SA Road Tests

Welcome

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 archived road tests, just select from the alphabetical menu of manufacturers' names on the left. Hover your cursor over the manufacturer's name, then choose from the drop-down menu that appears.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


This is a launch report. In other words, it's simply a new model announcement. The driving experience was limited to a short drive over a prepared course chosen to make the product look good. We can therefore not tell you what it will be like to live with over an extended period, how economical it is, or how reliable it will be. A very brief first impression is all we can give you until such time as we get an actual test unit for trial. Thank you for your patience.


First drive: We live light, large and luxurious in Fiat’s 2014 500L MPV

Pics supplied

Truly multi-purpose

Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday October 31, 2013

It looks like a grown up Fiat 500 with extra doors, but it’s actually completely different from its compact city sister. Intended as a first or only car for young families to use as a daily commuter, for travelling or simply lugging loads, it’s a five-door mini MPV built on the “long and wide” version of the GM-Fiat Small platform.

It’s 4140mm long on a 2162mm wheelbase, 1780mm wide and 1660mm high. Suspension consists of McPherson struts up front and a semi-independent torsion beam setup at the rear. Braking is by means of 284mm vented discs in front and 251mm solid units at the back. Weight, depending on engine choice and equipment, varies between 1245 and 1365 kg. The only gearbox available at present is a six-speed manual.

Power is courtesy of either a 1400cc FIRE-series petrol motor or a 1600cc Multijet ll diesel. The petrol motor comes with both Easy and Lounge trim, but the diesel is in Lounge form only. Standard equipment for both levels includes six airbags, ABS brakes with brake assist, and ESC. This provides anti-slip regulation, hill holder, a degree of self-correction in the electrically powered steering, rollover mitigation and a mouthful called Motor Schleppmoment Regelung or MSR. This keeps you out of trouble if you engage too low a gear when conditions are slippery.
 
Daytime running lights, electric windows in front, manual air conditioning, cruise control, radio and CD player with full UConnect (Bluetooth etc.) connectivity and repeater controls on the fully adjustable steering wheel, 16” steel wheels, washable fabric upholstery, remote central locking and a rear window wiper completes the picture.

Lounge versions add electric rear window winders, heated and powered outside mirrors, electrochromic rear view, alloy wheels, protective floor mats in front, automatic headlights and wipers, front fog lamps with cornering function, dual zone climate control, a multifunction display, suede covering for the dash, an armrest for the back seat and a sunroof. The diesel features automatic stopping and restarting.

Being a true multi-purpose vehicle, the back seat slides back and forth to adjust the boot from 343 litres to 400, the seatback splits and folds to increase the volume to 1310 litres, the cushions fold and tumble to create an almost flat loading floor and the front passenger seat can be folded flat so that, with the left rear cushion down, you end up with a 2,4 metre-long loading space; for a step ladder, perhaps. The boot features an adjustable floor that enables you to separate your cargo; hard from soft, wet from dry or clean from dirty. The spare is a spacesaver.

For geography buffs, the 500L is built at Fiat’s extensively renovated, modernised and eco-friendly plant at Kragujavec in Serbia; one of two East European locations (the other is at Tychy in Poland) to which Fiat moved some of its production when industrial relations with Italian auto workers reached meltdown.

The ride and drive sessions, in Lounge versions with both engines, took in freeways, mountain passes and winding country roads with fairly steep hills. The cars were nimble and easy to drive, comfortable, and brilliantly light and airy. Performance from the petrol engine was perfectly acceptable for family use but we think that power junkies might prefer the diesel. Who thought that thought would ever find its way onto paper? 

Trent Barcroft, the local Chrysler-Fiat MD, asked us to promote the value angle, but we have reservations. The Fiat 500L is undoubtedly a brilliant and versatile multi-purpose family car, but in its price segment – R230 000 to R280 000 – there are 15 heavyweight competitors; without including variants. We think it will remain a niche choice.

Information gathered at a manufacturer-sponsored media event

The numbers
Prices range from R232 990 to R278 990
Petrol engine-
1368cc, DOHC 16-valve, inline four-cylinder
Power: 70 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 127 Nm at 4500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 12,8 seconds
Maximum speed: 170 km/h
Average fuel consumption (claimed): 6,2 l/100 km
Emissions: 145 gm/km
Diesel engine-
1598cc, DOHC 16-valve, inline four-cylinder, turbodiesel
Power: 77 kW at 3750 rpm
Torque: 320 Nm at 1750 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 11,3 seconds
Maximum speed: 181 km/h
Average fuel consumption (claimed): 4,5 l/100 km
Emissions: 117 gm/km
Tank: 50 litres
Warranty and maintenance: 3 years/100 000 km
Outlets in South Africa: 35

For an in-depth review of this vehicle, follow this link

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.

My reviews and launch reports appear on Thursdays in the Wheels supplement to The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles each month, most months of the year (except over the festive season) 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 they can see I do actually exist.



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