Have one of these as a hire car for a couple of days. My work gives me a hire car for days when I will be doing a reasonable mileage as they reckon it is cheaper than paying me mileage for my own car - suits me fine.

I have to say that my heart sank when I saw it was a 1.2, but wow! - I am seriously impressed with the engine in this. It is smooth, quiet and very free revving with no noticeable turbo lag. The only time it struggles a wee bit is when accelerating from pretty low revs in 5th - i.e. the doing 45- 50 mph or so and less than 1750 rpm.

As for the rest of the car - feels solid, handles well and is comfortable. Very quiet but is very poorly equipped. It is the only hire car I have had for months that doesn't have an outside temperature gauge, heater controls poor, the most basic radio I have seen for years.

I have recently driven Focus's (foci ?), a roomster, numerous Kia Cee'ds, an Avensis, an Astra and a Hyudai i30. As hire cars I assume all were base spec. but all had much hiegher equipment level. all bar the roomster had bluetooth and steering wheel controls.

Update - found the temperature display!!. 46 mpg over 450 hard driven miles - impressed!

Edited 15 March, 201214 yr by slider

Thanks slider: this encourages me to try one of these out for myself. I think one is still hung up by the numbers in one's head and the thought of a 1.2 in a Golf or Yeti leads one to think the things will be underpowered when that aint the case. It's the same with the Focus which is going to be released with a tubocharged 1 lire triple next month. Apparently that car goes very well indeed and is pushing out 125 bhp and 160 lb ft of torque at only 1400 rpm.

Interesting times for engines

A wee update on this - just had a 550 mile journey in a rented 1.2 tsi Golf - this, like the last one, was the 85 bhp version.

Up the A9 and back, with a 100 miles of North Highland A roads in between - although classed as A roads these were mainly single track roads with passing places. Car averaged just a touch over 47 mpg (OCB read 50). Journey was made with no passengers and just an overnight bag for luggage.

As before I found the car very comfortable and the engine has a real "zip" about it. It does however suffer from lack of "bottom end" and struggled to maintain speed on long inclines.

the OBC is not a basic as I originally reported and I have found the temperature gauge and various other read outs!!

Edited 11 April, 201214 yr by slider

Is the last post just a typo, where you say 'rented 1.2 tdi Golf' ?

george

Is the last post just a typo, where you say 'rented 1.2 tdi Golf' ?

george

Yeap, meant Tsi, corrected now