2022 Suzuki Celerio Quick Drive Review: It's a good ship

While we had gripes with its infotainment system, we actually admire how the all-new Celerio drives. It is quick on its feet, and its steering is very responsive to the point that it is a very “point-and-shoot" kind of car.

Do note that if you’re used to torque converter transmissions, using the Celerio’s auto gear shift gearbox, especially in its automatic mode, will take getting used to. To put it in simple terms, it feels like a phantom foot is doing the clutch work, and that sometimes the gear shifts will happen rather too late, or sometimes too early into the rev range.

The shifter for the Celerio's auto gear shift transmission

The manual mode feels great however, and by using this mode one can squeeze out everything the 1.0-liter inline-3 gasoline engine can offer.

Of note, the said engine can make up to 67 horsepower and 89 Nm of torque. These aren’t much, but coupled with the Celerio's very light 830 kg curb weight, there were instances in the drive when we had some bit of fun.

That was before a strong downpour happened in the afternoon on the drive back to Sucat. The Celerio was able to handle the puddles and slight flooding on the roads of Lipa. Moreover, it took potholes and bumps on the road with aplomb, and it was pretty quiet in the cabin as well. It also did pretty well on the highway, and we were able to cajole it into reaching the speed limit with no fuss. We also appreciate the engine auto stop-start system on the new Celerio. It wasn’t obtrusive, and one can deactivate it with a simple push of a button.

Under the hood, the 2022 Celerio gets a 1.0-liter inline-3 gasoline engine

Lastly, Suzuki claims that the Celerio can return up to 28.25 km/liter based on an official fuel economy test. During our run from Sucat to The Old Grove Farmstead, we managed to return an average of around 21 km/liter. Mind you, the test drive was also a fuel-economy run of sorts, though we were hampered by very slow-moving traffic as we were traveling out of Sucat. Still, 21 km/liter isn’t bad by any stretch.