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 possibly applies to the models you get at home.

Unlike most car reports, what you read in these pages will not be a faithful reproduction, albeit slightly reworded, of what appeared in the manufacturer's press release. We look for background material, user experience and whatever else we can find that's beyond the obvious. Our guiding rule is that you will be able to tell that the car was actually driven.

*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.

*Pre-owned: Our tests go back quite a few years, so if you are looking for something pre-owned, you might well find a report on it in here.

*Please remember too, that prices quoted are those ruling at the time the reports were written.


We ride wild ponies in the 2014 Volkswagen Polo 1.2 TSI Highline m/t

Trespassing on a secret

Posted: 3 August 2014

A quick glance at this latest version of New Polo won’t tell you much. It still looks like a fifth-generation Typ 6R, but if you step a bit closer and unclip your handyman’s steel tape from your belt, you will find a couple of differences. It has grown 2 mm longer (like you’re going to notice that?) but its roofline is 9 mm lower and, more important, there’s 28 mm more daylight underneath. Ground clearance was acceptable at 115 mm on the old one but this has been lifted to 143 mm – better for negotiating speed bumps and steep driveways. Should you want even more, a CrossPolo version offers 175 mm.

Lining old and new up side by side will reveal a redesigned front bumper, a larger lower air intake and slender chrome trim strips to visually widen and lower its appearance. Moving along the side, not much has changed apart from redesigned wheels. Around at the back, new styling cues include a cleaner horizontal layout, a wider cut out for the licence plate and restyled tail lights and reflectors. But new chrome lettering will definitely grab your attention; TSI.

Twenty-ten and subsequent models had 1400- and 1600 cc engines putting out 63 or 77 kW of power and 132 or 155 Nm of torque. There is only one motor, a 1200 cc turbopetrol, in the newest line-up but it comes in two stages of tune to give you a choice between 66 kW/160 Nm and 81 kW/175 Nm. In either state of vigour, it blows both old ones into the weeds and uses less fuel doing so - what your life coach would call a win-win, nicht war? Oh yes; in honour of these changes, it is now known among cognoscenti as Typ 6C. No, we don’t understand that inverted logic either.

The interior has seen changes too. Apart from a new steering wheel, instruments, seat cloth, centre console and air controls, the infotainment centre has been significantly upgraded. This is the first Volkswagen to get the second-generation modular infotainment system (MIB) with new radio and music kit and two versions of touchscreen. Trendline cars make do with a monochrome five-inch setup with four speakers, auxiliary, USB and SD inputs, while upper crust versions brag with a colour screen, two more speakers, CD/MP3 player, USB, SD and Bluetooth.

Electronic safety aids were upgraded too. Where the old car made do with ABS brakes with EBD, hill holder and ESP, the new one adds brake assistance, anti-skid recognition (ASR), engine drag torque control (EDTC) and electronic differential locking (EDL). Want more? VW also added automatic post-collision braking that helps to stop you whomping into the car in front when steamed up the rear for a second time, and Driver Alert. Mercedes-Benz introduced it a couple of years ago. It makes a noise to irritate you back into wakefulness if the sensors detect that your attention is wandering.

Some of the items fitted as extras to our test car included cruise control, front and rear park distance control and a light and vision package that provides an auto-dipping interior mirror, rain-sensing wipers and low beam assist. Cost of all these came to R8350. We reckon they should be OE on cars at this price level. But leaving out items that buyers expect, then offering  them back as options, appears to be the German way. The final extra fitted was a sunroof at R9000. As always, this is something we can take or leave, but some buyers love them.

The car is otherwise much the same as previously with the same rather restricted rear seat head- leg and foot space, unchanged luggage volume and the familiar four airbags, although a pair of curtain bags is optional. It’s also still fanatically well built, solid and taut.

What has changed is its performance; Turbocharging means that maximum lugging power kicks in at about 1400 rpm so it flattens hills and keeps on rampaging up to 4000 revs. Then it seems to gain a second wind and charge yet harder as maximum power approaches at 5000 rpm. It’s fun. As we said in an earlier review of something else: If you’re relying on parental subsidy, it might be wise to keep this paragraph hidden.

There was a dude in the supermarket parking lot, on the first day we had it, who must have known all this because he seemed a little put out that we were tomcatting around in a young person’s car – like we were trespassing on a secret. Little did he know that we do it all the time.

Test car from VWSA press fleet

The numbers
Price: R233 300 basic and R250 650 as tested
Engine: 1197 cc, 16-valve, four-cylinder turbopetrol
Power: 81 kW at 5000 rpm
Torque: 175 Nm between 1400 and 4000 rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual standard; seven-speed DSG optional
Zero to 100 km/h: 9,3 seconds
Maximum speed: 196 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 6,8 l/100 km
Tank: 45 litres
Cargo volume: 280 – 952 litres
Warranty: 3 years/120 000 km
Service plan: 3 years/45 000 km; at 15 000 km intervals

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?
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