New Suzuki Jimny 5-door vs 3-door – Which one you should buy

The Suzuki Jimny has finally received an additional set of doors, adding a new layer of convenience and practicality to the fan-favourite 4×4.

Just like its three-door counterpart, the new five-door excels off-road and is still small enough to make navigating town a lot easier than it is in most SUVs these days, but this begs a new question: is it better to get the new, larger Jimny or stick with the tried-and-trusted original?

Price is of course the obvious concern here, as the base three-door retails from R390,900 while the stretched version starts at R429,900, making it a R39,000 bigger financial commitment right off the bat.

However, there’s a lot more to consider than meets the eye, as the five-door does offer other benefits besides its two new points of entry, making the decision of which classic Suzuki to pick up that much harder.

What’s the difference

To accommodate its extra doors, Suzuki has had to lengthen the Jimny by 340mm, which has two additional consequences.

The first is that the wheelbase has grown from 2,250mm to 2,590mm with the added effect being that the SUV’s off-road angles have changed, with its approach now sitting at 36 instead of 37 degrees, its breakover at 24 instead of 28 degrees, and its departure at 47 instead of 49 degrees.

While this does indicate that the five-door is slightly less capable off-road than its sibling, in practice the two vehicles function nearly identically and are both great choices if you want to head out into the unknown.

The second big change caused by the SUV’s growth spurt has to do with the boot, which grew substantially from a mere 85 litres to 211 litres. This is a difference of 126 litres, so the rear storage has been more than doubled thanks to this one change.

Folding down the two rear seats will provide 332 litres of luggage room on the three-door and 377 litres on the five-door, and the bigger Jimny naturally has more interior space at 1,113 litres instead of 830 litres.

On the recent launch of the Suzuki Jimny five-door, we found that the boot is large enough to fit around four travel-size suitcases stacked vertically, or up to eight tog bags if two are stacked on top of one another.

It’s possible to stack higher than this if you use the rear seat headrests as a stopper to hold the bags, though it’s important to note that this can compromise your rearview while driving. Unfortunately, we were not able to perform a similar test with a three-door’s boot.

It’s also worth noting that the SUV’s powertrain is identical between the two versions, with a 1.5-litre petrol engine connecting to an all-wheel-drive setup via either a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic transmission.

Equipment differences

The bigger SUV may be R39,000 more than its equivalent three-door, but it also makes up for this with a few new equipment additions.

The extended Jimny comes standard with a new chrome grille, rear park distance control, a rear 12V socket, privacy glass for the rear windows, and, most notably, a new 7.0-inch infotainment screen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and a reversing camera.

Bear in mind this is on top of the items that are already included on the three-door, such as 15-inch alloy wheels, cloth seats, electric door mirrors, a multifunction steering wheel, two airbags, air conditioning, electric windows, two airbags, ABS, hill assist, and electronic stability control.

Looking at the top-spec GLX, the smaller SUV is fitted with automatic LED headlights, cruise control, climate control, and a larger 9.0-inch media screen, which the five-door expands on with rain-sensing wipers, auto-folding side mirrors, and a total of six airbags.

Pricing

You can see the pricing differences between the new Suzuki Jimny three-door and five-door in the table below:

Three-door variant	Price	Five-door variant	Price
Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GL AllGrip 3-door	R390,900	Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GL AllGrip 5-door	R429,900
Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GL AllGrip 3-door Auto	R412,900
Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GLX AllGrip 3-door	R416,900	Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GLX AllGrip 5-door	R457,900
Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GLX AllGrip 3-door Auto	R438,900	Suzuki Jimny 1.5 GLX AllGrip 5-door Auto	R479,900

To address the elephant in the room, the five-door GL is not offered with an automatic gearbox, which means you will need to pick up the range-topping GLX if you want the larger car with a self-shifter.

Consequently, you will need to pay R67,000 more if you want an auto five-door, rather than just the R39,000 it would have been had the GL come with the desired transmission.

Every purchase also includes a 5-year/200,000km warranty and a 4-year/60,000km service plan.