessive wear starts showing after only a few thousand miles and by 15,000 to 20,000 miles safety becomes an issue due to extreme wear in the center of the tire tread. The vehicle also feels very unstable at the rear end, on wet /icy/snowy roads at nearly any speed during the entire life of the tires. With safety in mind, not to mention the cost of replacing these tires so frequently, we are trying to raise awareness to this problem by getting enough Grand Vitara owners together to potentially/hopefully get some kind of recall for this problem with Suzuki Corporation. We have set up a facebook account for grandvitaratires and have also opened a gmail/email account - grandvitaratiresgmail.com. If you are interested in helping to expose this problem, please respond to either place. If anyone is aware of other established sites for this complaint, please respond with that information.

#1015 of 1048 Re: Rear Tire Wear [boydp] by budman3

Apr 25, 2010 (8:27 am)

Replying to: boydp (Apr 25, 2010 8:07 am)
boydp, sorry to hear you're having tire issues. Some people have great luck but I was also one of the unfortunate ones with excessive tire wear on our 2006 GV.
Had 3 alignments done and I even had to pay for the 3rd one in less than 16,000 miles!!! The front tires would get a "featheredge" on the outside of the tires so we had to rotate the tires every couple thousand miles. Our GV was also not very stable on the open road. It was always a chore to keep it going straight.
At 16,000 miles, the Geolanders needed to be replaced. And the 17" tires weren't cheap at the time. I thought it was ridiculous to have a $600 a year maintenance item such as tires to be replaced. Suzuki said it was normal and denied our claim.
Along with all the silly oil leaks and numerous visits to the dealer, we happily got rid of our GV.

#1016 of 1048 Good! by xostnot

Apr 25, 2010 (11:13 pm)

Good job on applying pressure on Suzuki to get serious about this problem. They should have done a recall when it became apparent back in late 2005 that significant numbers of the new generation Grand Vitara had this problem. I'd be willing to bet that a few accidents resulted from this.

#1017 of 1048 Re: Rear Tire Wear [boydp] by revjim64

Apr 26, 2010 (6:43 am)

Replying to: boydp (Apr 25, 2010 8:07 am)
My 2007 GV has about 16k on it and the Yoko Geolanders look like they are more than 1/2 treadlife used up.
 
Did you rotate you tires every 6000 miles?
Also is your model 2 or 4 wheel drive??
 
I don't think you can mix tires on the "all" wheel drive model. It may cause problems with the drivetrain.

#1018 of 1048 Re: Rear Tire Wear [revjim64] by boydp

Apr 26, 2010 (5:06 pm)

Replying to: revjim64 (Apr 26, 2010 6:43 am)
My Grand Vitara is 2 wheel(rear wheel) drive.
No I did not rotate the tires at all, did not have time, it is my wife's car. As it turns out, I think that the only thing that would be accomplished by rotating the tires , is that ALL the tires would wear out faster. The front end does not wear the tires abnormally. When I took it to the dealer, I was told that since I did not rotate, the tires would not be covered by Yokohama's warranty AND I was accused of overinflation. I am not a mechanic, but I know my way around a car fairly well, and I am not stupid. I did not/have not ever overinflated tires. I have a good gauge and an air compressor in my garage. From what I have read anywhere on the internet, this abnormal wear on the rear tires has happened on both 2 and 4 wheel drive, perhaps more frequently on 2 wheel drive

#1019 of 1048 Tire Rotation by xostnot

Apr 26, 2010 (8:43 pm)

I suppose with a 2wd, rwd, you can get away with having dissimilar front and rear tires. Our GV is 4wd, and I wouldn't consider having mismatched tires.
 
And since they're matched, it doesn't make sense NOT to rotate them and thus spread the wear over all four. Rotation doesn't, of course, change the amount of wear, but by spreading the wear over the tire faces of the set, you don't end up with two completely worn out on one side of the tread.
 
Even if the alignment is correct, and it sounds like yours is far off, the GV must have tires rotated because of the cambered rear wheels.
 
As I've said before, our '06 GV has about 35,000km on the original tires, and they're not quite half worn out. They have been rotated at about 4000km intervals.

#1020 of 1048 Re: another bad review [denverleigh] by lil302000

May 13, 2010 (6:59 am)

Replying to: denverleigh (Mar 13, 2010 9:41 pm)
Hi all, 52800 miles on our 2006 2WD and still going strong. I will say we only got 20000 miles out of the junk Yoko tires. We replaced them with Sumitomos and they are still on the GV. I just changed the OE brake pads last week and I replaced the OE air filter with a K&N at 15000 miles. The only other things that have been done are oil and ATF changes.
I did read a report that the GV was more expensive than CRV over time, not for me so far. Try to get a leather and loaded CRV new in 2006 for 24,000 dollars as far as resell not an issue when you keep your car over ten years like I do. I just dropped my 2000 Tundra at the shop for a new front axle it has 128000 miles on it and this is the first time in the shop for a non routine problem.

#1021 of 1048 Cost of Ownership by xostnot

May 13, 2010 (5:54 pm)

Thanks for reporting in. You might want to join truedelta(dot)com.
 
I wasn't aware of this until recently, but apparently manufacturers have been "gaming" the cost of ownership stats. The way they do it is to cut far back on maintenance visits, (ahem, BMW) which means you spend less on servicing. You then pay for replacing parts earlier, but after the surveys aren't interested any more. It seems to me that Suzuki requires the GV have a lot of service visits, which end up costing enough to make the cost of ownership look bad. But presumably the vehicle will last a lot longer.
 
I did my own survey to compare resale values to original cost, and the GV didn't do badly. The Escape and the Forester had the worst resale values compared to original cost. CRV and Rav4 were only a little better than the GV.

Messages Page 103 of 106

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