SA Roadtests
South Africa
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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. I drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under real-world South African conditions. Most, but not all, the vehicles driven are world cars as well, so what you read here possibly applies to the models you get where you live.
My most recent drive is on the home page. Archived reviews and opinion pieces are in the active menu down the left side. Hover your cursor over a heading or manufacturer's name and follow the drop-down.
Posted: 4 April 2018
The numbers
Price: R146 900
Engine: 999 cc, DOHC 12-valve three-cylinder
Power: 50 kW at 5500 rpm
Torque: 91 Nm at 4250 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: About 15 seconds
Estimated top speed: About 140 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: About 5.9l/100 km
Tank: 28 litres
Luggage: 300 – 1115 litres (gross)
Warranty: 5 years/150 000 km
Servicing at 15 000 km intervals
2 year / 30 000 km plan available optionally at about R6000
AMT: It’s an acquired taste, best picked up while you’re still young. And before learning antisocial habits like impatience, laying down rubber between traffic lights or determinedly getting ahead of the vehicle in front of you. That’s because AMT, trademarked Easy-R, is not the way to do any of those things.
The acronym stands for Automated Manual Transmission, is the latest in Renault’s arsenal of innovative gearboxes and has been around in a few daughter-company Dacia vehicles since 2015.
In cars belonging to the Romanian brand AMT offers a simple menu of functions – Drive, Neutral, Reverse and Manual. The version recently introduced for use in KWID does away with the manual setting; meaning there is no gear lever at all, just a dial on the dash and nothing on the floor.
Please note that this is not an automatic gearbox but a fully manual transmission – just without clutch pedal or gear lever. It works like this: an electronic controller takes over foot and arm functions by operating two mechanical devices for you. The first one releases the clutch, pauses while the second physically changes gears, and then re-engages the clutch; all more quickly and smoothly than the average human can do it. See the Dacia video clip here.
There is one proviso: You need to listen to the engine and as the revs almost peak, lift off the throttle slightly to ease the shift into the next gear.
It does not “do” rapid behaviour although it can, with practice, be encouraged to accelerate quite quickly. Its natural playground is the city, easing gently through traffic without the inconvenience of shifting gears all the time. With this in mind, KWID AMT offers all the comforts expected in an urban transportation pod. There’s air conditioning, easy handling, a music system with touch screen and Bluetooth, and easy-to-use satellite navigation so you can find your way around.
Although it takes around 15 seconds to accelerate between zero and 100 km/h, that isn’t what it's about. There are quick cars for wild children and there are responsible vehicles for Accountable Adults. This is one of those, because AMT is designed for a particular kind of owner.
Renault SA’s research discovered that 60 percent of KWIDs go to first-time buyers. Seventy percent of them are from lower income groups, predominantly female and aged between 25 and 35. Despite criticism that KWID offers only one airbag and no ABS, it attracts buyers like bears to honey because of its relative safety.
First, almost anything is safer and more convenient than your typical minibus taxi. Second, a used car at the same price is a completely unknown proposition. Third is that KWID is affordable and funky and practical. Fourth is the cachet of owning your own new car and, the kicker, its purchase price includes the first year’s comprehensive insurance - making monthly instalments easier to manage.
Knowing you’d ask, we took it for a longish drive on a freeway with hills, 120 km/h speed limits and unforgiving traffic. It gets up to the national speed limit quite comfortably but staying there is not always easy. You will regularly find yourself pressured by unforgiving hooligans in Audis, Golfs, BMWs, Mercedes’, most brands of double cab and Stepways, all demanding to be allowed past; right now. Your only option is to give way into the truck lane.
Long hills are best negotiated on the extreme left at between 80 and 90 km/h, although we did try to stay with the flow a few times by using the kick-down function. It is in there someplace. It shifts down quite raucously after a moment's hesitation, but it can be done. You will even see 120 up a hill occasionally, but the nervous tension is hardly worth it.
Another factor weighing against regular use for inter-provincial travel is that the front seats are narrow, short under the thighs and become hard, uncomfortably so, after a while. Ten to twenty kilometres at a time, in the city, between rest periods, is what it’s best at.
As we said in the beginning, AMT is an acquired taste. It also requires learning a fussy new driving technique. The programming is noticeably biased toward economical driving rather than survival in the motoring jungle. While we can understand Renault’s thinking, we believe that AMT misses its target market of nervous, first-time drivers. A normal automatic, for similar money, would work better.
Test unit from Renault SA press fleet
Our launch report on KWID AMT is here
Read about the regular manual version here
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 ever I place an article that doesn't cover most things, it's probably because I have dealt with a very similar vehicle 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. There are no advertisers and no “editorial policy” rules. I add bylines to acknowledge sponsored launch functions and the manufacturers or dealerships that provide the test vehicles. And, as quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so you can see I do actually exist.
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8