Suzuki Australia: "Safety is paramount" despite ANCAP blows

The boss of Suzuki Australia maintains that safety is still “paramount” for the Japanese brand, despite none of its range either wearing five-star ANCAP safety ratings, as well as recent safety recalls.

Speaking with CarExpert, general manager for Suzuki’s local arm Michael Pachota said the brand is “absolutely” committed to vehicle safety despite none of the brand’s vehicles currently wearing five-star ratings.

“Safety is paramount for Suzuki, it absolutely is. We apply ourselves to all regulations of any country that we distribute products in – in Australia, we meet all those requirements,” Mr Pachota said.

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“I think our recent safety assessment ratings, from a local perspective, have been a function of criteria changes, to which point vehicles based on their current specifications say three, four, five years ago would have met all requirements to [receive a five-star ANCAP rating].”

“But with that said, we take that on board too and for future consideration in terms of adding further safety features to our vehicles moving forward,” Mr Pachota added.

Currently, only the Suzuki Fronx and Swift wear valid ANCAP safety ratings in Australia – one- and three-star results respectively. The Swift’s three-star result comes off the back of running changes made from September 2025 to align the Australian model with European safety specifcations, after the light hatch received a one-star rating in May 2024.

A batch of recently released Suzuki Fronx models were also subject to a significant safety recall due to a manufacturing defect which may cause a rear seatbelt failure in the event of an accident.

The Jimny and Vitara currently go unrated, as their old three- and five-star ratings have expired, and the new e Vitara is expected to carry over the four-star Euro NCAP rating it achieved last year.

Suzuki’s last vehicles to wear five-star ANCAP ratings were the previous-generation Swift (June 2017 to June 2024) and earlier versions of the current Vitara (2015 to December 2022), based on much older criteria and prior to ANCAP’s full alignment with Euro NCAP regulations.

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