My wife and I had a look see at the new Vitara over the weekend. I think it is a brilliant, well priced, well kitted and honest wee car. It is obviously built to a price, but it will probably out last many of its competitors.

The following may be salesman BS, but we were told the following;

If you buy one with the contrasting Black roof (he didn't mention any other colour contrasting roof) the whole car is painted Black, then the top half is masked off and the body colour is added, so you get extra thick paint there "which gives you good protection!".

To be fair, we could see and feel the body colour was 'ridged' next to the roof colour.

The Vitara is the first Suzuki not to come with a spare as standard. You do get the gunk, a Jack and some tools. He guestimated Suzuki would charge around £150 for a spare. Or "try a scrappy" as he told us.

One thing, I noticed (and pointed out to the salesman) the bonnet of the showroom vehicle had several scratches up to 18" in length on the bonnet. According to the salesman, it was probably done by the guys paid to keep the showroom vehicles sparkling! They would Polish out, but if I was buying from there, I'd tell them not to touch the car and I'll either do it myself, or pay someone who could do it properly.

Anyone know if roof bars can be fitted to the new Vitara?

It doesn't appear to have roof rails and with the sloping roof I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't possible.

It comes with silver roof rails as standard, and Suzuki sell a Multi Roof Rack with Bicycle Carrier.

Should we start a separate Vitara Thread?

Yup, preferably on a Suzuki forum.

I have no problem with similar vehicles to a Yeti being highlighted on the Briskoda Yeti forum but, in my humble opinion, this thread goes way beyond that.

Threads that have far more do with Skoda and Yetis get moved on from this forum by the mods but not this one - so it must be me....

I've started a fresh thread for the Vitara and S-Cross here