SauRoNZA
Honorary Master
So with my 2008 Golf GTI getting a bit on in years and almost hitting the 200,000km mark and really not being used for the purposes that it was originally purchased for I decided it's time to have a look around for a car that is a little bit more sensible and modern and fit for purpose.
It's really my wife's car as I just ride a bike to work and back and only really use the car on the odd occasion over the weekend. Originally I bought the GTI for the reasons that it was a 4-door for the future forward family planning, Automatic for the 75km round trip in traffic we used to make and then most importantly the sporty factor because I had stopped riding bikes at the time.
Fast forward a few years and the car is really doing 20 km a day round trip which means it burns even more fuel than it's already heavy average and is really just being a general waste in terms of performance and tires and what not.
Therefore it seems absolutely ridiculous to go from a 147+ kw 2.0 Turbo with sporty automatic gearbox to almost a third down in power and back to a manual...but when being honest with ourselves and what the car is really being used for it makes so much more sense to do just that.
VW Move Up!
First things first sauntered down to VW Western Cape who had a full spec demo that comes with pretty much all the options VW offer outside of the optional sunroof.
I didn't have an appointment with the salesperson but we did chat earlier in the week and he was expecting me somewhere throughout the day. Friendly chap overall and knew all the details of the car and didn't try to bull**** me on any front. Also wasn't pushy to make a sale and that I can appreciate.
Car had Heated Seats, Smartphone Dock, Rear PDC and surprisingly Cruise Control which is the only car in this group to offer that. It never really made sense to me to have Cruise Control on a manual so it's not a big deal but a nice to have feature. More importantly to me was the full blown Multifunction Display added on this car which just seemed utterly lacking on the standard car and it's a bit ridiculous that this is an optional feature.
Overall the car is pretty funky inside for what it is and the Smartphone Dock is a novel idea for something that you are going to carry around with you anyway. Unfortunately I forgot to download the app beforehand and my phone insisted on connecting to Wifi to grab it due to size so only tested the normal Bluetooth function. First and quick impressions told me the sound system in the VW was the better of the lot and didn't seem radically behind from the Golf from a quality perspective. The controls on the infotainment unit are a bit weird as they change around from using the buttons at the bottom and then the next screen the wheel on the side and then the buttons again...a little bit of a mishmash.
Heated seats were a nice bonus which the wife appreciates but something I never use so not such a big concern. Even less so on a car with material seats that don't really get cold like leather does. Seats themselves are pretty comfortable but offer nothing in the region of headset adjustment. I don't remember if the steering wheel could adjust, by and large because I didn't feel that I needed to adjust it.
Engine wise this being the first car of the day I was driving it felt reasonable from a power point of view if I subtracted a hundred odd kilowatt from my seat of the pants dyno and the 55kw didn't seem to be struggling but wasn't hardly awe inspiring. It does seem to need quite a bit of revs to get going but got up the hill towards Stellenbosch happily in 4th reaching 120km/h and didn't feel like it was straining.
The clutch and gearbox felt smooth and slick and the gate was surprisingly short. I did notice that 3rd seems to be the longest gear ever, maybe purposely so to be the one used most in normal urban traffic situations.
Suspension was neither here nor there as I actually have no comments to make about it so it wasn't too soft or too hard and I guess that's really a good thing.
Interior plastics seemed quite reasonable and nothing in the car felt particularly cheap and nasty. Even rear legroom seemed quite ample as opposed to my expectations purely because the car is so small. Considering my requirements are two small kids in the back this isn't really a major thing either way otherwise I would never even be looking at this class of car.
What I never realised beforehand was that the rear windows aren't conventional windows and are rather mounted on a pop-out hinge instead of rolling down. At first this was a problem for me until I thought it's probably a good thing with kids in the back.
Boot space is obviously quite small and I'm pretty certain the smallest in this group. Interesting feature is the shelf you can fit up and down to make loading a little simpler. Seems a bit pointless when the boot is so small but still a nice feature and amazingly there is still a spare wheel in there too.
Overall it's a modern and quite trendy car although quite bare bones but treats all the absolutely necessary boxes.
Kia Picanto 1.2 Smart
The Kia was actually not on my radar at all and I added it last minute after a search on Cars.co.za has it listed and then I dug a little deeper because it was just around the corner from this one.
Didn't make any appointment and was initially pissed off when nobody in the dealership seemed interested in selling cars but then upon walking into the lot another guy came back in and it turned out the one I saw listed was gone but they did have another demo.
Immediately upon sitting in the car there was a massive step up in the sense that this feels like much more car for the money than the Up! I had just come from. First is the obvious change to leather seats which I'm used and then the massive touchscreen on the dashboard just gives it an infinitely more modern and future forward outlook.
As a geek the displays everywhere and buttons all over the show just talked to me and the fact that it has Android Auto and Apple Carplay standard is a massive feature in this class of car. Just like the VW this one also just has normal A/C but it seemed like Climate Control at first. The bigger deal is that beyond the rear PDC it also has a rearview camera, auto headlights and folding mirrors.
Plastics inside also just seem much more refined maybe simply because there is more of it where the VW has a lot of painted bare metal areas. The car also feels a lot bigger inside and ever so slightly wider. In this case I did feel I needed to adjust the steering wheel and was happy to find that it does actually do that.
Before even starting the car I thought the gearbox was very spongy and actually I had no idea where neutral even was. Setting off it wasn't so obviously and through the drive I had soon forgotten about it but the recommended gear display was very confusing as it doesn't show you which gear you are in but rather which one you should be in and that just makes it a little weird.
First time I touched the brakes I thought we were all going through the windscreen which simply wasn't an issue on the other two cars but it's also something you adjust to in short order. Immediately the extra 6kw is deeply apparent but I think it's more the case of the extra cylinder over the VW changing the entire torque delivery and the car didn't feel wanting at all when setting off and hitting the highway.
Oh there are also aluminium pedals which adds a quality touch. Lots of aluminium on the dash and doors and around the air vents also adds a premium feel to everything.
I will say of the three it's probably the noisiest car inside, but in fairness it's also the only one I took on a proper highway and in reality it's still more quiet than my GTI with no tyre noise being forthcoming like that car has.
The leather seats though...were not so great and I found myself sweating in them. More so than in my Golf which I reckon has a much higher quality of leather in those Recaro seats than the Korean alternative. I can't believe I'm saying this but I would actually prefer the cloth seats from the other two cars in this one. From a fitment and comfort point of view they are just fine though and a little more sporty and hugged my frame better.
It's the only car to have a centre console which also adjusts and I don't know if that means it's wider but it certainly feels like we weren't sitting elbow to elbow.
Of the three cars this one seemed to sit on the road the best with suspension the most comfortable and marginally better than the Up I would say from a soft and supple ride perspective. Car was planted on the highway and I think the extra cylinder really makes a difference to cruising speeds.
Getting back to the dealership I jumped in the back and was surprised to find storage bins behind the seats which is a nice feature for the kids. I wouldn't say it's any bigger or small than the Up! but the Ignis is probably the one with the largest interior of the three overall.
The boot has a similar shelf that can be put up and I was surprised to spot that the rear seats have adjustable headrests. It also has ISOFIX fittings on the rear if that makes a difference to anyone.
Overall I was absolutely astounded by this car and just didn't see it coming. The salesperson also made a big difference there actually trying to sell it to me and adding details about the car that I wasn't aware of even though I did plenty of research. It just seems like such an unbelievable premium package in this class.
week.
It's really my wife's car as I just ride a bike to work and back and only really use the car on the odd occasion over the weekend. Originally I bought the GTI for the reasons that it was a 4-door for the future forward family planning, Automatic for the 75km round trip in traffic we used to make and then most importantly the sporty factor because I had stopped riding bikes at the time.
Fast forward a few years and the car is really doing 20 km a day round trip which means it burns even more fuel than it's already heavy average and is really just being a general waste in terms of performance and tires and what not.
Therefore it seems absolutely ridiculous to go from a 147+ kw 2.0 Turbo with sporty automatic gearbox to almost a third down in power and back to a manual...but when being honest with ourselves and what the car is really being used for it makes so much more sense to do just that.
VW Move Up!
First things first sauntered down to VW Western Cape who had a full spec demo that comes with pretty much all the options VW offer outside of the optional sunroof.
I didn't have an appointment with the salesperson but we did chat earlier in the week and he was expecting me somewhere throughout the day. Friendly chap overall and knew all the details of the car and didn't try to bull**** me on any front. Also wasn't pushy to make a sale and that I can appreciate.
Car had Heated Seats, Smartphone Dock, Rear PDC and surprisingly Cruise Control which is the only car in this group to offer that. It never really made sense to me to have Cruise Control on a manual so it's not a big deal but a nice to have feature. More importantly to me was the full blown Multifunction Display added on this car which just seemed utterly lacking on the standard car and it's a bit ridiculous that this is an optional feature.
Overall the car is pretty funky inside for what it is and the Smartphone Dock is a novel idea for something that you are going to carry around with you anyway. Unfortunately I forgot to download the app beforehand and my phone insisted on connecting to Wifi to grab it due to size so only tested the normal Bluetooth function. First and quick impressions told me the sound system in the VW was the better of the lot and didn't seem radically behind from the Golf from a quality perspective. The controls on the infotainment unit are a bit weird as they change around from using the buttons at the bottom and then the next screen the wheel on the side and then the buttons again...a little bit of a mishmash.
Heated seats were a nice bonus which the wife appreciates but something I never use so not such a big concern. Even less so on a car with material seats that don't really get cold like leather does. Seats themselves are pretty comfortable but offer nothing in the region of headset adjustment. I don't remember if the steering wheel could adjust, by and large because I didn't feel that I needed to adjust it.
Engine wise this being the first car of the day I was driving it felt reasonable from a power point of view if I subtracted a hundred odd kilowatt from my seat of the pants dyno and the 55kw didn't seem to be struggling but wasn't hardly awe inspiring. It does seem to need quite a bit of revs to get going but got up the hill towards Stellenbosch happily in 4th reaching 120km/h and didn't feel like it was straining.
The clutch and gearbox felt smooth and slick and the gate was surprisingly short. I did notice that 3rd seems to be the longest gear ever, maybe purposely so to be the one used most in normal urban traffic situations.
Suspension was neither here nor there as I actually have no comments to make about it so it wasn't too soft or too hard and I guess that's really a good thing.
Interior plastics seemed quite reasonable and nothing in the car felt particularly cheap and nasty. Even rear legroom seemed quite ample as opposed to my expectations purely because the car is so small. Considering my requirements are two small kids in the back this isn't really a major thing either way otherwise I would never even be looking at this class of car.
What I never realised beforehand was that the rear windows aren't conventional windows and are rather mounted on a pop-out hinge instead of rolling down. At first this was a problem for me until I thought it's probably a good thing with kids in the back.
Boot space is obviously quite small and I'm pretty certain the smallest in this group. Interesting feature is the shelf you can fit up and down to make loading a little simpler. Seems a bit pointless when the boot is so small but still a nice feature and amazingly there is still a spare wheel in there too.
Overall it's a modern and quite trendy car although quite bare bones but treats all the absolutely necessary boxes.
Kia Picanto 1.2 Smart
The Kia was actually not on my radar at all and I added it last minute after a search on Cars.co.za has it listed and then I dug a little deeper because it was just around the corner from this one.
Didn't make any appointment and was initially pissed off when nobody in the dealership seemed interested in selling cars but then upon walking into the lot another guy came back in and it turned out the one I saw listed was gone but they did have another demo.
Immediately upon sitting in the car there was a massive step up in the sense that this feels like much more car for the money than the Up! I had just come from. First is the obvious change to leather seats which I'm used and then the massive touchscreen on the dashboard just gives it an infinitely more modern and future forward outlook.
As a geek the displays everywhere and buttons all over the show just talked to me and the fact that it has Android Auto and Apple Carplay standard is a massive feature in this class of car. Just like the VW this one also just has normal A/C but it seemed like Climate Control at first. The bigger deal is that beyond the rear PDC it also has a rearview camera, auto headlights and folding mirrors.
Plastics inside also just seem much more refined maybe simply because there is more of it where the VW has a lot of painted bare metal areas. The car also feels a lot bigger inside and ever so slightly wider. In this case I did feel I needed to adjust the steering wheel and was happy to find that it does actually do that.
Before even starting the car I thought the gearbox was very spongy and actually I had no idea where neutral even was. Setting off it wasn't so obviously and through the drive I had soon forgotten about it but the recommended gear display was very confusing as it doesn't show you which gear you are in but rather which one you should be in and that just makes it a little weird.
First time I touched the brakes I thought we were all going through the windscreen which simply wasn't an issue on the other two cars but it's also something you adjust to in short order. Immediately the extra 6kw is deeply apparent but I think it's more the case of the extra cylinder over the VW changing the entire torque delivery and the car didn't feel wanting at all when setting off and hitting the highway.
Oh there are also aluminium pedals which adds a quality touch. Lots of aluminium on the dash and doors and around the air vents also adds a premium feel to everything.
I will say of the three it's probably the noisiest car inside, but in fairness it's also the only one I took on a proper highway and in reality it's still more quiet than my GTI with no tyre noise being forthcoming like that car has.
The leather seats though...were not so great and I found myself sweating in them. More so than in my Golf which I reckon has a much higher quality of leather in those Recaro seats than the Korean alternative. I can't believe I'm saying this but I would actually prefer the cloth seats from the other two cars in this one. From a fitment and comfort point of view they are just fine though and a little more sporty and hugged my frame better.
It's the only car to have a centre console which also adjusts and I don't know if that means it's wider but it certainly feels like we weren't sitting elbow to elbow.
Of the three cars this one seemed to sit on the road the best with suspension the most comfortable and marginally better than the Up I would say from a soft and supple ride perspective. Car was planted on the highway and I think the extra cylinder really makes a difference to cruising speeds.
Getting back to the dealership I jumped in the back and was surprised to find storage bins behind the seats which is a nice feature for the kids. I wouldn't say it's any bigger or small than the Up! but the Ignis is probably the one with the largest interior of the three overall.
The boot has a similar shelf that can be put up and I was surprised to spot that the rear seats have adjustable headrests. It also has ISOFIX fittings on the rear if that makes a difference to anyone.
Overall I was absolutely astounded by this car and just didn't see it coming. The salesperson also made a big difference there actually trying to sell it to me and adding details about the car that I wasn't aware of even though I did plenty of research. It just seems like such an unbelievable premium package in this class.
week.
