SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Interior pic by author, others by Quickpic
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday March 10, 2012
What stays the same: The seven-seat body and suspension stays the same, as do the 2.4- and 3.0-litre petrol engines. The 2.0-litre VM Motori diesel motor, co-owned with Fiat, was phased out from Captiva about a year ago, but it’s still available as an option on Cruze.
What is new: The subject of this review is a new 2.2-litre common rail diesel that appears to be a natural progression from the old motor, with increases to both bore and stroke and a more rigid block to reduce noise. Its variable geometry turbocharger remains essentially the same, but injection pressure has been raised to 1800 bar from 1600 previously. A new variable swirl combustion chamber design improves burn, thus performance, while reducing particulates. Engine vibration and knock were reduced too. A side effect of the improved combustion chamber design was an ability to reduce compression ratio from over 17:1, down to 16.3:1. Result – higher specific power output with fewer emissions.
An exhaust gas recirculation cooler feeds unburned gasses back into the induction system to reduce emissions. This not only improves combustion, but GM claims that it extends engine life by reducing knock and vibration. A close-coupled diesel particulate filter removes post-combustion particles commonly seen as soot emissions from engines without this type of filter. The system is maintenance free for the life of the vehicle and complies with Euro-5 emissions standards. Other features of this engine include oil-jet cooled pistons, a balance shaft module integrated into the oil cooler for significantly reduced noise and vibration, and a dual-mass flywheel that eliminates low frequency resonance and transmission noise at low engine speeds.
The automatic gearbox is new too. It’s a Chevrolet Hydra-Matic 6T50 (6 speed, transverse, and 50 refers to the torque rating), electronically controlled, lightweight design. It uses a torque converter but features clutch-to-clutch shifting, eliminating the bands used on older transmission designs. GM chose an "on-axis" layout as opposed to folding the gearset behind the engine and transferring power by means of a chain, as done in most other GM front wheel drive transaxles. It evolved from the larger 6T70/75 ‘box designed in cooperation with Ford. Drive is available to all four wheels with the fronts being favoured most of the time, but apportioned rearward as needed, to a maximum 50:50, front-to-rear split.
The experience: Unlike other seven-seaters, the back row is quite commuter-friendly, although one might not want to keep rickety old Uncle Fred back there all the way to Jo’burg – wills can be changed, you know. There are acres of load space if all the seating isn’t in use and the hatch opens wide and high to make things easy. The back window plays along, opening separately to let one slip small items in without having to open the door. The French love this feature because city parking is usually cramped.
Last year’s suspension revamp that went along with the facelift makes dirt road behaviour even more comfortable than it was previously. Just don’t be overly tempted by the all-wheel drive, because ground clearance is pretty average for a city SUV at 178 mm. We took it out on a rough and stoney forest track, sort of a “civilian” 4x4 course rather than the extreme kind where wheels leave the ground. It scraped bottom once but ploughed through without hesitation.
Our impression of the gearbox was that it's a nice torque converter unit, but not quite as sharp as one of the full-on DSGs. It does its job of moving this big family car quickly and comfortably, very well though.
The numbers
Price: R427 500
Engine: 2231 cc, DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder
Power: 135 kW at 3800 rpm
Torque: 400 Nm at 2000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 10,1 seconds
Maximum Speed: 191 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 9,5 l/100 km
Tank: 65 litres
Fuel: 50-ppm diesel recommended
Ground clearance: 178 mm
Towing capacity (braked): 1700 kg
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km
Service plan: 3 years/60 000 km at 15 000 km, or 1 year, intervals
This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.
What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.
I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!
Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously. Email me from here
This site is operated by Scarlet Pumpkin Communications in Pietermaritzburg.
Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are courtesy of www.quickpic.co.za
Copyright this business. All rights reserved.
SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8