'11 Suzuki SX4 AWD

[WagoneerSX4]

I love my light bar but I always was partial to the look of 4 separate round lights. I like the rally light look and I think it suits the car a lot better than a light bar. So one of my friend's happily took the light bar off the my hands and I picked up four 4.5" round LED spotlights. And by spotlights, they're really just flood lights. Even advertised at 30deg, they're a little bit more focused than my combo light bar was but nowhere to close to a spotlight. Still extremely happy with them as I do want more of a flood pattern for the kind of driving I do out in the country. They are slightly brighter than the 20" 120W light bar. I mostly did the swap for the appearance factor and I really love the look of the front-end again.

 

[WagoneerSX4]

Another set of rear wheel bearings bites the dust. Each rear set seems to last exactly 60,000km, and the front lasts 120,000km. I can basically do the rears blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back, so it's not a big deal. The rear hub assemblies have also come down in price by a HUGE amount since the SX4 is now old enough that the aftermarket companies are flooding the market.




There's nothing quite like the feeling of a vehicle with brand new wheel bearings all around :smiley_drive:

 

[WagoneerSX4]

Added this puppy to the trunk.



My last cheap air compressor lasted more than a year (couple months more than most of mine last) but was just soooooo slow. Getting my tires from 18psi back up to 34psi took about 30min for all 4. The 300P has all the features that I wanted, did very well in the overland test (albeit that was the 400P model), and the price didn't hurt the wallet too badly. When you add up the cost of all the cheap compressors that I've used and abused over the years, I should have bought this years ago and it may have even saved me money.

Also switched around my lighting. Stuck with LED's, but went with all 42W round housings instead of light bars. Just like the look a lot better and the 30deg spots are focused a ton better. The ones on the front are 30deg spots and the two on the roof rack are pointed out at 45deg angle and are 60deg floods.



The reason we did this is because we always seem to be showing up to campsites in the middle of the night (just the way it works with work and living so far away from any parks), and we both really enjoy spotting animals along the way. We had a ton of fun spotting moose, bears, elk, etc. last year with the light bars so I figure why not take it one step further and angle out some floods.

 

[kojackJKU]

LED bars are not what they are made out to be. That's for sure. They just cant focus light the same. You should have a look at the new Hella valufit 7" lights. They have a spot and driving beam. I think you would really like them and they are quality! HOw far east are you coming this year?

 

[WagoneerSX4]

LED bars are not what they are made out to be. That's for sure. They just cant focus light the same. You should have a look at the new Hella valufit 7" lights. They have a spot and driving beam. I think you would really like them and they are quality! HOw far east are you coming this year?

For what I needed the LED light bars were great, it was mostly for matching the looks to my vehicle why I switched back to individual lights. Someday I'll upgrade again to something like the Hellas or the ARB copies. For now these will do great.

Hopefully as far east as possible, all the way out to St. Johns!

 

[kojackJKU]

awesome....look me up here when you get close to Grand falls-Windsor. stop and say hello! The hella valuefits are cheaper in cost than most of the Chinese stuff on ebay.

 

[Travelin _man]

This little car is bad to the bone brother! A few years ago I was working at a body shop her in Michigan and we had one come in out of state that needed some work. As soon as I saw it I wanted one but didnt even know what it was till i drove it in to clean it. Keep up the good work my friend!

 

[WagoneerSX4]

awesome....look me up here when you get close to Grand falls-Windsor. stop and say hello! The hella valuefits are cheaper in cost than most of the Chinese stuff on ebay.

Might just do that! Mind if I message you some questions about places to go in Newfoundland?

This little car is bad to the bone brother! A few years ago I was working at a body shop her in Michigan and we had one come in out of state that needed some work. As soon as I saw it I wanted one but didnt even know what it was till i drove it in to clean it. Keep up the good work my friend!

Thanks man! That's everyone's first impressions. I have it debadged so the first question is always, "What the heck is it?!"

 

[kojackJKU]

Sure thing. ask away.

 

[WagoneerSX4]

Getting caught up on some much needed maintenance leading up to our East coast trip. Was getting a really bad vibration through entire vehicle from 40-50km/h that was progressively getting worse. Turns out my front u-joint on my driveshaft was completely seized and the rear one was extremely bad as well. Even though these are "non serviceable" u-joints and Suzuki says entire driveshaft needs to be replaced because they're staked, I did some research and found out you can replace them with a fully serviceable u-joint with a little work. So long story short, I now have serviceable u-joints. Doing it myself I saved $250 over a custom driveshaft, and about $1k over an OEM driveshaft assembly. This was my first time replacing u-joints and learned a lot! Definitely not an easy job.




Also made my roof basket crossbars a little more low-profile. Got the basket about 2.5" lower by losing the towers and grinding all the way up to the boxed in section of the crossbars.

 

[WagoneerSX4]

She's back in with no balancing needed! Hopefully good for another 120,000km.

One more oil change before we go and she'll be ready for the trip.

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[why3zx]

Cool car man and nice thread. We traded in a 2003 Audi Allroad in 2011 for a brand new 6sp tech package (does have the heated seats and nav) for all of the same reasons that you stated initially. Funny its even the same color. Wore out the first set of tires and then installed the Rocky Road 2.5" kit a couple of winters ago.



Now this may be a long shot but you don't happen to still have your stock wheels do you? I tried to convince my wife that all wheel drive doesn't always mean all wheel stop... well during a bad snow storm this winter she decided to prove me right and side swipe a curb at 20mph. Well ever since I have been replacing parts, she bent the rear axle, swapped that and the car was driveable but had bad highway vibrations, one wheel had visible damage so I hunted down a stock replacement, had it powder coated and had it installed. Well when it was installed and balanced the shop let me know that the only wheel that I had that wasn't bent was the one I had just bought. So its either buy a new set of wheels or try and find three more matching OEM wheels.

I would just buy aftermarket but the selection in the stock size is less than optimal, and as it sits right now I have ZERO rubbing issues with the bigger tires.

 

[WagoneerSX4]

No I haven't had the stock 16's since the car had less than 10,000km on it. I switched to 15's almost right away. Better performance, better ride quality, cheaper tires, and more choices.

Lots of choices out there in the 5x114.3 bolt pattern though, you'll just have to get a cheap set of hubcentric rings as SX4's have a pretty small 60.1mm hub bore.

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[why3zx]

What kind of offset have you had luck with as far as rubbing goes? I wish I would have just did the 15" swap when I did the lift and bigger tires, at the time it just made sense to stick with the stock wheels and have them powder coated. Thanks for the reply, I figured if you had your stock set sitting in storage somewhere I'd try and talk ya into selling them to me. Looks like this is going to get even more expensive, already been a 1200$ mistake on the wife's part.

Again, love your car! gives me a bit of motivation to revisit the SX4 for a roof rack and some more goodies.

 

[WagoneerSX4]

These wheels are 15x6.5 ET38. Zero rubbing with 215/75/15. I ran these same wheels with 20mm spacers in the front and 30mm in the back. The front rubbed a bit at full lock and the back would only just touch the fenders over big bumps with a heavy load in the back.

I think a happy medium with this tire size would be about +25. Anything more aggressive than that you'll probably get into rubbing issues.

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