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| Road Test Kia pro_cee'd 1.6 CRDi 3 |
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Attractive Warm Hatch
The really sporty model is called, reasonably enough, Sport, but this isn't it. That car uses the 138bhp two-litre turbo diesel engine, whereas this one, which comes in a trim level known as 3, has the 1.6-litre diesel in 113bhp form. Drop a further trim level (to 2) and you get the 1.6 again, but this time with 89bhp; there's also a 124bhp 1.6 petrol unit for the 2 and 3. Hope that's clear so far. In his launch report of the pro_cee'd, Richard Dredge voted 113bhp 1.6 diesel as the best of the bunch, and I can see why. Although the Sport is significantly quicker, this version is far from sluggish. As with most other diesels, this one isn't at its best if you floor the accelerator pedal and hope for fireworks. It's much more convincing when you give it a squirt from low revs, for example if an overtaking opportunity presents itself and you don't want to spend time changing down a gear. Speaking of gears, there are six to choose from (not including reverse). To be honest, five would probably do, and I would have welcomed the lower number because the test car's gear linkage was the clatteriest I've experienced in any Kia, and it was far from being a joy to use. It may be that the problem was unique to this specific car, and perhaps it just needed some adjusting. Let's hope so, anyway.
The estimable Dredge was also critical of the pro_cee'd's suspension, which he felt was unnecessarily stiff, and I know what he means. In fairness, though, he was driving in Turkey, where the roads are almost uniformly awful. I've often been critical of UK road surfaces in the past, but on the whole I think the pro_cee'd copes with them reasonably well. |
