SA Roadtests
South Africa
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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.
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
Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday October 31, 2012
It makes sound business sense for a start-up enterprise to have its own entry-level delivery vehicle; one that doesn’t cost a fortune to buy or run and with basic maintenance costs taken care of for the first three years. Actually, most established distribution companies need economical and versatile last-mile delivery units too.
Cue Tata’s Super Ace, a light diesel pickup with a long, wide load bed and drop sides for easy access. To make the offer sweeter, it’s a full one-tonner, rather than a baby pickup designed more for leisure than labour.
The engine is a 1400 cc turbodiesel designed and built by Tata, with average fuel consumption expected to be around 7,2 l/100 km. Obviously it won’t have the ultimate pulling power required for long distances and heavy loads, so the company is pitching its baby at light weight, high volume work. Think plumbers, electricians, florists, handy-persons, couriers and caterers. Do not think about overloading it with too many bags of cement, sand and stone. It has been tested up to 1,2 tonnes, but let’s be realistic.
Specifically the load bed is 2,63 metres long by 1,46 metres wide and its load height is just shy of 600 mm. That’s 150 mm lower than your dining room table, so even you can lift that high. To nip in and out of rush-hour traffic and negotiate tight loading dock areas, its turning circle is only 10,2 metres. That’s more than a metre tighter than that of a pretty little half-tonner we reviewed recently.
Two models are on offer – a basic unit without air conditioning, power windows, fog lamps or internally adjustable outside mirrors and an owner-driver version with those features. Neither has ABS brakes nor airbags but a spokesman said that these were under consideration. If you want a radio and CD unit, you will have to add it on. To sweeten those pills and to reduce financial headaches, both come with the previously mentioned maintenance contract and well-priced parts.
After the contract expires, Super Ace’s typical servicing parts basket of six items will set you back R1119 at today’s prices. Maintenance parts (13 items) come to R8736 and the parcel of 20 accident parts would cost R15 726. Our mate Kinsey, the parts survey guy, can tell you of headlights costing more than that on certain vehicles.
Suspension consists of McPherson struts in front and semi-elliptic leaf springs at the rear. Brakes are discs and drums. Steering is power assisted rack and pinion and the gear box is a five-speed manual unit.
In keeping with its snappy in-and-out, quick deliveries image, the Super Ace (yes, we keep thinking of taxis too) has doors that open wide and seats low enough to jump into and out of, quickly. While you’re in there, you will find that, despite the company’s previous reputation, fit and finish is actually very good.
Your writer's driving partner for the day, a charming young person who grew up in Chicago, writes lifestyle articles for an airline magazine and was born right here in Sleepy Hollow, declared that her first time driving a “truck” couldn’t have been easier.
The numbers
Prices: DLS – R109 995, DLE – R116 995
Engine: 1405 cc, four-cylinder, turbocharged and intercooled diesel with indirect injection
Power: 52 kW at 4500 rpm
Torque: 135 Nm at 2500 rpm
Maximum speed: 125 km/h
Maximum gradient: 39 degrees
Fuel consumption (claimed): 7,2 l/100 km
Tank: 38 litres
Emissions standard: Euro ll
Warranty and Maintenance: 3 years/100 000 km, with roadside assistance
Various body styles and configurations are available. Ask your salesperson to help you arrange what you need.
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 they can see 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!
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Unless otherwise stated, all photographs are courtesy of www.quickpic.co.za
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8