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The Suzuki Swift was handed three stars for safety by Euro NCAP in Europe – but re-testing locally has seen Australian examples perform worse.
The 2025 Suzuki Swift hatch has been given a one-star safety rating by the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) after local cars performed worse in local crash testing than three-star European models.
Now the Swift has been handed just one star from ANCAP under the latest test protocols – limited to that result by how well it protects occupants in a crash, not how well its crash-avoidance tech can prevent one.
“Earlier this year ANCAP was informed of physical differences between locally-supplied Swift models and those supplied in Europe so we conducted a range of additional crash tests on local vehicles and found some areas of concern," said ANCAP CEO Carla Hoorweg in a media statement.
“In comparison to the three-star rating achieved by Swift vehicles sold in Europe, vehicles sold in Australia and New Zealand performed differently when crash tested.”
Suzuki has not announced plans to upgrade the safety of the Swift following the one-star test result.
In Euro NCAP testing, the Suzuki Swift received adult occupant protection and child occupant protection scores of 67 and 65 per cent respectively – falling short of the 80 per cent bar to be eligible for five stars, and the former even missing the 70 per cent needed for four stars.
But local testing has revealed the Australian Swift performs worse in the same tests, with adult protection rated at 47 per cent and child protection at 59 per cent.
The overall star rating is determined by a vehicle's lowest-performing category, and the local adult occupant protection score failed to clear the 50 per cent bar needed for two stars overall.
For the vulnerable road users examination, the Swift scored 76 per cent in Euro NCAP and ANCAP testing – enough for five stars – while the safety assist technology category yielded a 62 per cent in Europe versus 54 per cent in Australia.
Notable in local testing is the large discrepancy in results for the adult protection test – 47 per cent versus 67 per cent – despite the new-generation Swift being built for Europe and Australia in the same Suzuki factory in Makinohara, Japan.
"The design of some of the structural elements and restraints in locally-sold Swift vehicles appear to lack robustness leading to variation in crash performance," Hoorweg said.
The difference in score is attributed to how the Swift handled the frontal offset (MPDB) crash test, where Australian examination saw protection of the driver's chest rated weak, with structures within the dashboard deemed a potential source of injury for both driver and front passenger.
Protection for the upper legs in this test was rated as marginal.
Additionally, protection for the driver’s feet in this test was rated poor due to rearward pedal movement – whereas this was not the case in the European test results.
In the full-width frontal test, protection for the driver’s chest was slightly better, rated adequate, and for the head and neck too, but the rear passenger protection was assessed as poor due to chest compression exceeding injury limits, meaning zero points were awarded for this test.
For the child protection category, the Swift was given a 59 per cent mark – one of the lowest results to date under the latest test protocols – with readings from the crash dummy (simulating a 10-year-old) showing protection for the head was only adequate, neck protection as weak, and chest protection as marginal.
For the dummy standing in as a six-year-old, protection of the head and neck was rated poor, but marked as good for the chest. In Europe, protection for the head was better.
More points were also deducted for the absence of a child presence detection (CPD) system, which alerts the driver when a child has been left in the vehicle.
Other key safety equipment missing across global Swift models include a speed-limit information function, "intelligent" adaptive cruise control, a speed limiter and driver-monitoring system.
A Suzuki Australia spokesperson told Drive the brand's latest hatchback features more safety than the previous-generation Swift, which achieved a five-star score in testing from 2017 under less stringent protocols.
"The Suzuki Swift has built a long history of providing a strong value proposition for customers of Australia and New Zealand. The Swift has been developed considering driving performance, comfort, emission levels, fuel efficiency, safety and affordability," the spokesperson said.
"The development of the latest generation model has been aligned with the same philosophy.
"We have constantly been providing feedback to Suzuki Motor Corporation on voices, opinion and information of customers, media or any other sources in the markets for the benefit of future model planning of Suzuki Motor Corporation.
"The latest generation Swift offers considerably more safety assist features than the previous generation and the distributors are always committed to importing the highest specified models made available to their markets."
ANCAP has progressively tightened its testing standards over the years, making features such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB) and a side-centre airbag mandatory, on top of a minimum rating in each of the four tests, to achieve the maximum five-star score.
According to ANCAP, there can be differences between cars across other markets due to oversight or "cost".
While retesting, or even testing, vehicles coming to Australia is not a legal requirement set by the Government, ANCAP carries out seven physical crash tests, as well as more than 600 active safety tests, run across several different scenarios, to “set the bar a lot higher than the Australian Design Rules”.
Retesting the Swift for Australia, which Drive was present to witness at Transport for NSW’s Crashlab facility in western Sydney, cost ANCAP around $40,000.
While its funding predominantly comes from state and territory governments, the Federal Government, the New Zealand Government, and non-government members, if ANCAP chooses to test a particular model then it comes from its own pot.
Normally cars destined for Australia which are tested by Euro NCAP do not need to be tested again if their specification is the same. Where this is the case, ANCAP extends the rating.
“If they’re not, then we're able to provide that information to consumers to say ‘this isn't actually the same car that got tested’. The performance from a safety perspective might be vastly different,” Chief Executive Carla Hoorweg told media.
“The average punter doesn’t necessarily realise that what you see being crash-tested here is not the same car that is being sold in Europe. It will look exactly the same [on the outside] and will have the same name on it, but until you actually delve into the detail, the cars can be really different.”
“There are times where a vehicle might be in a segment where everything else is five stars. And if we let that go unrated because we can't extend the rating [from Euro NCAP], there's this implication for consumers that ‘everything else is five stars in this segment, so this must be as well.
“And it got five stars in Europe so it should be fine – ANCAP just hasn't kept up’. So that's where we pay a lot of attention to those models.”
The Suzuki Swift is not the only Australian-sold model to feature a different ANCAP and Euro NCAP score, as the Honda Civic, CR-V and ZR-V were also found to diverge in safety specification.
A born-and-bred newshound, Kathryn has worked her way up through the ranks reporting for, and later editing, two renowned UK regional newspapers and websites, before moving on to join the digital newsdesk of one of the world’s most popular newspapers – The Sun. More recently, she’s done a short stint in PR in the not-for-profit sector, and led the news team at Wheels Media.
