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 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.


When Great Wall Motors unveiled its 2012 C10 city car recently, we investigated

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.


Pics supplied

Moving away from cheapness

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday August 29,2012

“The Chinese wage advantage cannot last forever,” agreed Tony Pinfold, CEO of Great Wall Motors SA, “so the time has come to move away from cheapness as a selling tool and toward offering quality product at affordable prices.” Five years ago, when GWM first arrived in South Africa, the company’s Workhorse pickups were bought mainly by farmers, butchers and plumbers. “Now,” Pinfold said, “everybody drives GWM. And from anything second-hand being our main opposition back then, we compete against all other manufacturers today.”

Reinforcing the message of quality, Great Wall recently opened its first offshore factory in the little (Pop. 969) Bulgarian village of Bahotsiva. Although labour costs are relatively low there, it’s still part of the European Union where standards are high. Manufacturers have to prove that their products shape up before being allowed to sell in Europe and GWM’s Florid was the first Chinese passenger car to pass the stringent new EuroNCAP safety tests. Vehicles destined for South Africa all come from Baoding in China.

The local passenger car range has been trimmed, with only Florid Cross remaining to run alongside the new C10. Florid hatch and the boxy CB150 have fallen away. Apart from new body styling, a daring 30s-retro V-shaped chrome grille and completely reworked interior, dimensions have changed too. The new car is 97 mm shorter overall on a wheelbase that’s 92mm longer. It is 11 mm wider and sits 19 mm lower. None of this means very much of course, but it should theoretically be more comfortable to drive and it should sit on the road more solidly. The review, when we get one on trial, will tell.

Motor, suspension and brakes were lifted straight out of the Florid, so there’s nothing new to report there. According to the technical people on hand at the launch, the engine was remapped slightly to improve economy and performance, but output numbers remain as they were. Good news for buyers is that the CO2  gm./km rating of 117  is below the taxable threshold.

As expected, the little conveniences are all still present: ABS with EBD, two airbags, power windows and mirrors, hydraulic power steering, air conditioning, built-in radio and CD player with USB and auxiliary, fog lamps at both ends, disc brakes front and rear, alloy wheels, remote central locking, reverse parking assistance and childproof locks for the back doors. Suspension is by means of McPherson struts in front with a torsion beam and trailing arms at the rear. The gearbox is a five-speed manual unit.

The boot seems to be much the same size as on Florid models, but can be extended by removing a couple of fittings on either side of the spare to create more volume and the rear seat backs fold completely flat. While speaking of these seats, the backs recline slightly for comfort and the cushions can be adjusted fore and aft through a range of about 8 cm, so if knee room is not imperative, cargo room can be extended a bit.

The familiarisation drive was short and restricted to freeways and city streets, so we can’t say much beyond it being comfortable and pleasant. Because the engine breathes naturally, the Highveld altitude sapped power, making the experience a little dull. The engine is essentially the same as before, so we would expect Midlands performance to be similar to that of its predecessor, namely quite acceptable.

At R135 000, the C10 will be up against strong competition from a whole busload of competitors and that kinky snout will probably divide buyers into factions, ‘for’ and ‘against,’ quite strongly.

The numbers
Price: R134 900
Engine: 1497 cc DOHC, 16-valve, four-cylinder
Power: 77 kW at 6000 rpm
Torque: 138 Nm at 4200 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: About 12,2 seconds
Maximum speed: About 175 km/h
Fuel index: 6,0 l/100 km
Tank: 40 litres
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km, with 2 years’ roadside assistance

For a review on this car, click here

What We Do

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 they can see 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!

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