What did you do to your jimny today?

Lambert wrote:

In my opinion having not driven a lwb one it's not going to take much doing to make it ride better than the swb... in fact I would contend that the 4 is actually a step backwards in terms of absolute handling compared with the 3. 

I am soooo tempted to respond to this with a purely theoretical "judgement", based on the numbers in a spreadsheet that I built prior to the five door Jimny actually being locally available for a test drive.

In this spreadsheet I have the specifications for the three & five door, fourth gen. Jimnys, the third gen. Jimny, the three & five door Vitaras, both of which I have previously owned, and the five door Grand Vitara, which at the time, was my daily drive.

On paper, the third gen Jimny should be no match for the fourth gen three door, alas, I have never driven one, so I will not criticize from a position of ignorance, maybe I should nip around the corner and take my nephew's for a quick test drive, on second thoughts, no, that wouldn't be a  fair comparison, his is lifted.

It's a shame we couldn't spend longer with the 5 door and really driven it around for more testing to gauge its power & comfort. I think really you would have to try living with it for a week jumping in & out of a 3 door as well to really compare. As I said though from our brief road test its handling & comfort did seem to be an improvement over the 3 door. Power wise I'm doubtful whether I could live with it but without more road testing to compare how much you lose is another matter. I don't mind the power output from the 3 door for normal day to day driving. Only time I really crave more kick down power is for overtaking cyclists or parked cars etc but normally it's not an issue. I would be scared to drive one with much greater power as I don't feel like the car is set up to take it and would be more likely to get into an accident. Whilst an actual road test maybe out of reach for most I wouldn't mind betting we will see a 5 door at a Jimny meet soon. 

fordem wrote:

I've had two "non technical, non automotive enthusiast", three door Jimny owners in my five door Jimny - their first comment, with no prompting, was on the "increased stability", and in his post, you can see jlines' comments in that regard.

My experience (stock 3 door) was, it was ok, but never felt as planted as a traditional Land Rover Defender. As time went on it got worse and worse and felt less and less stable, you couldn't 'lean' on it in the corners and high speed stability on a bend became terrible.

Replacing the stock suspension (I think it was at only 26,000 miles), completely transformed this. It now handles way better on road, feels more planted and an equal to a Defender. High speed stability on a bend also transformed. My conclusion is that the stock suspension had worn out in way less than 26k miles, probably more like 15k miles. And was hugely compromised to begin with.

So maybe the 5 door has more damping and feels better than a worn/partly worn 3 door. But I do truly struggle to believe it feels more stable otherwise. It just doesn't make sense from a physics point of view, unless you were getting the back out and powersliding everywhere (not really possible with the stability control). A longer wheel base would have a more progressive breakaway and be less snappy, but I assume you aren't referring to 'on the limit' handling?

I don't have any pics of the Jimny on road or sliding about, but I have driven loads of 4x4's and pushed them quite a bit. I've even competed in some speed events with them. To give some reference of where I'm coming from and what I've done with vehicles.

 
 

jlines wrote:

I don't mind the power output from the 3 door for normal day to day driving. Only time I really crave more kick down power is for overtaking cyclists or parked cars etc but normally it's not an issue.

The 3 door with a manual goes quite well flat out. Probably quicker than an MGB and not far off the low powered 1.6 Mazda MX-5 NA. And as I've said many times, the engine is lovely to drive hard. It is smooth and very rev happy. Eager to reach the red line and pulls well at the top end. In fact, I very much like driving it like a sports car.

But even flat out it is, compared to all other new cars for the past 15 years. Quite slow. If another car puts their foot down, you will be hard pressed to keep with them in a straight line. Despite how the engine feels and performs.

But this is an aggressive driving style bouncing off the red line and constantly being over 4000rpm. For instance, our local bypass is NSL (60mph). In my old 1977 diesel Land Rover with a 200Tdi engine or my Mum's 24 year old Freelander. You can simply squeeze the throttle pedal in 5th and have enough shove to safely overtake. The Jimny actually offers similar overall performance, but to overtake you need to drop it to 3rd and rev it to the red line to get the same effect.

With all the hybrid and turbo engines in use today (even by Suzuki), they could have very easily addressed the complete lack of low and mid range grunt that is missing with the 3 door. As chances are, you are far more likely to be loaded up in a 5 door than a 3 door, else why go for 5 doors in the first place?

In an Aussie review they clocked the 5 door XL auto at 14.3 sec 0-62mph. This would have been considered slow in 1990, let alone 2025.

jlines wrote:

I would be scared to drive one with much greater power as I don't feel like the car is set up to take it and would be more likely to get into an accident.

Not sure I would agree. There are plenty of Turbo and Supercharger kits available and loads and loads of people in Oz running such setups. Also plenty of 1.6 or turbo Gen 3's running about too.

The Jeep Wrangler YJ and TJ are quite similar size and weight of the Jimny in all reality (a bit wider as they aren't kei cars). And they were offered with 4.2 and 4.0 litre straight 6 engines. The latter could be had with 170-190hp and in factory form with about mid 8 seconds 0-60mph.

I don't see any real reason why more power (or at least a more grunty) setup couldn't have worked.

Agreed that in a straight line a jimny can't get out of it's own way either version 1.3 or 1.5 manual or auto. However, we're blessed with so many corners in this country, so just fix the suspension and simply don't slow down!

300bhpton wrote:

As chances are, you are far more likely to be loaded up in a 5 door than a 3 door, else why go for 5 doors in the first place?

I bought mine simply for the convenience of having the extra doors - on a day to day basis my five door carries no more load than the three door would - every day I open the rear driver's side door, drop my laptop backpack on the floor behind the driver's seat, then get in & drive away, doing the same thing in the three door is just not as convenient, a lot of the time it's just me and that laptop, 

I also bought it for the convenience of being able to get the occasional rear seat passenger in & out, getting a "senior adult" in/out of the rear seat of the three door can be quite challenging, and when I say occasional, I mean occasional, I think I've averaged once a month in the twelve months I've owned the car.