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Car salesmen in America don't offer beers before a test drive, nor would they ever tell a customer to leave because "it's not a good day." But there are fewer rules to break in South Africa, where we recently drove seven of the worst new cars from China, India, Malaysia, and Germany—ja, really—to see if they're as crappy as we've come to believe. On Proton, on Foton, on Chery, away! Unlike its neighboring countries, South Africa is developed and modern by any standard. But while Audis and BMWs crowd the highways, so do vehicles of questionable provenance. And there's demand for cut-buck cars: The local auto industry, severed from the world during Apartheid, must feed an emerging middle class looking to purchase their first new set of wheels. And unlike customers in the U.S. or, to a lesser extent, Europe, South Africans aren't as quick to discriminate car brands on name alone. (A quick note on pricing: The base prices listed here are in South African Rand, and one U.S. dollar currently converts to approximately nine Rand. Using a familiar car as a point of reference, a Ford Focus hatchback starts at R219,300 in South Africa, or nearly three times as much as the Chery QQ3 that kicks off our list.)
As you might expect from a car that can't even count to 1.0, the Chery QQ3 0.8 TX is what you'd buy before shredding your driver's license. While Japan's kei cars displace less than the QQ3's 812-cc three-cylinder motor, the superlatives end there. "If you're really in a hurry between a gardener on a lawnmower, you can beat it," says the brew-sipping salesman. We don't ask what that means, but he's onto something. Launching the QQ3 is like starting a piece of lawn equipment, the puny engine producing an insane racket and an exhaust note that sounds like bolts are being fired out of the pipes. It makes its maximum 52 lb-ft of torque in the narrow range between 3500 and 4000 rpm. The 11.6-foot-long QQ3 offers no radio, air conditioning, airbags, or ABS, and the dynamics are so poor we're amazed how hard the brakes bite on the mountain bike we ride a week later. There are cheaper ways to die than this $9000 gem. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon BASE PRICE: R79,900 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 12-valve inline-3 TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
It's common practice at cheap-car dealerships to disable the odometer—and therefore the speedometer—so new cars never age, so we're not sure at what velocity the steering wheel began wobbling in this Tata. Whatever our speed, the brakes on the Indica Vista don't conspire against you, the cabin is quiet, and the engine could be considered civilized. The plasticky interior isn't much worse than that of a last-gen Toyota Yaris, save for the persistent glue stench and the grease left on our fingers after adjusting the steering column. The clutch pedal feels as stretchy as string cheese, though, and there's nothing even close to a discernable engagement point. A key point in the Indica's favor: Its high ride height is a blessing on South Africa's potholed rural roads. This one's basically a real car. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon BASE PRICE: R124,495 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 16-valve inline-4 TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
This Chinese bakkie (that's how South Africans say "pickup") makes a decent first impression, with solid-closing doors and a shockingly well-made interior that sports spiffy fake aluminum trim and pushbutton four-wheel drive. Plus, it's got a Cummins diesel among a component set from suppliers like Bosch, ZF, and Dana. The shift lever on the Chinese-built Getrag manual gearbox rattles like it's coming on to you, though, so shuffling this truck forward requires a dash of self-confidence. But with good low-end grunt, steering that tracks straight, and standard equipment to match U.S.-market compact pickups, the Tunland is a decent effort. It even won the 2013 Bakkie of the Year award from Bakkie and Truck Magazine, "the world's only bakkie magazine." VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear- or 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door truck BASE PRICE: R259,950 ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged pushrod 8-valve diesel inline-4 TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
For the equivalent of $23,000, Chery can upgrade your QQ3 to a crossover. The Tiggo R is a two-faced copycat artist, with a CR-V front and a RAV4 rear, although we wouldn't trust either of them in a crash. (Witness this clip of an ANCAP crash test from TopCar Magazine's YouTube account, which shows the A-pillars buckling and the roof bending.) The 2.0-liter engine emits a blender-ish whine, and it runs into its rev limiter well shy of the indicated redline. Oh, and the speedometer was disconnected here, too. We can report the Tiggo R does change direction, but the steering lacks any sense of self-centering, so you have to saw at the wheel after even gentle bends. We're glad importer extraordinaire Malcolm Bricklin failed to bring Chery to our shores almost a decade ago, and so was he. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front- or 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon BASE PRICE: R209,900 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 16-valve inline-4 Displacement: 153 cu in, 2510 cc TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
Proton, the Malaysian car company that owns Lotus, would like you to imagine its plebeian lineup has the soul of the British brand. Lotus has tuned or helped engineer several Proton models, and the 125-hp Satria hatch we drove looked promising until we saw excess paint blobs dangling from the grille and uneven splotches of glue attaching the body kit's fender flares. Yet the Satria is a sorted little car, with eager handling, a firm but compliant ride, and an engine that loves to rev. Proton races this model in the World Rally Championship, and the shift quality of the five-speed manual in the roadgoing car might trump that of the six-speed Toyota-sourced 'box in the Lotus Evora. Proton could stir in more muscle and fit more-direct steering, but it's a fair effort. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 3-door hatchback BASE PRICE: R174,995 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 16-valve inline-4 TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
After chatting up a Mahindra salesman in his dead-empty showroom, we figured a quick test drive would be no problem. Sorry, he said, he was too busy being "the only one here." With his work ethic duly established, we could only perform an informal walk-around of a Scorpio, the pickup that nearly launched in the U.S. during 2011. Now we're sort of glad it didn't make the trip to North America. The panel gaps inside and out could accommodate the width of four stacked quarters, the door handles hung loose, and the brush guard looked as if it were welded over a gas grill in some guy's backyard. And believe us, the boxy, 1980s-style aesthetics that look sort of retro cool in photos are pretty cheesy in person. Mahindra supposedly builds a tough truck, but we're not sure this model would have found enough buyers here—even at cut-rate prices—to keep it from being swept straight back to India. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear- or 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door truck BASE PRICE: R234,900 ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve diesel inline-4 TRANSMISSION: 5-speed manual DIMENSIONS:
The Vivo is based on the previous-gen Polo and follows in the footsteps of the Mk1 Golf VW sold in South Africa until 2009. Compared to the Polo that was offered in Europe, this South African special deletes a bunch of safety features (side airbags, traction and stability control, ABS) and uses a gutless, soul-sapping engine Americans would no doubt lump with our Jetta's 2.0-liter four as unworthy of a modern VW. Our 85-hp sedan—an upgrade from the standard 75-hp version—was fitted with a lazy six-speed automatic that could have used a hill-holder function; the package was so gutless that we nearly started rolling backwards on every slope. The interior plastics were a little better than those in the Chinese cars, but the German engineering underlying the Polo Vivo meant that it felt rock-solid and stable when it eventually reached highway speeds. VW has aspirations of reaching the top of the global sales charts, and low-priced stuff offered in emerging markets will be just as critical to achieving that goal as the glamorous all-new cars the company introduces in Europe and the U.S. VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan or 3- or 5-door wagon BASE PRICE: R111,900 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 16-valve inline-4 TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic with manual shifting mode DIMENSIONS (SEDAN):
Going in, we expected to hate everything and crack jokes all the way home. We didn't. But we did find that, by and large, mainstream automakers still have little to fear from these bottom-tier brands. Build quality, safety, and performance range from barely adequate to wretched. And the appeal of a Chery or Tata wears thin when compared to low-end models from major brands—even when they're de-contented like the Chevy Sonic, which offers four airbags in South African trim versus 10 here in the U.S. We're not foolish enough to write off the makers of the budget cars covered here, though. Their products will improve, steadily, through joint ventures or outright acquisition of established automakers and their attendant technologies (example: Chinese company Geely buying Volvo). Feel free to crack your own jokes now while you still can.
from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com | |||
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Crapcan Central: We Drive Seven of the Worst Cars in the World (Or Are They?)
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