Suzuki has long been a brand synonymous with clever engineering, compact practicality, and value motoring. From the enduring popularity of the Swift to the rugged charm of the Jimny, Suzuki has carved out a loyal following in New Zealand by delivering vehicles that punch above their weight. With the 2025 Fronx, Suzuki is entering a new chapter that blends its traditional strengths with a fresh design philosophy and a renewed focus on hybrid tech.
You might be wondering about the name – I certainly was as it sounds a bit daft, but it is fun to say out loud. Give it a go – “Fronx!”. Anyway, Fronx is a portmanteau of “Frontier” and “Crossover”, reflecting Suzuki’s ambition to push boundaries in the subcompact SUV segment, and inspiring you to feel like you’re having an off-road adventure in Woolworths car park. The Fronx replaces the now-retired Baleno hatchback, which I rather liked back in 2018, and positions itself as a more versatile, SUV-inspired alternative.
Globally, the Fronx is selling well, selling over 300,000 units already in India and tripling initial expectations in Japan. Fred seemed to like it at the launch event. Will it do as well in Aotearoa? Is it as fun to drive as it is to say? Read on to find out.
What We Like and Dislike About The 2025 Suzuki Fronx
| What we like | What we don’t like |
| Looks great Spacious Well priced High spec Comfortable Good stereo No beeping | Engine noise under load Brakes a bit grabby Some interior materials |
What’s In The 2025 Suzuki Fronx Range?
Suzuki has kept it simple with the Fronx, you can have the $31,990 Auto, or the $32,990 Two-Tone Auto with a black roof.
2025 Suzuki Fronx Colour Range
- Bluish Black Pearl
- Arctic White Pearl
- Grandeur Grey Pearl Metallic
- Celestial Blue Pearl Metallic
Two-Tone Colours (additional $1000):
- Splendid Silver Pearl Metallic with Bluish Black Pearl Roof
- Lucent Orange Pearl Metallic with Bluish Black Pearl Roof
- Opulent Red with Bluish Black Pearl Roof
For a full list of specs and options available for the Suzuki Fronx head on over to Suzuki New Zealand’s website.
How Does The 2025 Suzuki Fronx Compare To Its Competition?
| Make/ Model | Engine | Power/ Torque kW/Nm | Seats | Fuel L/100km | Boot Space litres | Price |
| Toyota Yaris Cross GX Hybrid | 1.5L Hybrid | 85 / 120 | 5 | 3.6 | 304 | $39,490 |
| Mazda CX-3 GSX 2.0L | 2.0L Petrol | 110 / 195 | 5 | 7 | 264 | $38,940 |
| MG ZS Hybrid Excite | 1.5L Hybrid | 81 / 118 | 5 | 5.2 | 443 | $36,990 |
| Suzuki Fronx GLX | 1.5L Mild Hybrid Petrol | 76 / 137 | 5 | 5.4 | 308 | $31,990 |
| Hyundai Venue Active | 1.6L Petrol | 90 / 151 | 5 | 8 | 355 | $31,990 |
| Haval Jolion | 1.5L 4-cylinder Turbo Petrol Hybrid | 110/210 | 5 | 8.1 | $29,990 | |
| Kia Stonic SX | 1.0L 4-cylinder Turbo Petrol | 74 / 172 | 5 | 6 | 332 | $26,990 |
Please note that DriveLife does its best to ensure the information above is correct at the time of publication, however, prices, specifications and models can change over time. Please bear that in mind when comparing models in the comparison table.
First Impressions Of The 2025 Suzuki Fronx
The Suzuki Fronx is a great-looking small SUV with its bold-but-handsome face and chunky side profile. It gives the impression that it’s a bigger car, but it’s only a few mm bigger all-around than the old Baleno. In fact, a few people asked me if it was the new Vitara.
The front has slim triple-LED lights up-top, and funky triple light-clusters on each side. I’m happy to say that Suzuki hasn’t gone for a huge front grille, the whole thing is well-proportioned. Similarly with the side profile, it looks like a crossover SUV but retains the general proportions of the Baleno, like they took the old car and sent it to the gym to bulk up a bit. The waist line is a bit higher, arches bigger, they’ve added some chunky plastics and aluminium-look “skid plates” all around so it has the look of a more adventurous vehicle, as befits the “frontier” part of its name.
I’m not a hundred percent sold on the design of the 16” alloys – they kinda look like 5-petalled flowers to me. They’re not bad, but I would have chosen something different.
The rear continues the triple-light motif with the rear lights, and adds a full-width LED light strip across the boot. I love that these are back, they were awesome on 80s cars! There’s a quite high boot access, hidden exhaust tip, and a big plastic aluminium-look “skid plate” to continue that chunky adventurous look.
Overall, it’s a good-looking Crossover and has the looks to differentiate it from the crowd. Personally I’m a bit disappointed with the range of colours available, I think smaller cars deserve some bold colours, though the two-tone at least comes in metallic red and orange as well as the silver.
What’s The Interior Like In The 2025 Suzuki Fronx?
The seats in the Fronx look great, trimmed with two-tone leatherette, and a ribbed fabric in the centres. They’re nicely bolstered, comfortable, and adjustable enough to get yourself nice and comfortable. There’s no lumbar adjustment but in over 1000km of driving I never had any comfort issues with the seats. The front seats are heated, operated by rocker switches in the centre, near the parking brake switch. I noted that the plastic trim around these switches was already showing signs of wear and scratches. The 60/40 split-folding rear seats are trimmed to match and have really good leg and head room for passengers.
The door trims continue the two-tone look, and look great, with padded leatherette on the armrests and touch-points.
You can see the family history in the overall shape of the dash compared to the Baleno, but the finish and materials have been brought right up-to-date. The high-positioned 9-inch centre touch screen dominates the centre console, and is surrounded by the popular, but dust-and-fingerprint-collecting piano black trim. The glovebox is a decent size, but the car’s manual takes up about half of the space. There’s also a centre cubby about where your elbow would be, which is about the right size to store a Rubic cube, or maybe an apple, but definitely not a banana.
I’m happy to say that Suzuki has kept physical controls for the climate functions, though everything for the media system is touch-screen including volume control for the six-speaker audio system.
Below the aircon controls are a 12-volt socket and USB-A and C ports. Below them there’s a Qi wireless charging pad and two cup holders. The wireless charger worked pretty well but a more grippy surface would be good as my phone tended to slip outside the charging zone when cornering.
The headliner is trimmed in light-coloured material, which really helps make the cabin feel light and spacious.
The leather-trimmed steering wheel is quite chunky and nice to hold, with shaped grips where you need them. The shifter is similarly trimmed and chunky and both give a feeling of quality, which is important in the items the driver uses most often. Controls on the wheel are kept simple with proper physical buttons and up/down thumb switches – stereo on the left, cruise on the right, and gear selection paddles behind.
The driver display is the classic twin dials for revs and speedo, with a centre digital display for everything else. Clear, easy to read and simple to operate. There’s a pop-up type heads-up display which shows speed, rev counter, road speed limit and time – all the basic info that you need.
One minor thing is that the keyless start/stop button doesn’t light up, making it tricky to find in the dark when you are new to the car.
The boot has a fairly high load height and like the Baleno and Swift, has a dual-level floor with a panel that can be moved up and down to give either a deeper boot, or easier loading level. Under that is a spare wheel well containing a tyre pump and a big hollow polystyrene filler piece. Good for extra storage at least! Luggage capacity is a reasonable 304 litres, or 605 with the rear seats folded.
Overall the interior quality is very good for a car at this price point, though there were a couple of little things that bothered me: easily scratched plastics lower down in the interior, and the indicator stalks and gear paddles had a quite sharp edge to them at the join, as though the plastics hadn’t been fully finished after being talken out of the moulds. It’s a small thing but something that caught my attention every time I used the controls.
What’s The 2025 Suzuki Fronx Like To Drive?
Upon picking up the Fronx, the phone pairing test was passed with flying colours, and I was pleased to be offered wireless Apple Carplay. Wireless Android Auto is also supported. The six-speaker audio system sounds good, with decent balance and clear sound. In my week with the Fronx, all of the tech worked flawlessly with my phone reconnecting every time.
I was impressed to find that a 360-degree camera system is standard, as it’s unusual at this price point. Along with the front and rear parking sensors, the system made it easy to manoeuvre and park the Fronx.
The ride is a little firm, but bumps and potholes are soaked up well, and overall the Fronx is comfortable. On the highway it handles the corners competently and unlike the lighter Swift the Fronx feels stable at highway speeds despite still being relatively lightweight.
I commuted to work and back in the Fronx for a few days, and it performed very well. I had some issues with the brakes being a little bit too keen – especially downhill on loose surfaces like my gravel driveway, the ABS tended to cut in. Not something I’ve had with any other car. Something similar happened driving down one of Wellington’s steep hills in the rain, the ESP momentarily cut in on a corner. Nothing scary, it just seemed a little too keen to save my life.
In normal driving, there were very few beeps or interventions from the safety systems, and if you’ve driven any modern car recently you’ll appreciate that as much as I did! Suzuki seems to have that balance just right with the Fronx.
Like its predecessor, the Fronx is based on the same platform as the Swift and various other Suzuki models. This should make it as fun to drive as the Swift, right? Well…
At a lightweight 1065kg, the Fronx weighs 116kg more than the current Swift, and its 1.4-litre 4-cylinder engine makes 76kW and 137Nm, giving it a 15kW and 25Nm power advantage over the little Swifty. But somehow this doesn’t make up for it, and it ends up feeling a bit sluggish.
But it’s not all about speed. I know this is an SUV and they’re not meant to be sports cars, but do they all have to feel so numb? The Fronx continues this trend, and though it’s perfectly good to drive, there’s no spark, nothing that interesting about it. And for most buyers that’s no problem at all, and I think most will be very happy with it. It’s safe, and does everything you ask of it, but it’s unlikely to get a smile from someone who enjoys driving.
Thanks to the spring weather in New Plymouth, our airport was closed for a few days, which meant I had the opportunity to drive the Fronx to Wellington and back to retrieve my stranded wife.
The Fronx was great on a long journey – the ride is comfortable and potholes and bumps were soaked up well. The stereo is good, the seats were comfortable and I felt absolutely fine driving 350km on Friday evening then back again the next morning.
Sometimes the engine sounds like it’s trying too hard, it’s quite vocal when accelerating, or going up hills. It will also hold the gears sometimes when at low throttle and let the revs (and noise) build rather than upshifting. I used the radar cruise control quite a lot during the journey and this worked well, with the only issue being occasional hunting between 5th and 6th gears on the 100 and 110kph sections of highway. It would occasionally downshift to 5th, make some extra noise for 30 seconds, then shift back to 6th again.
Over about 1,100km of mixed driving I averaged 5.7l/100km, which is very close to the stated 5.4l/100km. Pretty impressive I think for a reasonable-sized crossover SUV.
READ ON TO CHECK OUT OUR SUMMARY OF THE 2025 Suzuki Fronx.
2025 Suzuki Fronx – Specifications
| Vehicle Type | Crossover SUV |
| Starting Price | $31,990 |
| Price as Tested | $32,990 |
| Engine | 1.5L 4-cylinder 16-valve Petrol Mild Hybrid |
| Power, Torque kW/Nm | 76 / 137 |
| Transmission | 6-stage Automatic |
| Spare Wheel | Emergency Puncture Repair Kit |
| Kerb Weight, Kg | 1,065 |
| Length x Width x Height mm | 3995 x 1765 x 1550 |
| Boot Space / Cargo Capacity, Litres (seats up/seats down) | 308/605 |
| Fuel tank capacity, litres | 37 |
| Fuel Economy, L/100km | Advertised Spec – Combined – 5.4 Real-World Test – Combined – 5.7 Low Usage: 0-6 / Medium Usage 6-12 / High Usage 12+ |
| Towing Capacity Kg, unbraked/braked | 400 / 1,000 |
| Turning circle metres | 10.4 Small: 6-10m / Medium 10-12m / Large 12m+ |
| Warranty | 5 years / 100,000 km warranty 5 years roadside assistance |
| Safety information | ANCAP Rating – not yet listed Rightcar.govt.nz – 5 Stars – RES567 |
