Suzuki Jimny’s Demand Is So Strong Some UK Dealers Have Stopped Taking Deposits

The new Jimny proves to be a big hit for Suzuki as more and more customers place an order for its small off-roader. In fact demand has been so strong, that the wait time in the UK has stretched up to a whole year.

Despite Suzuki UK being allocated 1,200 examples of the new Jimny for 2019, some dealers had to stop accepting deposits due to the huge demand that greatly surpasses supply, Autocar reports. Said dealers are registering ‘expressions of interest’ instead.

The UK arm of Suzuki says that the reason for their inability to satisfy the strong demand at the moment is a factory bottleneck in Japan. Demand for the new Jimny is also quite high in its home market, partly thanks to the fact that it falls under the low-tax Kei Car rules when not fitted with its wheel arch extensions. But that’s not the only reason.

Suzuki is reportedly also restricting sales of the Jimny in Europe as it doesn’t want to increase its average CO2 levels. That’s because the new Jimny is a poor performer on this instance, emitting 178g/km of CO2 on the latest WLTP emissions standard.

That means if it sells too many Jimnys instead of the more frugal Ignis or Swift models, it will see its average CO2 levels going up, leading to fines from the European Union if it surpasses the set target.

Suzuki has promised that they will increase the allocation in the UK to 2000 units from 2020; that could indicate that the company plans to fit the new Jimny with a ‘cleaner’ engine (1.0-liter Boosterjet, anyone?) or, possibly, will start building the Jimny at a second plant to meet the high demand.