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.


Toyota SA released its 2012 Innova family busses recently. We report back

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

Travel in good company

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday October 26, 2011

Under the taglines “Innova loves company” and “Best value family motoring” Toyota SA has brought the tried and tested Innova multiple-people carrier to this market seven years after its introduction in Indonesia during 2004. It then migrated to India, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and the UAE before landing here, in its most luxurious form, in time for the Johannesburg International Motor Show.

It’s built on the familiar Hilux and Fortuner platform and fitted with Toyota’s no-nonsense 2.7 litre four-cylinder petrol engine developing 118 kW of power and 241 Nm of torque. The gearbox is a manual five-speed unit. Suspension has been tuned for its role as a family- or corporate bus, but remains firm enough to provide confident handling.

Designed to mask its 4,58m length and 1,75m height, the Innova is styled with clear reference to Toyota’s Innovative International Multipurpose Vehicle (IMV) design language. This includes a prominent trapezoidal grille with bold slats and chrome highlights in front, wide and bold headlamps and an inverted bottom grille with integrated fog lights.

A wide shoulder line flows from the headlamps across the sides and links the front lights with the large and bold rear lights. Supporting the side profile are accentuated fenders with a rear flowing profile and body coloured side mirrors with built in indicator repeaters. Stepping inside, you are greeted by a familiar Toyota ambiance. The driver finds a two-tone instrument panel with Optitron instrumentation, silver detailing and turquoise blue lighting. Wood grain inserts are featured on the lower section of the central cluster, the door switch base and, on the more luxurious 7-seat model, the steering wheel.

Intended as a value proposition rather than being glamorous, it nonetheless offers all the basic equipment one expects plus a few surprises. Think ABS brakes, two airbags, side impact beams, seatbelt pretensioners in front, remote central locking, height adjustment for the driver’s seat, front fog lights (also useful in sand storms, according to a UAE release), automatic air conditioning, rear window wiper and demister, a six-speaker digital radio and CD player with USB and auxiliary inputs, a multiple information display and Bluetooth. Outside mirrors are powered, as are the windows. The driver’s glass features one-touch raising and lowering with anti-jamming facility.

Suspension is by means of independent double wishbones with stabiliser in front and a four-link setup with coil springs at the back. Brakes are ventilated discs in front with drum units behind.

Two models are available. The lower spec’ed eight-seater is upholstered in two-tone luxury cloth in a 2:3:3 seating arrangement featuring fore-and-aft adjustment and recline facility on the second row. Seats are split 60:40 and tumble forward to allow access to the back. Wheels are 6JJ steel with plastic caps, while tyres are 205/65 R15. The more luxurious seven-seat version boasts a pair of captain’s chairs in the second row, leather upholstery with the favour repeated on steering wheel and gear knob, alloy wheels and tyres of the same sizes fitted to its twin, and a reversing camera.

For the orientation drives, we were sent out in both versions three up, over a route chosen for its “average South African roads.” Front and middle row occupants were well looked after with space to spare although the back row is, as in most vehicles of its kind, best reserved for medium sized passengers. Handling and comfort was on par with what one expects of a no-frills family wagon – not a luxury bus, but your dental fillings will be quite safe.

The numbers
Prices: 8-seat – R249 700 and 7-seat –R265 500
Engine: 2694 cc, DOHC, 16-valve, VVT-i, four-cylinder
Power: 118 kW at 5200 rpm
Torque: 241 Nm at 3800 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: About 11,5 seconds (overseas report)
Maximum speed: About 170 km/h (overseas report)
Combined cycle fuel consumption rating: 11,2 l/100 km
CO2 emissions: 265 gm/km
Rating: EU2
Tank: 65 litres
Ground clearance: 168 mm
Braked towing capacity: 1500 kg
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km
Intervals: 15 000 km





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 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.