2016 Suzuki Ciaz 1.4 GLX A/T Part 6: Battle Scarred But Still Loved

Here’s the last part of our revisited series of long term test on our 2016 Suzuki Ciaz. We hope that you found our series of reports still relevant since our Ciaz is the same model currently being marketed by the Suzuki Automobile dealers across the country. However, the price of the top-of-the-line GLX A/T variant has increased from P888,000 when we got ours in July 25, 2016 to today’s suggested retail price (SRP) of P978,000. 

After our 2016 Suzuki Ciaz 1.4 GLX A/T got entangled in a little fender-bender in September 28, 2017, our schedule suddenly became hectic. We never found the time to have the damaged portion repaired. For one, we needed to use the car more often to go to meetings, conduct ocular inspections on possible venues for our planned events, and drive around our daily routes (home-school-office-school-home) since it is the most practical and most convenient vehicle in our small fleet. While we were just glad that we can still drive our Ciaz everyday, we often wish that we could find the time to have its dents, scratches and other blemishes repaired. We cannot afford to drive our V8-powered Chevrolet Tahoe or Mercedes-Benz 500SE project cars everyday now, can we?

In November 18, 2017, our Prime Dignity Brown Suzuki was one of the more than a thousand vehicles that participated in the JSK Auto Fun Run 7 that convoyed from SM City North Edsa in Quezon City to the Subic Convention Center in Olongapo. It was driven by Peter “Pete” Pagbilao with his wife Shariffa Merhama “Sweet” Balan Pagbilao (the sister of our VP for Sales and Marketing, Shariffa Merhattra “Shawie” Balan Dizon) and their kids enjoying the drive. There was a point when Pete couldn’t open the Ciaz’s hands-free power door locks with the remote control fob. Fortunately, the fob has a hidden key that was used to open the driver’s door. Once we got in, we opened the hood and jump-started the battery. After the car started, Pete didn’t experience the same problem again throughout the entire drive. We surmised that it must have been a glitch with a loose battery terminal or it may also be a sign that the battery will need a replacement soon.

Taking Care of our Daily Drive

In April 19, 2018 with 21,306 kilometers on the odometer, we took our Ciaz back to Suzuki Auto E. Rodriguez for its 20,000-kilometer periodic maintenance service (PMS). They offered to process the Letter of Authority (LOA) with our motor vehicle insurance company, Standard Insurance, so they can start working on the dents and accident damage on our car but, like we said, we were too busy to let go of our daily ride.

Despite the horrendous traffic that we have to endure everyday, we feel safe and comfortable inside our Suzuki. The infotainment system keeps us entertained with music from CDs, MP3s, USB and internet connectivity; keeps us informed with news from radio broadcasts; and keeps us from getting bored in traffic. We didn’t know that you can play Angry Birds on the touch screen until our son Chevy Martin tinkered with the system and connected it  to the internet using our phones as the mobile hotspot. We’re just glad that our Ciaz is equipped with such gadgets and gizmos whether we drive it on the open highways or around the grid-locked city.

Living with Battle Scars

After more than two years of ownership, we have yet to receive the license plates of our car from the Batangas office of the LTO. Likewise, after more than two years of use on our roads, our brown Suzuki is showing some wear and tear, dents and scratches, – some battle scars – so to speak.

Protecting the Interior

The leather interior of our Ciaz has held up quite well considering that its mostly parked in an open car port. We have a sort of wet wipes for the leather seats to clean the seats and moisturize the leather to prevent them from drying and cracking.  To further protect the interior, we place a sun shade/cover under windshield to lessen the degradation from the sun’s ultra violet (UV) rays. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about the painted rocker panels that are now scratched because of the absence of scuff plates. In hindsight, we should have installed aftermarket scuff plates or had the panels covered with a plastic protector or had it foiled. Of course, you know the saying that goes: “Hindsight is 20/20”.

Comfortable, Reliable and Thrifty, Too

We’ve become attached to our Ciaz because it’s comfortable, easy to drive and very reliable. The 1.4-liter 4-cylinder K14B engine with electronic fuel injection (EFI), double overhead camshafts (DOHC), sixteen valves (16V) and variable valve timing (VVT) starts every time without hesitation, is peppy enough to keep up with traffic, and is powerful enough to leave cars with bigger engines behind. We also learned that by switching on the “Auto” function of the air-conditioner, the automatic climate control system keeps the interior temperature near the set level regardless of the weather outside the vehicle. Thus, when the set interior temperature is achieved, the system disengages the aircon compressor, which lightens the load on the engine by about 15-20%. In turn, this saves fuel and increases the gas mileage, which as you can see has improved from our previous report of 8.31 to an indicated 8.99 kilometers per liter, as well as increase the fuel range. We now realized that almost each part of today’s new cars are designed to help decrease fuel consumption and increase efficiency. We find that very nifty!

MILEAGE REPORT

Odometer reading: 16,375 km

Mileage since last report: 5,075 km

Average fuel economy: 8.99 km/L

Fuel cost per kilometer: P4.90/km

Service cost per kilometer: P0.49/km

Current running costs: P5.39/km