Post by racingteatray on Oct 23, 2024 16:23:07 GMT
Had the displeasure of this really quite hateful machine for four days over the weekend courtesy of Avis at Malpensa - it was one of those occasions late in the evening where you have to collect your keys from a box that you enter a code into, so no realistic way to change car.
It was a 2023 model with 20k kms on the clock, white, had been smoked in so smelt of fags, and had quite the most astonishing lack of performance of any car I've driven in a very long time indeed. I think it had a 1.2 naturally aspirated petrol engine with 84bhp and a 5spd box. It definitely didn't have much acceleration. It could do no more than gently gather speed no matter how low a gear you used and how hard you stamped on the throttle. Which is not relaxing when trying to join at Italian dual carriageway infested with thundering HGVs. And 130km/h on the motorway was not so much a speed limit as an ambition.
Other things to say?
If you just pottered along, it was pretty quiet and comfortable, although the overall soundtrack from engine note and gearbox whine had a oddly nostalgic tone to it that took me back at least 25yrs to something like a Vauxhall Nova.
The engine was relatively quiet - even when you thrashed it, the ensuing mechanical din was pretty subdued.
Fuel economy seemed pretty poor - presumably because you have to thrash it all the time - it drank about 13 litres in around 170kms.
It rode relatively plushly but made a meal of speed bumps.
Never got it to go fast enough to test the handling to any discernable degree.
Flaccid steering, a very light gearbox, and ok brakes.
Styling is subjective but to my eyes it is definitely the i30's uglier sibling - the side profile tries too hard and the back has too much going on. White did it no favours either.
Interior was a unrelenting sea of black plastics - there was some effort at design but if every single material and touch point (steering wheel excepted) is rather shiny black plastic, it rather negates that.
Can take five people just about and the boot is reasonably large.
Nasty digital dials.
The infotainment was fiddly - getting CarPlay to work was not simple although we got there in the end.
It wasn't poorly equipped - reasonably natty alloys, a reversing camera, automatic lights and cruise control, but no climate.
I don't like being rude about small cheap cars as a rule - it can feel like kicking a puppy to a certain degree. But on this occasion I really did think this was a pretty awful car. I dare say that with a decent engine and a ritzier interior spec, it could be a perfectly decent car. But this version was not - I thought it was actually dangerously lacking in performance.
It was a 2023 model with 20k kms on the clock, white, had been smoked in so smelt of fags, and had quite the most astonishing lack of performance of any car I've driven in a very long time indeed. I think it had a 1.2 naturally aspirated petrol engine with 84bhp and a 5spd box. It definitely didn't have much acceleration. It could do no more than gently gather speed no matter how low a gear you used and how hard you stamped on the throttle. Which is not relaxing when trying to join at Italian dual carriageway infested with thundering HGVs. And 130km/h on the motorway was not so much a speed limit as an ambition.
Other things to say?
If you just pottered along, it was pretty quiet and comfortable, although the overall soundtrack from engine note and gearbox whine had a oddly nostalgic tone to it that took me back at least 25yrs to something like a Vauxhall Nova.
The engine was relatively quiet - even when you thrashed it, the ensuing mechanical din was pretty subdued.
Fuel economy seemed pretty poor - presumably because you have to thrash it all the time - it drank about 13 litres in around 170kms.
It rode relatively plushly but made a meal of speed bumps.
Never got it to go fast enough to test the handling to any discernable degree.
Flaccid steering, a very light gearbox, and ok brakes.
Styling is subjective but to my eyes it is definitely the i30's uglier sibling - the side profile tries too hard and the back has too much going on. White did it no favours either.
Interior was a unrelenting sea of black plastics - there was some effort at design but if every single material and touch point (steering wheel excepted) is rather shiny black plastic, it rather negates that.
Can take five people just about and the boot is reasonably large.
Nasty digital dials.
The infotainment was fiddly - getting CarPlay to work was not simple although we got there in the end.
It wasn't poorly equipped - reasonably natty alloys, a reversing camera, automatic lights and cruise control, but no climate.
I don't like being rude about small cheap cars as a rule - it can feel like kicking a puppy to a certain degree. But on this occasion I really did think this was a pretty awful car. I dare say that with a decent engine and a ritzier interior spec, it could be a perfectly decent car. But this version was not - I thought it was actually dangerously lacking in performance.
