Suzuki Jimny three-door automatic orders paused until further notice
Suzuki Australia has stopped accepting orders for the pint-sized Jimny three-door with automatic transmission until it clears the current backlog. So, who wants to learn to drive a manual?
EXCLUSIVE
The Suzuki Jimny three-door with automatic transmission has been taken off sale indefinitely from today, while the company catches up with the massive backlog of existing orders as wait times now stretch into 2024.
The Suzuki Jimny joins other box-shaped, retro-designed four-wheel-drives such as the Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series and Mercedes-Benz G-Class, orders for which have also been paused in Australia due to unprecedented demand.
Suzuki Australia has advised Suzuki Jimny three-door manual variants (pictured below, in Lite trim) are still available to order as the waiting times for these models are not as long.
However, orders for the Suzuki Jimny three-door automatic will be paused until further notice – when production finally catches up with the unprecedented demand.
Drive understands orders could be closed for the remainder of this year in Australia for the Suzuki Jimny three-door automatic.
Customers who have already ordered a Suzuki Jimny three-door automatic – and are still waiting for their vehicle to be delivered – have the choice of keeping their spot on the wait list, or switching their order to a Suzuki Jimny five-door automatic (pictured below) and going near the head of the queue for that variant.
However, the Suzuki Jimny five-door – unveiled last week – is not due in local showrooms until later this year.
Suzuki Australia also advises that single-tone colour schemes have shorter wait times than two-tone Suzuki Jimny 4WDs with black roof panels.
Drive has been told there are more than 3500 orders for the Suzuki Jimny three-door automatic which, at current production forecasts, could equate to a wait time of one-and-a-half years.
Sales of the Suzuki Jimny in Australia have more than quadrupled over the past four years.
As previously reported, more than 5600 examples of the Suzuki Jimny were reported as sold last year, according to 2022 new-car sales figures released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
The tally represents a 70 per cent increase from the prior year – and is more than double the number of examples reported as sold in 2020.
Indeed, the pint-sized Jimny helped drive Suzuki Australia to its best sales annual results locally in nine years, since 2013.
Suzuki Jimny sales in Australia
- 2022: 5697 (70 per cent)
- 2021: 3350 (up 40 per cent)
- 2020: 2368 (up 70 per cent)
- 2019: 1391 (new model)
- 2018: 110 (old model)
- 2017: 101
- 2016: 514
- 2015: 1098
- 2014: 568
- 2013: 947
- 2012: 958
- 2011: 594
- 2010: 759
- 2009: 820
- 2008: 978
- 2007: 738
- 2006: 559
- 2005: 493
- 2004: 450
- 2003: 515
- 2002: 614
- 2001: 874
- 2000: 921
- 1999: 1275
- 1998: 191
Source: Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries and the Drive.com.au data centre.