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 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.
Published in Witness Wheels on Thursday November 14, 2013
We have just driven through the belly of an old Mc Donnell-Douglas DC10. Like most first experiences, it was scary.
Land Rover SA chose to replicate the international launch of its newest Range Rover Sport by exposing a group of journalists to the knuckle-whitening experience of driving one into and out of a retired all-economy class tourist carrier. The company found the decommissioned old aircraft, awaiting the wrecker’s cutting torch, in a far-flung hangar at OR Tambo International. It was pressed into service one last time with Land Rover branding, camouflage netting and access ramps. But more on that, later.
Our group’s ride and drive began by experiencing the Range Rover Sport in the environment in which many of them will spend their lives – touring via highway, byway and gravel road. There were a few of these; some quite rough, even in the process of being graded, but nothing your average KZN farm boy and motoring journalist hasn’t experienced before. As expected of the brand, the three derivatives we drove; three-litre petrol V6, five-litre supercharged V8 and three-litre turbodiesel, were supremely comfortable and stable throughout. Just leave the terrain-response selector on “auto” and go for a drive; the easy way.
Then it was off to The Rock, new home of South Africa’s drifters and spinners, for some drag strip and slalom time. The brief with the drag was to accelerate the big V8 as hard as we could, then leap for life onto the brake pedal on reaching the red cones placed agonisingly close to the end of the strip. It was to test the ABS, they said. It did so – no drama, no brake chatter, no slewing off line. Then followed the usual slalom run at 60 km/h, only this one ended with a panic stop (more red cones) in the middle of a sharp curve. No drama. Again. Then it was a double lane change at 80 km/h, followed by the mandatory panic stop. This could get boring, but better boring than borscht right? “Doesn’t feel a bit like a big SUV,” my co-pilot said. Quite true.
Back at the hangar where the day’s doings had begun, we loaded up a Land Rover Experience (www.lre.co.za) instructor and approached the waiting transporter with trepidation. The steel mesh ramp leading into the starboard side rear loading hatch looked impossibly steep and the doorway far too small. “It’s easy-peasy,” he assured us, stopping at the approach to the ramp. Select rock crawl and wait as the suspension lifts slightly. Put the shifter into neutral and select low range. Look in the menu for “other items: 4x4i” and find the kerbside view cameras. These show the edges of all four wheels and the area immediately around them. Engage drive and select D1 with the left paddle. Ease your way up. The LRE organisers had thoughtfully painted orange lines on each side of the grid so we could keep tabs on where we were going, because the view out the windscreen doesn’t tell you anything you want to know.
Once inside, the sense of relief lasts only a microsecond because some humourist has filled half the width of the ‘plane by parking a Defender inside. We pick our way past in the gathering gloom, semi-blinded by daylight showing through the exit hatch in the DC 10's belly. Thankfully they had painted white lines inside so we could see where to go. Yeah, right! Stare at a dumb screen while your brain screams at you to look out through the front windscreen, to where you’re going. We let the instructor look at lines and do the “left hand down a bit,” part. Getting out is something else. Ease the car over the edge and stop dead – all you can see is the 'plane's nose wheel and it feels as if you are hanging vertically with no idea of where you are going. Ease off the brake and chug downward while the instructor keeps up his good work.
As if that wasn’t enough, we then had to cross through the aircraft; going in by the right forward cargo door and out the other side, on ramps even closer to vertical than those we had just experienced. It’s real heart-in-throat stuff. The instructor said they had kept it all quite safe at 29 and 26 degrees for the two inward ramps and a measly 34 and 35 degrees for the exit pair. They’re all liars, we tell you.
To wind down, the final set of obstacles consisted of a man-made 4x4 course erected within the airfield complex; an existing decently steep hill, a trio of axle twisters (with and without water) and a wading-trough. The new Sport boasts a fording depth capability of 850 mm and if you chip in R3400 extra, you get a computer graphic showing where that is; up by the tops of the wheel arches. The clever part is that, as you wade in where no sane person should go, a blue “swimming pool” indicator shows just how deep in it you are at the moment. It’s reassuring.
Apart from that, the new Range Rover Sport is 420 kg lighter than the old one and consequently more dynamic and economical. It still seats five in decadent comfort, is filled with even more safety kit and luxury features, has a new eight-speed gearbox and goes like the clappers. There has been quite a lot of redesign too. Finally, a remark on tyres: In reply to a question, a spokesman stated that JLRSA will keep stocks of tyres for these vehicles. That's in case owners experience any difficulty in sourcing replacements from mainstream tyre dealers.
Information gathered at a manufacturer-sponsored media event
Our review of the 2014 3.0 diesel HSE is here
The numbers
Prices range from R824 500 to R1 263 600
Engines:
1) 2995 cc, quad cam, 24-valve, V6 supercharged
Power: 250 kW at 6500 rpm
Torque: 450 Nm between 3500 and 5000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 7,2 seconds
Maximum speed: 210 km/h
Average fuel consumption (claimed): 11,3 l/100 km
2) 2993 cc, 24-valve V6 turbodiesel
Power: 215 kW at 4000 rpm
Torque: 600 Nm at 2000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 7,2 seconds
Maximum speed: 210 km/h
Average fuel consumption (claimed): 7,9 l/100 km
3) 5000 cc, 32-valve V8 supercharged
Power: 375 kW between 6000 and 6500 rpm
Torque: 625 Nm between 2500 and 5500 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 5,3 seconds
Maximum speed: 250 km/h
Average fuel consumption (claimed): 13,8 l/100 km
Tank sizes: 105 litres petrol; 80 litres diesel
Ground clearance: 213 – 278 mm
Maintenance plan: 5 years/100 000 km
Service intervals: Annually or every 26 000 km
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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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8