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From the "Things That Leave Us Scratching Our Heads" Department: Nissan is going to build rebadged Frontier pickups to be sold as Suzukis. According to a press release on PRNewswire, the Suzuki Something-or-the-Other will begin rolling out of Nissan's Smyrna, Tennessee plant sometime in 2008. The truck is planned only for the North American market, where the Nissuki will join rebadged Daewoos in Suzuki dealers' showrooms. Maybe Suzuki should talk with Mitsubishi, Mazda and Isuzu about their success in trying to sell a mildly restyled and rebadged truck already sold by a larger auto maker, before Nissan starts cranking them out in numbers.
15 Comments on “Suzuki to Sell Nissan Trucks...”
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This might actually work. The Frontier is a pretty good “small” pickup, and if Suzuki prices their version lower and keeps their longer warranty, it could be a good deal. The downside is that the Suzuki dealer network is a lot smaller than Nissan’s.
210delray: get your scheduled services done at the Nissan dealer, keep the warranty claims for Suzuki.
Looks like the soon to be dead Ford Ranger has a spiritual successor. Hopefully the starting price will be around $15,000.
If Suzuki was really on the ball they’d offer something like the X-head concept pickup here instead of another version of the Nissan.
http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/autoshows/tokyo2007/xhead.html
I wonder if this will be a stripped down version, though. Isn’t Suzuki pretty firmly embedded on the, uh, “frugal” side of the Japanese car market? IIRC the Frontier is nearly as expensive as the Tacoma, i.e. an example with the desirable options will MSRP near the $28k mark. If Suzuki can sell a stripper for considerably less then maybe that will help Suzuki but won’t it be at the cost of Nissan posting a loss?
Maybe Suzuki could stick their logo on a few Sebrings, Nitros and Compasses that Chrysler just maybe has lying around.
On the other hand, Suzuki could take a long term view: create their own unique branding, and develop models to suit.
Good luck, Suzuki. My 05 Frontier was the biggest POS I’ve ever owned, and I had a 1st gen. Neon. First there were lots of irritating small problems, then a major clutch issue that 2 dealerships refused to address. A call to Nissan Consumer Affairs accomplished nothing other than a friendly “piss off”. And the thing is, I actually liked the truck a lot. Still, I dumped it after only 18 months. Yeah, I took a nice hit on depreciation but I learned my lesson about Nissan. Other people I know have similar stories, from Sentras to Altimas to Frontiers…the reliability just isn’t there and dealer support is terrible. At least Suzuki has an opportunity to fix one of those problems.
Chaser :
I have a 2005 Frontier with 43,000 miles and I haven’t had any problems with it since I stopped taking it to get the oil changed at the Nissan Thief’s Den… I mean dealership.
They used to send me free oil change coupons in the mail all the time so i would go to get my oil changed there and every time they would try to tell me I needed some ridiculous work done. From transmission fluid change (not covered by warranty) at 10,000 miles, to new spark plugs at 25,000 miles even though the manual clearly states tune ups not needed for 100,000 miles. One time the guy got seriously irate that I would not let them rotate and balance my tires for $50 when Discount Tire would do it for free.
Only problems I have had are random squeaks, but no worse than the old ranger I had, and the stock tires only lasted about 14,000 miles. Other than that it is an awesome truck. It has a lot of room (I have the crew cab) and tons of power. Wish I had waited for the full size bed crew cab though.
/Don’t ever do business with North Texas Nissan.
//Ever.
///Just don’t.
@Martin Albright:
The optimist in me hopes that something like the X-Head, or at least a decent home-grown small pickup, is in Suzuki’s future (within five years), and that the rebadged Frontier deal is just a stopgap to get Suzuki’s foot in the door of the pickup market.
At present the Nissan Frontier is offered ONLY as a King Cab or a Crew Cab. Maybe the Suzuki version will be offered with a conventional cab. I think there’s a market for such a vehicle, and the conventional cab should allow it to be sold at a lower price than the Nissan Frontier.
At present the Nissan Frontier is offered ONLY as a King Cab or a Crew Cab. Maybe the Suzuki version will be offered with a conventional cab. I think there’s a market for such a vehicle, and the conventional cab should allow it to be sold at a lower price than the Nissan Frontier.
YEESSSS! This is what I’m hoping Suzuki has in mind. Not everyone wants a $25,000 tank, a small, simple, easy on gas pickup would be nice, please.
John
Color me dazed and confused. Suzuki used to make a small pickup truck. It was a 4wd drive and looked like a 3/4 scale Willys pickup. I dont think it was ever sold in the US though. The one I saw was brought back by a serviceman from somewhere out on the Rim.
Chaser maybe you got a lemon. My dad’s Frontier has been 100% reliable since new, with 40K on the clock now. The radio sucks but everything else has been great for him. I personally hated the auto because it robbed hp. I think he got his a few years back for under $17,000 new, the 2wd Desert Runner thing.
Getting rid of the King cab isn’t going to gain much plus you lose a place to toss a tool bag and a few bags of groceries. It’s barely big enough to fit my 6 y/o daughter in that little jump seat. I could do without those giant tires, they suck in wet weather.
Suzuki is huge in India with over 50% share in that market. Nissan/Renault have signed a deal with Suzuki to build cars in India.
http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/07/stories/2006090705411700.htm
I imagine that the small pickup for Suzuki USA is just one of the ways Nissan is paying back Suzuki for help in the huge emerging India market. Suzuki USA is mostly a reseller of other people’s stuff with GM-Daewoo being the major supplier. I guess there is a question of what happens to Suzuki’s access to GM-Daewoo products over time now that GM has sold off most of it’s holdings in Suzuki.
The people at Suzuki Motor Corporation are idiots. How can their motorcycle division build Hayabusa’s and GSX-R1000’s and their car division build the lamest cars year after year? They should build cheap sports cars that complement their sport bikes.
Honda owns the import “performance” market. Toyota doesn’t even exist in it(Supras are like Grand Nationals, old history, limited numbers, fluke vehicles, freaks of nature, does not compute; they exist in their own realm and aren’t relevant in the grand scheme of things. For all intents and purposes, unless you own one, they don’t exist in our day to day lives.).
If Suzuki wants to sell economy cars, they need to aim for 50 and 60 plus miles per gallon. If they want to sell low cost cars, they need to all be sub $10,000. Even then, it will have PT Cruiser syndrome. Sure it’s cheap, but no one wants one. Just like KIA’s and DAEWOO’s. Like all those bargain table books at the book store and bins full of discounted computer games. You can’t even give that stuff away.
Suzuki needs an identity. They are just bland and generic. They outright lie on their TV advertisements by suggesting the cars they build are as much fun or exciting as their motorcycles. That’s flat out offensive and insulting.
Has Suzuki ever turned a profit with their auto line in the USA? That would be interesting to know and impressive if they have.
Who are they fooling with a rebadged Nissan? Those Isuzu trucks sell real good(NOT!). Why bother taking a Mazda built truck and badging it as a Ford? Why do we need that sort of redundancy? All it does is dilute and pollute the market. There’s not enough room or need for all these duplicate vehicles.
Camaro/IrocZ/Z28/FireBird/TransAm
Pointless. All just Camaro’s too me.
Roush, Saleen, Shelby? Paying for a brand name and a label. It’s still just a Mustang. And can they even beat the Z06 at that? The entire point of them should be that they can beat Z06’s!!
Suzuki builds some excellent vehicles. If you haven’t driven the new SX4 Sport sedan, give it a try. It’s probably the best of its class, with great handling, brakes and terrific build quality.
Followup:
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/09/23/first-drive-2009-suzuki-equator/