Every day technology seeps in slowly in every aspect of our life. It has made a place for itself in our office, our home and it surely has room in our car.

Bucharest is on the 6^th place in the world for most time spent in traffic, so, why not improve this time with the new features a car as Suzuki Vitara S has?

Of those here are some:

1. The multimedia panel, with Radio/Mp3/Bluetooth and navigation support. The media final is touch enabled, making usage very simple for the driver. I haven’t observed any delays in executing commands, and the tactile surface extends beyond the screen with support for some command buttons and a volume slider. This slider handles volume for the phone conversations and the nav and radio volume levels. The multimedia system supports an SD Card usage, as the one that comes with the car contains the necessary maps for navigation.

2. The voice commands system can not only be used to control your Bluetooth connected phone, but as well the radio or navigation systems.

3. The integrated support for Apple CarPlay is a nice addition. By connecting your IOS enabled device using an USB cable, the media panel surrenders control to Apple CarPlay, where you can use any IOS CarPlay compatible application, including Apple Maps and Apple Music. Furthermore, you can, in this case, use SIRI as a personal assistant directly from the dashboard of your car.

Besides these entertainment and support features, Suzuki Vitara S comes with some technologies that make driving easier:

1. Automatic braking in case of accident. If the car detects, using radio waves, that the car in the front brakes, while your speed doesn’t decrease, it will signal the driver acoustically and visually by making the dashboard screen red. In case the driver doesn’t react soon enough, the car will brake by itself with 3 seconds before the impact, reducing the speed down to 20km/h, thus minimizing the possible damage.

2. Parking sensors. The sensors have a very good sensibility and they cover the car corners as well, starting obstacle detection at 2 meters. They can be a little annoying in traffic, but they can be deactivated, and they are extremely useful for narrow parking spaces. Because the car also has a very good curving angle, it is extremely easy to park, considering that it’s still an SUV with standard dimensions.

3. The backward driving camera has a great resolution and the guide lines are perfect. The lateral lines consider as a limit the first position for opening your doors. This way, you will not hit the car if the guide line doesn’t align in full and, furthermore, your passengers will be able to get out of the car in a parking spot with limited lateral space (as usually found in shopping malls).

4. The dashboard is very useful, providing information about when you should switch gears (for models with a manual gearbox), as well as information about instant fuel consumption, the road status and your tire pressure.

5. The luminosity and precipitation sensors work extremely well, without improper initialization and it’s recommended as both the lights and the wipers are left in the auto mode. A warning though, if you have ice or snow on your windshield, you should deactivate your wipers until it’s cleaned.

6. The auto-start/stop system works in parameters. If your car engine will start in traffic without you pushing your clutch, I recommend that you go in and do a battery test. Of course, the auto-start is also dependent on how many consumers you are currently using, like your air conditioning system, multimedia system and your illumination system, in which case your car engine will start to ensure optimal charging for your battery.

7. The Cruise Control system with speed adaptability support uses 3 steps (50, 100 and 150 meters) and it makes use of the same radar system as the emergency brake system. It is controlled directly from your steering wheel and the detection angle is not affected by cars running in the lateral lanes.

8. The Keyless system makes access to your car easy, without the need to get your car key from your purse or pocket, the door can be opened as long as the key is no farther than 60 cm from the car. The Keyless system is accessed by pressing the button on the door handle, once to open that door or the trunk or twice to open everything.

Besides all the above, the car comes with: ABS, ESP, LED day lights, LED headlights with red tint, automatic headlight configuration, USB port in the central dashboard.

Vitara S is very well controlled on the road and it’s very good and accessible as a family car.

I reviewed a Vitara S AllGrip 2Tone (Teal - Black), 1.4 Boosterjet petrol engine, manual 6 steps gearbox with the RUGGED package installed, with an approximate price of 21000EUR with the optional packages included.

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