Wagon-body style, available all-wheel drive, affordable price, large interior, powerful standard engine.
Cons
Strange interior design, missing some key features.
What’s new
As the Aerio is a recent introduction to the market, there aren't that many changes for 2003. Suzuki has bumped the horsepower up by four to 145 and nudged the torque up one pound-foot to 135. Other additions include integrated cruise control buttons on the steering wheel, a three-point seatbelt and headrest for rear center seat and a new cloth design. The GS and SX models drop the rear-seat armrest, get a six-disc in-dash CD player and have the optional all-wheel-drive available.
Edmunds says
A worthwhile compact car from Suzuki. It is, however, still a few steps behind the pack leaders.
I bought this car new in 2003 My work round trip is 184 miles my car just went over 402000 miles I have had no problems. Just oil changes and two set of brake pads and at 250000 clutch presure plate thowout bearing all which are wearout parts.
Simplicity wins again.
5 out of 5 stars
Marlin Marx, 02/14/2016
2003 Suzuki Aerio SX Fwd 4dr Wagon (2.0L 4cyl 5M)
Simple design, simple layout, simply genius. One of the all time best cars I have ever owned. Rugged, dependable, useful, economical, easy to work on, and FUN! It only had one dangerous problem. I bought it for cheap 18 months ago in the summer and put 2,000 miles on it by winter. Everything went well until it got really cold, and then the brakes literally "froze up." Rock hard … pedal and no stopping! Scary! My brother suggested I plumb-in an extra length of heater hose and wrap it around the brake-power-booster. I did. No more hard pedal, not even at 25 degrees below zero. Now this little wonder is closer to perfect than it ever was! Update: It is now the fifth of March, 2017, and "Rattles," as my humorous wife calls the yellow ray of sunshine, is still going strong, although I had to finally break down and put struts, rear brakes, and rear anti-sway bar bushings on it. Small price to pay for all it does for us. It is our parts runner, loaner car, occasional clean metal scrap delivery mule, and otherwise general gopher and ever-ready default vehicle. It's like a Swiss Army Knife on wheels. I can't say enough good things about it. Precise Japanese engineering and eye-catching Italian design. What more could anyone ask for? Oh, and did I mention? It's good, clean fun! UPDATE 09/06/2017: Still going strong, although it might be time for a front end alignment because it's pulling a little to the left. Also, the plastic headlight housings must be about as el-cheapo as you can get because I have to work the cloudiness out of them about every three months. I looked up the price of new ones and found that they average $220 for the pair. Ouch. I watched a video about changing them, and discovered it takes several hours because you have to remove most of the front end body parts to do it. So I guess I'll keep sanding and polishing the old ones. But it's worth it. My wife and I took it (it took us, whatever) on a long drive through the countryside as part of our 33rd wedding anniversary celebration, and I was reminded of how good it sounds when downshifting to climb a hill or pass a farm tractor. Fun, fun, fun. And when we finally got home, the gas gauge needle had hardly moved. UPDATE 09/06/2018: Since the brakes aren't dangerous anymore in cold weather, we got to drive it enough last winter to really see how it handles snow. Despite it's overall lightness, low ground clearance, strictly street tires, and slightly over zealous first gear ratio, it did better than expected, even through as much as 4-5 inches of wet stuff, as long as we slowed way down, planned ahead for turns and stops, and prayed continually. During blizzards and such we used our 4x4 truck. Less white knuckles and prayers for our hearts to slow down. The little guy is still a blast in the summer though! UPDATE 03/06/2019: We are in a record breaking nasty winter with lots and lots of snow which has utterly overwhelmed our Aerio. It has spent most of the last four months buried under a fluffy white mountain. Before it disappeared I discovered it's factory alloy wheels must leak air in cold weather, but so slowly I didn't notice because I (shamefully) didn't check them regularly. When I filled them to proper pressure, most of the feeling that it needed an alignment went away. I will do better with that if I ever see it again. UPDATE 09/07/2019: Still going strong. Cold AC, hot heat, always starts, always goes. Loaded it down with multiple bags of garden dirt the other day, and it just squatted a little and soldiered home no problem. Occasionally it has a slight ticking sound in the engine for about two minutes after cold starts. I have come to know over time that means it's time for an oil change. The alloy wheels are now leaking air at all temps, all the time. I have tried to just clean alloy wheel rims in the past on other vehicles with limited success, so I located new Toyota steel wheels that are supposed to fit, on the internet, for $250 including tax and shipping. Is our Suki worth that? Oh yeah! 03/09/2020: Alas, our Suki threw a timing chain, and since it has an interference engine, we fear the worst. It is sitting on our car trailer until we either try to fix it, or convert it to an all-electric car; or sell parts off of it, and then scrap it. We never ordered the Toyota wheels for it, and we won't unless we are going to do the EV conversion. This could have been avoided if I were a better DIY mechanic..
LOVE MY SUZUKI
5 out of 5 stars
kellynulf, 08/13/2013
2003 Suzuki Aerio GS AWD 4dr Sedan (2.0L 4cyl 4A)
I bought my Suzuki with 6 miles on it back in 2003. It now is hitting over 190,000. It has been an amazing car. There have been a few issues. A CD got stuck in the CD player and now that doesn't work. The radio still works fine though. The light on the clock doesn't work, even with replacement fuse. I did start having issues the last 2 years with the heat shield clamps rusting. Overall I … will be very sad the day "Shelly" takes a dump.
My reliable, can-do hatchback
5 out of 5 stars
D. Tom, 02/15/2016
2003 Suzuki Aerio SX AWD 4dr Wagon (2.0L 4cyl 4A)
This car has been with me through 4 different house moves in 2 states. What impresses best is that the read seats fold down truly flat. I have fitted a washing machine and love seats, and a rolled futon mattress into this baby. Noisy ride - can't hear radio very well at times. Mechanically reliable for past 12 years, only clutch needed attention at 100k miles. I hope to get an … even 200k miles out of this. Great value for the price!!
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