Suburban Hy-Ryder: Hyundai ix35.
The SUV market in Australia has exploded in recent years, with small, medium and large variants available. The looks have improved, build quality has skyrocketd and the feature lists have grown. Hyundai has had fingers in the SUV pie for a while now, starting off with the Santa Fe and Tucson, which has morphed into the ix35. I take the series 2 version with the Elite specification out for a week.
Sitting right in the middle of the pack, above the Active and below the Highlander (cue Christopher Lambert jokes…) the ix35 Elite comes with a direct injection 2.4L petrol engine, six speed automatic and centre locking differential. It’s 136 kilowatts at 6000 revs and a handy 240 torques at 4000 rpm, with a smooth, linear delivery to that point. It’s a little buzzy past there but it’s rare that, in a normal driving situation, the six speed auto will take you that far. It’s a quick shifter, slick however the gate design is unneccesary, being a convoluted throwback to the “J gate” days. Performance from the ix35 is adequate, with the zip somewhat muted by the near 1600 kilo kerb weight, requiring a firmer than anticipated press from the right foot to get things happening. Brakes are a touch grabby at the top however move into a well modulated setup, requiring only a modicum of pressure initially before squeezing into a smooth stop.
The drive itself is through an “on demand” all wheel drive setup; a torque sensor splits drive between front and rear as required while the locking diff makes it a 50/50 split. It makes a difference as the tyres fitted to the test car (Kumho Solus 225/60s on sweet looking 17 inch alloys) lack sufficient front end grip under normal circumstances when pushed, going wide and squealing badly in roundabouts and normal sweeping bends. When locked the nose tucks in tighter and forces the rear end to follow a better line. The McPherson strut/multilink suspension does a decent job of ironing out the road but I did find the Elite quite jiggly and a little harsh over some ruts and bumps, with a sharp rebound rather than a subtle absorption, a touch disappointing given the Aussie input to the suspension.
Bad Car Paint Jobs
Customised paint jobs. They can be a fun way of personalising your car and making it look one of a kind. One of my husband’s friends has given his station wagon a customised home-made paint job, all in camouflage. He made a pretty good job of it and it’s good to be able to spot that car trawling around town and know at a distance that there goes Trev. OK, the camo job would have been even more appropriate on a big 4×4 – a Jeep, for example. Except then people would think it was the military in town.
Not all customised paint jobs go so well. Some are absolute shockers, and I don’t just mean because the paint job was done at home with a paint brush and leftover roof paint. The paint may have been applied well and evenly, but what has been painted on the car is tasteless, garish or tacky. Thankfully, the place I’ve seen these most often has been online rather than in the actual metal – with the probably exception of some of those Wicked Campers campervans that sometimes have some rather adult humour painted all over them – not what you want to be stuck behind with a car full of children who are old enough to read but too young to really have that sort of thing shoved in their face (right, stop the rant there).
The London Commute: Do I Have Any Hair Left?
As we amble through this rat race known as life, there will be times when we will have to come face to face with some of the horrors of the modern world. This morning, as I awoke from my deep slumber, I knew not what lay before me. The objective was simple; I had to drive from my home in the Kentish lands to my place of work in Central London. On any other day, this would be a simple pleasure for me, seeing as most of the time the drive to London really rather easy.
Alas, this was no ‘most of the time’. This was a Friday. Not just a Friday, but a Friday morning commute.
Should You Teach Your L-Plater To Drive?
It’s a scary moment in any parent’s life: the moment your teenager first gets their learner’s licence and you stick the L-plates on the car so you can set off on that first rather tentative drive around the block. It happened to us last week. It wasn’t as scary as it could have been. But that may have been because we were in the automatic Ford. Behind the wheel of my husband’s manual Nissan work ute things may well be different.
Not all teenagers are the same behind the wheel when they first get there. Some are tentative and nervous and just about freak out as soon as the needle creeps over 30. Others are the reverse and go at everything like a bull at a gate, making the hapless parent in the front seat long for a set of dual controls like a professional driving coach and sit there with their hand on the handbrake just in case. (Not for them the sort of “handbrake” you find in some of the new Infiniti models: it’s operated by the driver’s foot. However, most of us probably wouldn’t put a teenager behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle for the first drive just in case.) Others take it in their stride, especially if they’ve had a go behind the wheel in fields, riverbeds or just up and down the driveway.
Level 2, 9 Help Street