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.
Pics by Author
Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday January 7, 2012
We motoring journalists are spoiled rotten. Manufacturers see to it that we are regularly fed a rich diet of the smartest, the most luxurious and the most powerful models they have on offer. It’s probably to make sure we remember only the wonderful things, hopefully believing that all their products are beautiful, with nary a hand-wound window or manually adjusted mirror among them.
But perfection gets boring, you know? Sometimes one must return to roots – like the line from some movie years ago when a soon-to-be-deposed Russian nobleman said to the hero: “Scratch an aristocrat and you will find a peasant.” The subject of this review is a peasant at heart, a no-frills farm pickup without any pretentions whatsoever.
It has plain steel wheels shod with practical general-purpose tyres that won’t pop off their rims at the first sign of rocky terrain. The centre caps are made of plastic and cover only the wheel nuts. No carpets, just plain rubber mats that you can hose down when they get muddy. Windows wind up and down by hand and the wing mirrors don’t adjust at all – they are big and wide and show you the whole world behind, regardless of how short or tall you are.
Even the doors lock individually, the old-fashioned way, with a simple steel key. Pushing the button down and holding the door handle up as you close it, is another way to lock the passenger door. The driver’s side doesn’t allow that – a safety measure. Don’t believe it’s impossible to lock your key inside, though, because it can be done. It requires certain creativity and ingenuity that we won’t tell you about because then you will do it and it will all be our fault.
About the only attempts at luxury are cloth-and-vinyl seats that adjust for height, a buttonless steering wheel that adjusts up, down and in and out, a pair of cup holders, plenty of storage boxes and slots and a pair of makeup mirrors on the sun visors. They aren’t illuminated – feel better? Even the backrest angle is adjusted by means of a big, round, knurled knob that gets it exactly right. We were beginning to think such things had joined the dodo in the misty haze of history.
But a person can take only so much simplicity and the salesperson has to earn some commission on accessories, you know, which is why those clever product planners left out air conditioning and a music player. They will tell you that it’s so fleet owners can decide how comfortable they want their workers to be, and how private buyers can choose how luxurious they would like their climate control and in-car entertainment. Be that as it may, the VW press fleet manager did the sensible thing and popped in a rather capable sound system, cool air and for the safety-conscious, a second airbag, all for a total of R14 350. Just so we journos wouldn’t get cranky, you understand.
While ‘Basic’ in name, this Amarok does have the important details covered, like a very smooth six-speed manual gearbox with top gear biased toward economy. There is also ABS with off-road facility, traction control, EDL, EBD, HVV maximum axle deceleration that increases rear braking force up to the ABS threshold, and a mechanically locking rear differential. If the term 4Motion makes you think of fancy electronic awd on demand, think again. In an Amarok it means selectable 2Hi, 4Hi and 4Lo, with the previously mentioned locking facility so you decide when, what and if.
When these single-cabs were released on the occasion of their world premiere down in the Eastern Cape a few months ago, each one was loaded up with a pallet full of cement and driven across some fairly challenging territory on ranger tracks in a wildlife reserve. They were impressive and should be able to handle most day-to-day obstacles a farmer or weekend adventurer is likely to throw at it.
In normal daily use, the 90 kW diesel performs nicely, is tractable, has all the torque most buyers would need and rides as comfortably on dirt as one could expect an independent front suspension with live rear axle, pickup to be. It isn't a Range Rover, but is certainly more comfortable than some others. The combination cloth and vinyl seats are comfortable with better lower back support than one usually finds in a pickup. The ABS compensated-for-dirt system works well, crash-stopping the vehicle on loose gravel without any drama.
Cab space is plentiful for two fully-grown people, while the cab-and-a-third design allows room for a couple of sacks of potatoes and some other groceries behind the seats. The load bin measures just over 2,2 metres in length, 1,6 metres wide and half a metre deep. It is rated for an 1160 kg payload without driver and a braked trailer mass on a 12 percent gradient of 2800 kg. GCM is 5500 kg.
There are more powerful models in the range, with higher levels of equipment, but they wouldn’t be egte plaasbakkies would they?
The numbers
Basic price: R260 300
As tested: R274 650
Engine: 1968 cc, four-cylinder turbodiesel
Power: 90 kW at 3750 rpm
Torque: 340 Nm between 1750 and 2250 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 13,4 seconds
Maximum speed: 160 km/h
Fuel index: 9,12 l/100 km
Tank: 80 litres
Ground clearance: 249 mm
Approach/departure/rampover angles: 28/23,6/21,4 degrees
Rollover angle: 50 degrees
Wading depth: 500 mm
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km
Service plan: 5 years/90 000 km at 15 000 km intervals
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 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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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8