SA Road Tests

Welcome

This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.

My most recent drive is on the home page. Archived reviews and opinion pieces are in the active menu down the left side. Hover your cursor over a heading or manufacturer's name and follow the drop-down.


We GO boldly in Datsun’s new mini

Worth gold these days

Posted: 4 April 2015

The cheat sheet
Price: R102 500
Engine: Nissan HR12DE, 1198 cc, DOHC, 12-valve, inline three-cylinder
Power: 50 kW at 5000 rpm
Torque: 104 Nm at 4000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 13.3 seconds
Top speed: 161 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 5.9 l/100 km
Tank: 35 litres
Boot: 265 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Optional service plan: 4 years/60 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals. Price: R6566-40
Optional maintenance plan: 5 years/60 000 km. Price: R17 391-84
 
Public service notice:
Do not buy blindly, assuming that all new cars have airbags and ABS brakes because that is not always so. The Datsun GO has neither of these safety features.
There are other cars priced below R110 000 that don’t possess them either; but by the same token, some do.
Fact 1: The average six-to-eight year old car you might buy, for your kid to go to ‘varsity in, won’t have these items because they weren’t available at the time of manufacture.
Fact 2: Cars in South Africa are very expensive thanks to exorbitant taxation while the need for a new car with warranty, and unharmed by previous owners, outweighs many other considerations.
Fact 3: Buyers have voted with their wallets, purchasing on average 513 Datsun GOs per month between October 2014 and March 2015, so the choice is yours.

There are two models. “Mid” is pretty basic but offers four doors; space for five; a fair boot; a perky three-cylinder, 1200 cc engine; five-speed manual gearbox; ventilated disc brakes in front with drums at the rear; conventional McPherson strut/torsion beam suspension; decent ground clearance; high-mounted brake light; speed-sensitive wipers; 12-volt socket; digital rev counter; trip computer; follow-me lights; air conditioner; child-proof locks on the back doors and an immobiliser. It presently sells for R91 300.

“Lux,” priced at R102 500 and the model we tested, adds a few features. Look for speed-sensitive power steering; key-operated central locking from the driver’s door; full covers on the steel wheels; bottle holders in the front doors; powered windows in front and a cellphone docking bracket accompanied by an amplifier, two speakers, an auxiliary socket and a USB recharging point. There is no radio/CD player.

Your smartphone, once clipped into the bracket and plugged into amplifier and recharge socket, theoretically provides all the entertainment you need: radio, recorded music from the micro SD card in your phone, satnav, radar trap alerts, web surfing and instant messaging. Only the phone, your chosen apps and its connectivity contract decide your limits.

Obviously, sound quality depends upon how smart your phone is; you have to unclip it and take it with you when exiting the car and the docking bracket is wobbly so it sags. And the wires are untidy. But it is at least some kind of solution.

GO is made in India for a market that’s even more cash-strapped than ours, so final selling price is a primary consideration. Put bluntly, it’s built to sell cheaply; with lots of hard plastic, inexpensive fabric and very few of the niceties that cost big money to fix when they go wrong.

We have dealt with ABS and airbags already. Other cost cutters include manual wing mirrors – open the windows and grab a handful; insufficient sound deadening  – the only vehicle offering more wind-, road- and mechanical noise is the Land Rover Defender; no mirrors behind sun visors; no protective plastic knobs on seat slide adjusters; no external boot catch - just a lever next to the driver’s seat; non-inertia reel seat belts, that have to be manually adjusted for each user, in the back; tinny-sounding doors and boot lid and a clunky parking brake.

As mentioned earlier, the engine is perky and pulls strongly once the revs are up, getting to 100 km/h in a touch over 13 seconds and going on to a top speed of 161. Truthfully, that feeling of perkiness could have something to do with sound effects – depending on your viewpoint, it’s either uncomfortably loud or it ‘has a nice little rasp.’ It’s up to you.

Although the car behaves well enough on winding roads, we wouldn’t pit it against anything too exotic – its 170 mm ground clearance results in a slightly top heavy feeling we would hesitate to explore enthusiastically.

But perhaps we are being unnecessarily harsh; the Datsun GO is a city car intended for gentle trundling to work, school, shops and back. Noise and possible handling issues would only be problematic at freeway speeds or higher, and that’s not the Datsun’s area of expertise. And when it comes time to replace them, tyres are affordable. They are 155/70 R13s, cost between R500 and R600 each for well-known brands and they’re readily available. That’s worth “gold” these days.

Wrapping up, this is basic city transport for buyers needing a new car and the peace of mind that goes with it. We would probably spend similar money on a lightly used “almost anything else”, but that’s just us.

Test unit from Datsun SA press fleet

Read about the 2019 Update here

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that every car reviewed is given my personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every test car goes through real world driving; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

I do my best to include relevant information like real life fuel economy or a close mathematical calculation, boot size or luggage space, whether the space is both usable and accessible, whether life-sized people can use the back seat (where that applies), basic specs of the vehicle and performance figures if they are published. In the case of clearly identified launch reports, fuel figures are of necessity the laboratory numbers provided with the release material. If I ever place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with that vehicle at least once already, so you will be able to find what you want in another report under the same manufacturer's heading in the menu on the left.

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 they can see I do actually exist.

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? If you have a genuine concern, I will be happy to hear from you. All I ask is that you write something in the subject line so I know which vehicle you're talking about.