Suzuki Ignis boot space, practicality and safety

• Boot is small but well-shaped
• Plenty of rear legroom
• Storage up front is useful

The Ignis is one of the smaller cars on sale, so it’s not exactly surprising that it’s far from a limousine inside. But Suzuki’s done a great job of carving as much space as possible out of the car’s compact dimensions.

Part of this comes down to the car’s lightweight construction – with slim seats, narrow doors and a general lack of excess bulk there isn’t a lot to compromise the Ignis’ high, square dimensions.

The result is genuine legroom for four adults, as long as they don’t mind being relatively cosy. Passengers sit upright, with plenty of headroom, though the rear seat in particular is rather flat and unsupportive.

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The front seats are a little better, though their bolsters are very soft and only go so far towards holding you in round the corners. Still, there’s plenty of adjustment fore and aft to make even the tallest of drivers feel comfortable. However, the steering wheel only adjusts for height and not for reach.

The Ignis offers a sliding rear passenger seat, which allows you to prioritise either boot space or passenger room. In reality, it’s likely to be left in its rearmost position most of the time as when slid forward there’s a minimum of legroom – however, it’s a good way to sneak out a bit of extra boot room if you have rear passengers who don’t need legroom, such as those in child seats. Speaking of child seats, both rear seats offer Isofix mounting points.

Boot

The Ignis’ boot is a very usable 267 litres in capacity. That’s more than is offered by the Skoda Citigo or Hyundai i10, and it’s nice and square in shape, too – though there’s rather a load lip to lug bags over and no clever adjustable boot floor to allow for a flat surface when the rear seats are folded.

With the back seats folded down there’s a sizable 1,100 litres here.

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AllGrip models have extra mechanicals to package under the floor, and their capacity drops to just 204 litres.

Storage up front in the Ignis is good, with a twin-level glovebox, cupholders in the centre and decent-sized door bins. There’s also a useful shelf ahead of the gear lever which provides a handy place to keep your phone while it’s plugged into the car’s USB ports.

Safety

• Ignis was tested back in 2016
• Three-star standard score is disappointing
• Safety kit lacking on all but top model

The Ignis doesn’t do particularly well on the safety front. While it performed adequately in crash tests, safety kit was found to be lacking – and even post-facelift, the equipment needed is only available on top-spec SZ5 cars.

Without the SZ5’s camera-based autonomous emergency braking system, the Ignis scored a paltry three stars.

With it equipped, it scored a full five stars, though this was back in 2016 and under less rigorous testing than Euro NCAP undertakes in 2021.

All cars come with six airbags, a speed limiter, stability control, lane-departure warning and tyre-pressure monitoring.