Goodbye Jimny??

Not sure if this has be reported in this forum, but Suzuki South Africa (where I am for the next day then back to DE/UK) has announced that Suzuki as a compay will be stopping production of the Jimny after 2025. I commented elsewhere a few days ago just how prolific the JImny is here - I cannot believe how many there are. Mainly Gen 3 facelifts then plenty plenty Gen 4 of all types and models. I was recently in Perth which is total 4x4 country as well and there were many Jimny there, but nothing like what I see in SA. I even saw an SJ410 in beautiful condition this afternoon. Having owned and used most true 4x4 models since I started driving in the early 1970s - (first 4x4 a series 2 SWB landy, 18 months surveying in the Drakensburg mountains) this breaks my heart to read this news. End of an Era....

Source?

Perhaps there is some confusion with the fact that the Jimny has been discontinued in Europe/GB from 2025.

Very unlikely Maruti Suzuki would stop making a car they just started making, it seems to me.

Google news feed on my phone, South African edition. Reasons cited are low worldwide demand and significant failure to meet EU emissions. Lengthy article citing a number of sources.

Despite the article stating specifically that this is a world wide cessation, you may well be correct in that this just refers to the EU market. Lets see whether there is further confirmation of this in the next few weeks.

A big challenge is likely to be the "mini land cruiser/prada" Toyota plans to release in 2025 which targets the Jimny market head on.

As mentioned Suzuki stopped importing the Jimny to Europe earlier this year, the reason stated is that they have moved to a Hybrid or EV line up and dropping all cars which ICE only.

Mentioned in the news today is that the UK government is considering dropping the EV targets of 22% of cars and 10% of vans due to the lower take up of EVs.

At present for every ICE car/van they sell over the limit they get fined £15,000 and the manufacturer's want the thresholds dropped.

Ironic really as Suzuki stopped selling the car version of the Jimny in 2020 due to this rule.

I always wonder when market size drops below a certain level it becomes uneconomic to manufacture and they drop it from the range, they can make more money making something else, so whilst I can see dropping manufacture in Japan (they made the EU Jimny there), I would think it was unlikely they would drop it from Maruti, in fact they might make worldwide sales from there.

Robin

I haven't heard of anything about production stopping elsewhere for the Jimny although it wouldn't surprise me if it did stop all together as the 3 door SZ5 version is old now and would be due a refresh but probably not worth doing for only a few markets. The new car industry is grim at the moment and only getting worse and I think we will
see is more manufacturers going bust because they can't make cars people want and can afford. On the plus side all this new car nonsense means Used prices on older future classic vehicles will do really well. Even a Gen 4 Jimny would be considered a good investment. My 2019 SZ5 is still in the money at 5 years old along with countless Late model Gen 3 Jimnys still fetching overs for clean stock examples and this probably won't change anytime soon with no new Jimny on the horizon. 

If my dealer was to be believed, Suzuki has the problem that every vehicle manufacturer dreams of having, they can't build them fast enough to meet the market demand.

I waited a year to get a five door Jimny, and had I held out for what I wanted, rather than taking what was available, it would have been a twenty-two month wait

It will be interesting to see how the Jimny saga plays out.  Suzuki isn't active in the US, and is probably not large enough in Europe to be drawing a lot of profit there.  In India, the Jimny is seen as a pricey alternative to more popular local competition.  In Japan, Oz, South Africa, and Latin America it definitely has a solid following.

So what does that add up to?  Presumably Suzuki and Maruti would continue to take marginal profits since they have already invested in the tooling.  I don't think either company is hitting limits in production capacity for some other model for which they are struggling to meet demand.  But the minute they stop making money per unit, neither company really has the resources to just keep stamping them out for the sake of the brand.  

Bottom line, it seems to me the Gen4 has some room to run, but I don't think any of us should really be surprised if it doesn't last the decade.

Don't tip it over on that offroad weekend, you might not be able to replace it. 

My take on this is that there is a good chance of the Jimny going the (old) Defender 90 route if production stops, with demand from Jimny followers pushing the prices up to crazy levels as soon as new vehicle supply dries up. As a true 4x4 there is little at present to challenge it in this market segment, but the segment is small and becomming more niche by the year.

fordem wrote:

If my dealer was to be believed, Suzuki has the problem that every vehicle manufacturer dreams of having, they can't build them fast enough to meet the market demand.

Sometimes you have to read between the lines a bit though.

I no idea on Jimny sales numbers, as I couldn't find any numbers online apart from one article saying a record number of over 800 in a month sold in Oz recently. Which would look to be 10-12k units a year tops there if they monthly numbers are similar.

But just because there is low supply, does not mean high demand or high production numbers.

I recall speaking with Jeep UK many years ago, who proclaimed they'd pre-sold every Wrangler Rubicon coming into the UK for the next 12 months.... great. But I think it was either 6 or 10 vehicles only allocated to the UK. So 100% success on sales of next to nothing.

Same with Toyota, lots of noise in the press a couple of years back on how the GR86 "sold out" in less than 48hrs. But they were only importing something like a 100 vehicles into a country of 65 million people!

It gets more bonkers: Suzuki have imposed a registrations limit for each dealer to contain the non-EV fines.  Some dealers have just about hit the limit for Q4 and won't be able to sell any new cars in December.  A dealer I spoke to this morning has two left for 2024.

Presumably they are hoping the electric Vitara will save them, but they'll need to keep it under £40k including metallic paint, or the luxury rate of VED applies.  Hyundai are just managing that with the 64kWh Kona, but probably not for much longer.

It really is a sad time to be a car enthusiast. Everything is just little better than a white good like a fridge or a toaster there really isn't anything quirky or interesting this side of a hundred grand.

According to Auto Express, there won't be a Jimny EV because it would weigh too much and no longer be a Jimny.  Suzuki are pinning their hopes on biofuels to keep it going.

For perspective, the lightest new eVitara, which has a rather modest range, is half a ton heavier than the lightest petrol Vitara.  So that's pretty much what you'd need to add to a Jimny.