Business First September 2017 Business First September 2017 | Page 72

MOTORING

All Grip Ford Kuga

ord has facelifted the Kuga for 2017. My test car was the new sporty ST­Line trim.

FThis has lowered sports suspension and loses any exterior chrome, swapping it for black on the grille, window surrounds and roof rails. You also get 18in dark machinefinished alloys. Inside, sports seats, steering wheel, gear knob and the aluminum pedals complete the spiced­up look.

It does look sporty, it also looks quite tall. To be precise, it’ s the top­spec 2.0­litre diesel with 178bhp. It comes only with four­wheel drive, a choice of either a six­speed manual

2017 Hyundai i30

yundai have designed and developed their new i30 which is a mid­range 5

Hdoor hatchback in Europe. They have done this simply for the European market and maybe to try and compete with the major European manufactures. They can compete or even do better than Volkswagen with their 3 year unlimited mileage warranty; when it comes to the car itself, well I am not so sure.

I drove the i30 SE Nav model, which was had a high specification, Satellite Navigation, Dab Radio a host of safety features which included Autonomous Emergency Braking, which tells by alarms if you are getting to close to another vehicle and will apply the brakes if the car thinks you are going to have a collision­ I personally didn’ t actually try it.
The i30 comes with a variety of petrol and diesel engines, my test car came with the 120 BHP 3 cylinders turbocharged 1.0 litre petrol engine, which attached to a manual six­speed gearbox felt quite sprightly for the size of car it was pulling. It takes 11 seconds to get 60mph but on the flip side it sips petrol and I was able to easily achieve 55 miles per gallon.
Under the skin is new rigid chassis that
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gearbox or a six­speed dual­clutch automatic. Mine was fitted with the automatic gearbox, although with paddles on the steering wheel to change gear if you wanted.
I found that Drive mode or Sport mode was plenty and worked well. Sport mode made the Kuga that bit more eager and Drive was perfect for a relaxing cruise
The whole set­up is on the money in terms of efficiency: 134g / km of CO2 emissions and a claimed fuel economy of 54.3mpg are, give or take, However, keep checking the performance figures and you’ ll discover that
Hyundai claims offers a compliant ride and more involved handling over the previous i30 model. It feels quite taught around the city and softens up on the motorway. The steering is quite vague and really didn’ t do a lot to inspire the driving experience.
On the motorway where the road is smooth and straight the i30 is amazingly quiet and comfortable. I felt it was not as happy on our broken potholed roads; this is probably as it was developed on the smooth European roads. by Ian Beasant, BUSINESSFIRSTMAGAZINE motoring correspondent
the dash from 0­62mph in the Ford is 10.0sec which is not that impressive compared similar vehicles in this sector of the market.
The engine is a little bit noisy on startup, once on the move it works really well with gearbox. The Kuga is quite a large vehicle when you look at it, when you drive it feels agile and the suspension keeps body roll to a minimum, the steering has worked on as it’ s nice and sharp.
The all­wheel drive system is a great idea and the Kuga does offer excellent grip levels.
There are other general updates to all 2017 Kuga’ s. These include a front and rear cosmetic refresh, with the new trapezoidal grille also, and new head and tail lights. You also get Ford’ s updated Sync3 infotainment system, an electronic parking brake and gesture control for the power­opening tailgate. There ' s more safety kit available, too, with enhanced optional automatic emergency city braking that works at speeds up to 31mph.
The interior is well laid out offering plenty of room for passengers, storage and luggage. The elevated driving position feels a little to straight up for a sports model but does offer excellent all­round vison.
At nearly £ 32,000, I would really have expected the interior to be of better quality and more modern.
The interior is fine, it does all you would expect from a five door family hatchback, The quality of the materials is okay but nothing to shout about although the i30 does feel well put together. The front seats are comfortable and the cabin is spacious enough to carry the driver and four passengers; the boot is generous. It really is not a bad car at all it is just so similar to lots of other 5 door family hatchbacks.