The noise would normally be set o by the crashy secondary ride, but I couldn’t quite work out where it was coming from. It seemed to be emanating from the left side of the dashboard, but no in-car rattle has ever come from where you thought it would be.

I realised I could pause it by gripping the top of the central touchscreen, so I can reasonably deduce that it’s the source. Not ideal, and slightly concerning that it’s happened to both of our cars.

The other issue is less common but more serious. Several months ago, when the weather was much milder, I left the original Swift out in the cold for two days – not a long time to leave a car to its own devices, and it wasn’t really that chilly (around 8deg C).

Despite this, it had a real struggle to start, with the generator spinning but failing to spark the three-cylinder into life. This went on for maybe 15 seconds, while I was pumping the throttle just in case, before it roared into life.

It happened only once, and I viewed it as just something of an oddity, and the car went back to Suzuki without ever doing it again.

However, several months later I rushed out to the Swift Ultra, ready to start my schlep over to the Aston Martin F1 factory to photograph boss Lawrence Stroll for last week’s Autocar Awards issue, only for it not to start.

This time, it took about four attempts over the course of a minute to resuscitate the engine, which sounded uncannily like a diesel locomotive attempting to splutter into life from a very cold start.

I’d been out in it the day before, though, and had left it for about six days straight with no issues previously. Aside from that, the car has been trouble-free, but it’s the sort of thing that makes me feel like I can’t fully trust it.

Final update

Time and again we’ve seen the humble hatch’s resilience tested. Public desire for two-tonne SUVs and big-name manufacturers’ claims they can no longer turn a profit developing and selling small cars have made sure of that.