Test Drive Review : Proton Exora Long Termer Y01M02

After recruiting two readers (Fiesta 1.4 manual and Fiesta 1.6 DCT) to join theautoindustrieblog.com’s long term fleet, we now have a third member, an MPV owner. What better person to do the job other than a car nut, whose experience includes the famed BMW E30 3-series and an ABT tuned VW Golf GTi. He is also a proud father to a pair of twin boys! One super dad he is!


I find 10 minutes of talking to owners like him is more useful in finding out strengths and faults of an MPV than reading one of those “drive-it-like-you-stole-it” test drives by people, who chances are don’t quite know how MPVs are used by real families on a daily basis. The owner is a rather technically inclined DIY guy and did many repairs on his aging E30 on his own. His approach on the subject of vehicles has always been very carefully calculated and thought through. This guy actually rented an Exora, put it through a "field test" before deciding. Stuck on his Exora's centre console is a tiny stop-watch to keep track / calculate the optimum route for his daily commute. Like we said, he is very methodical. Hence we cajoled him to share his experience below.

Nickname : Larry
Age : 41
Industry : Education
Previous car : E30 BMW 320i, Proton Wira

Current car
Model : Proton Exora
Delivery date : 30/12/2010
Waiting period : 5 days
Top 3 reasons of purchasing this model:
a) Space
b) Price
c) Running Costs

Other MOST considered car model (if any):
Reasons did not purchased model under consideration:

1st Model : Toyota Innova
Reason 1: Heavy and poor ride quality ladder frame chassis
Reason 2: Large engine
Reason 3: High fuel consumption

2nd Model : Toyota Avanza
Reason 1: Non split folding third-row seat
Reason 2: Heavy and poor ride quality ladder frame chassis
Reason 3: Dated looks

3rd Model : Nissan Grand Livina
Reason 1: Third row is seat only suitable for children
Reason 2: None
Reason 3: None

And if you are wondering why the best selling MPV in the country, the Perodua Alza is not on the list, that’s because Alza is more of an estate car with two additional emergency seats for children / short distance, rather than a proper MPV. All MPVs that made it to the consideration list had to be proper MPVs that can fit 7-adults. So the Perodua Alza was immediately dismissed.

Current vehicle mileage (km): 1985Km

Cost
Price when purchased: RM 67,998 (with discount)
Maintenance cost to date: RM 121.75
Repair cost to date: 0

Problems encountered to date:
a) Fold and Tumble mechanism on rear left seat does not always disengage
b) Noisy Wipers
c) Luggage Hook in rear detached

Best fuel economy (February): 11L/100km Mixed
(Urban / Extra-urban / Highway / Mixed)
Worst fuel economy (February): 14L/100Km Mixed
(Urban / Extra-urban / Highway / Mixed)
Average fuel economy (February): 12.5L/100Km Mixed

General Driving
After some months of driving, in view of the general public’s perception that the Exora is underpowered, I believe that 1.6L Campro CPS is a reasonable compromise. Engine behavior reminds me of the 6 cylinder in my E30 320i – Low end torque is lacking and the engine needs to be pushed hard to perform. You can feel the torque kicking in at about 3-4 thousand rpm. I have no qualms about pushing the engine hard though, there is some satisfaction to be obtained from pushing the little power plant hard. You might not be going very fast, but pushing the engine to its 7000rpm redline does put a smile on your face, watch that fuel gauge though. The automatic transmission is ever willing to shift down, maybe even too willing sometimes at the detriment of fuel consumption. The fuzzy logic brain in the Mitsubishi transmission tries to anticipate your power requirements by not shifting up when climbing and shifting down for braking. Sometimes doing the opposite of what you want it to do. In general though, it makes a reasonable gear choice. That said, Proton really needs to have a higher performance option for drivers who want a little more oomph. Waiting for the Turbo….

Fuel Consumption
For some reason, car manufacturers in Malaysia don’t seem to quote achievable fuel consumptions in their brochures. The 7.2l/100Km in the Proton flyer is way off from the 12.5l/100km I have been achieving in day to day driving, which includes a reasonable amount of highway travel. I would think the fuel consumption is about average for this class of vehicle. It does take an amount of energy to move 1.5 tones around. MPV’s generally have poor fuel consumption and first time buyers are often shocked that the vehicle consumes so much more fuel than their Proton Wira. But one needs to keep in mind that this is a proper full size 7-seater MPV. Something’s got to give. There are no free lunches.

General Driving
Handling is very good for a vehicle of this class, I feel. Road manners and ride don’t trail far behind a C-Class Mercedes, I know it sounds a bit too farfetched. But please do try riding in a W203 C-class. Passengers will generally be very happy, which is after all what this vehicle is about. I managed to squeeze 3 passengers in the third row seat. I guess you can seat 8 in a squeeze. There’s a loophole in the Malaysian rear seatbelt law that doesn’t require additional rear seat passengers to belt up if there are no belts for them.

1st Service
My experience at the first service was generally good. The Proton Edar staff at Section 13 PJ were friendly and the process of receiving the car was executed swiftly even though I had arrived rather late. Dropped the car off at 9am and it was ready at 1pm. I was told that if I had come earlier, it could have been completed in about 2 hours and I could have waited instead of coming back for the car. They did managed to fix the sticking tumble action for the rear seat but were not very successful at removing the wiper noise which I think is due to hard rubber compound. The service experience confirms a gripe I have about luxury cars. The more expensive the car the worse the service experience. They generally make you wait for hours before they can receive the car and usually you have to come back at the end of the day to collect it. Maybe these car companies think that the cars will be sent in by their bosses chauffeurs. Proton, not being a luxury car, the service experience was good 

Accessories
Seeing that I purchased the vehicle for is multipurpose aspirations I set about seeing how I could make the vehicle as multipurpose as possible.

First off was to get a set of Thule roof bars so that I could put my existing roof box on top. After doing much measuring and calculating I found that the overall vehicle height would be 2.2m with the roof box on. Not good, as most car parks top off at 2.1m and the Touch and Go gantry is restricted to 2.1m as well. However a lot of these mid size MPVs suffer from lack of luggage space with all 7 passengers in. I reckoned the 2-3k for a roof box made more sense than the 60-70k for a bigger MPV with its accompanying fuel penalty. After much research I found that Thule had a collapsible roof box which can be collapsed so that I can get into the multi-storey car park complexes. So this is the holiday scenario with a full load of passengers . I bring all my luggage in my roof box, unload it at the hotel’s lobby, press down the roof box so the car is less that 2.1m and then drive up to the multi storey car park. Everybody’s happy. Kedai Abang (Brother’s) did have a shorter roof box which fit the height requirements but it didn’t look like it could fit any reasonable luggage. Plus the roof bars required drilling work on the vehicle body to install. No way I am doing that! Thule’s unit is just a snap-on item.

Next up was how to fit two child seats into the car for my twin sons. The lack of MPV development experience by local companies, and some Japanese companies (Perodua / Daihatsu included) compared to continental MPVs shows here. A few gripes. No ISOFIX or thether points for child seats. No cargo barrier/luggage net/luggage cover mounts. No real Cargo Hooks. The rear luggage hooks are way way under par, made from plastic and can barely hold 5 kilos before popping out of their sockets. Proton, please provide some REAL cargo hooks. European makes offer solid metal hooks but unfortunately our tax regime makes many of those cars priced too high on this side of the world.

The child seats did manage to fit side by side in the middle row seats after some adjustments, allowing the left middle seat to still tumble for access to the rear.


Thule Roof Box and child seats for the twins fitted.

The First Real Test
After getting all the accessories, it was time for a Proof of Concept – a family trip to our church camp in Genting with the twins. The maximum passenger load we had was 6 adults and 2 babies in their child seats.

Here’s the packing list.

In the boot:
2 Graco Play Pens
1 large suitcase
2 Playpen Mattresses
1 large Diaper bag
3 Pillows

In the roofbox:
1 Baby bathtub
1 Ice box





The climb was non eventful, some areas require dropping to first gear and revving the engine to its redline. I did turn off the air-con compressor at certain stretches to gain a little extra power. Brings back memories of driving up to Balik Pulau in Penang with 7 people in my Perodua Rusa to look for Durians. Contrary to the public perception of the Exora’s pulling power, it is capable of pulling the load, just don’t be afraid to drop gears and push it up to the red line. [theautoindustrieblog’s ed : Reminds me of the quote made by a mechanical engineer and fellow friend of Larry – “the gears are there for a reason, use it if you have to!” Of course the key word is “if you have to”]

Conclusion
An honest MPV for the masses, Malaysia’s VW Kombi.

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