Rare White Ape
October 23rd, 2023, 04:26 PM
https://editorial.pxcrush.net/carsales/general/editorial/2021-hyundai-staria-01.jpg?width=1024&height=683
Hyundai's new people mover van thing in a deep shade of modern slate grey, as is the style at this time. It looks like a space ship. It's full of technology. It felt like a home appliance. I didn't like it.
Good points:
QI phone charging panel in a storage slot in the dash
Car-ish seating position (compared to other vans I've driven)
Easy to ingress/egress
Carries all your pissed mates to the pub
Smart cruise control is good in heavy traffic
Will spin wheels on gravel
Bad points:
Ergonomics aren't up to snuff at all
Auto gearbox control is a column of buttons on the dash
Parking brake function is impossible to decipher
Mirrors are shite
I had to google how to open the fuel cap
Lane keeping feature annoys the crap out of me
Won't spin wheels on wet asphalt
I rented this vehicle this weekend for my trip from Melbourne to Philip Island. It was an OK drive - very dull and uninspiring. Perfectly adequate for most people but utterly depressing for a car enthusiast such as myself. It had the petrol V6 motor, so got along at an easy pace. The 4-cylinder turbo diesel has heaps more torque, so I wish I had that instead. I purposefully left all the gizmos on in order to fully absorb the experience of driving a brand new car in 2023.
With the way my knee is at the moment, I need plenty of distance to the pedals, otherwise I get all cramped up and uncomfortable if I need to hover between the throttle and brake a lot. This car, despite its generous dimensions, couldn't do that, so I had to endure over 90 minutes of Friday afternoon commuting in stop-start traffic from one side of the city to the other, with my legs up around my ears. I had the seat and steering wheel adjusted all the way back, but I was still too close to the pedals. But that's largely a me problem, not a car problem. It was much more comfortable when I eventually got to the outer suburbs and traffic cleared up.
It would have been much worse if it wasn't for the smart cruise control. Sadly I did not have enough confidence in the feature until I was able to stretch its legs a little bit, as that would have made my trip much more enjoyable. The basic premise of the cruise is that it will sense cars in traffic ahead of you and match the speed, so that will reduce the occurrence of rear-end collisions. Combined with the lane-keeping feature, it will even detect if you're about to change lanes (provided you used your indicator) and will even throttle up as you move over, to get you up to the set cruise control speed without impeding the traffic behind you in the target lane. It was so good that it felt like it was reading my thoughts, and matched my behaviour perfectly. What didn't match my behaviour was the time it took to slow down for slower traffic ahead. I felt a little uncomfortable because it would back off one or two seconds later than I normally would, which gave me the feeling that I would plow into the car ahead. If it was a little earlier, then it would prevent the need to use the brakes and be more efficient. There's probably a way to adjust it, but I didn't have the time or inclination to do that.
Apple Car Play is pretty standard these days but this was my first time using it. I was happy that using navigation on Google Maps was so seamless between car and phone. I would look up directions while walking to the car, lock my phone, and get in the car. As soon as I placed it on the dash charger, the car's info screen would automatically switch to the last search result from Google, and all I'd have to do was hit Start, and off I went. I didn't bother with streaming music off my phone because triple j in Australia is below the annoyance threshold as far as radio stations go and I am fine with it.
Lane keeping was interesting. I never felt I was in a position where I was out of control, be it through fatigue or inattention, but it would gently bring me back closer to the middle of a lane if it felt like I was drifting too far across. There was no buzzing or vibrating through the steering wheel like other systems aimed at maintaining driver alertness, just a weird and gentle movement of the steering wheel as the system exercised its control. It made my degenerate sim racing brain go all wonky the first few times it happened, because it was by far the strongest sensation of force feedback the car ever gave me and I instinctively fought against it until I realised what was happening. Bumps and potholes or whatever didn't feel like anything at all by comparison.
It would also beep at you if you got too close to a white line, which was really annoying if you're taking a racing line through a set of bends. I happened across this set (https://www.google.com/maps/@-38.1201561,145.429987,2354m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) of sharp-ish 40 km/h corners in otherwise flat and featureless south-eastern Victoria along the Cardinia Road, and excitedly set myself up for some white knuckle tyre squealing action. I approached the first left hander at the sign posted 80-kay limit, moved close to the centre line - but not over it - and the car responded with beep! beep! beep! until I braked late, and aimed it towards the inside apex (beep! beep! beep!) followed by letting the car's momentum carry me smoothly out to the centre line again (beep! beep! beep!). During this whole process I used the cheap and nasty flappy paddles on the back of the steering wheel to pick one of the bottom four gears in the van's 8-speed automatic gearbox (they all seem to do the same thing, except for first gear which hit a rev limiter all the times I used it) which eventually complied with my request for a more exciting ratio. Up through the gears again for the following right hander, this time moving right across the road's shoulder line on entry (beep! beep! beep!) and you get the idea of how the rest of it went.
The van did not respond to my nudge at a bit of fun with any sort of reward whatsoever. Dab of oppo and I was away? Not at all. This, by far, is the closest I have ever come to feeling like I was driving one of LG's finest front-load washing machines in my entire life. They come in a deep slate grey these days too, you know?
Hyundai's new people mover van thing in a deep shade of modern slate grey, as is the style at this time. It looks like a space ship. It's full of technology. It felt like a home appliance. I didn't like it.
Good points:
QI phone charging panel in a storage slot in the dash
Car-ish seating position (compared to other vans I've driven)
Easy to ingress/egress
Carries all your pissed mates to the pub
Smart cruise control is good in heavy traffic
Will spin wheels on gravel
Bad points:
Ergonomics aren't up to snuff at all
Auto gearbox control is a column of buttons on the dash
Parking brake function is impossible to decipher
Mirrors are shite
I had to google how to open the fuel cap
Lane keeping feature annoys the crap out of me
Won't spin wheels on wet asphalt
I rented this vehicle this weekend for my trip from Melbourne to Philip Island. It was an OK drive - very dull and uninspiring. Perfectly adequate for most people but utterly depressing for a car enthusiast such as myself. It had the petrol V6 motor, so got along at an easy pace. The 4-cylinder turbo diesel has heaps more torque, so I wish I had that instead. I purposefully left all the gizmos on in order to fully absorb the experience of driving a brand new car in 2023.
With the way my knee is at the moment, I need plenty of distance to the pedals, otherwise I get all cramped up and uncomfortable if I need to hover between the throttle and brake a lot. This car, despite its generous dimensions, couldn't do that, so I had to endure over 90 minutes of Friday afternoon commuting in stop-start traffic from one side of the city to the other, with my legs up around my ears. I had the seat and steering wheel adjusted all the way back, but I was still too close to the pedals. But that's largely a me problem, not a car problem. It was much more comfortable when I eventually got to the outer suburbs and traffic cleared up.
It would have been much worse if it wasn't for the smart cruise control. Sadly I did not have enough confidence in the feature until I was able to stretch its legs a little bit, as that would have made my trip much more enjoyable. The basic premise of the cruise is that it will sense cars in traffic ahead of you and match the speed, so that will reduce the occurrence of rear-end collisions. Combined with the lane-keeping feature, it will even detect if you're about to change lanes (provided you used your indicator) and will even throttle up as you move over, to get you up to the set cruise control speed without impeding the traffic behind you in the target lane. It was so good that it felt like it was reading my thoughts, and matched my behaviour perfectly. What didn't match my behaviour was the time it took to slow down for slower traffic ahead. I felt a little uncomfortable because it would back off one or two seconds later than I normally would, which gave me the feeling that I would plow into the car ahead. If it was a little earlier, then it would prevent the need to use the brakes and be more efficient. There's probably a way to adjust it, but I didn't have the time or inclination to do that.
Apple Car Play is pretty standard these days but this was my first time using it. I was happy that using navigation on Google Maps was so seamless between car and phone. I would look up directions while walking to the car, lock my phone, and get in the car. As soon as I placed it on the dash charger, the car's info screen would automatically switch to the last search result from Google, and all I'd have to do was hit Start, and off I went. I didn't bother with streaming music off my phone because triple j in Australia is below the annoyance threshold as far as radio stations go and I am fine with it.
Lane keeping was interesting. I never felt I was in a position where I was out of control, be it through fatigue or inattention, but it would gently bring me back closer to the middle of a lane if it felt like I was drifting too far across. There was no buzzing or vibrating through the steering wheel like other systems aimed at maintaining driver alertness, just a weird and gentle movement of the steering wheel as the system exercised its control. It made my degenerate sim racing brain go all wonky the first few times it happened, because it was by far the strongest sensation of force feedback the car ever gave me and I instinctively fought against it until I realised what was happening. Bumps and potholes or whatever didn't feel like anything at all by comparison.
It would also beep at you if you got too close to a white line, which was really annoying if you're taking a racing line through a set of bends. I happened across this set (https://www.google.com/maps/@-38.1201561,145.429987,2354m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu) of sharp-ish 40 km/h corners in otherwise flat and featureless south-eastern Victoria along the Cardinia Road, and excitedly set myself up for some white knuckle tyre squealing action. I approached the first left hander at the sign posted 80-kay limit, moved close to the centre line - but not over it - and the car responded with beep! beep! beep! until I braked late, and aimed it towards the inside apex (beep! beep! beep!) followed by letting the car's momentum carry me smoothly out to the centre line again (beep! beep! beep!). During this whole process I used the cheap and nasty flappy paddles on the back of the steering wheel to pick one of the bottom four gears in the van's 8-speed automatic gearbox (they all seem to do the same thing, except for first gear which hit a rev limiter all the times I used it) which eventually complied with my request for a more exciting ratio. Up through the gears again for the following right hander, this time moving right across the road's shoulder line on entry (beep! beep! beep!) and you get the idea of how the rest of it went.
The van did not respond to my nudge at a bit of fun with any sort of reward whatsoever. Dab of oppo and I was away? Not at all. This, by far, is the closest I have ever come to feeling like I was driving one of LG's finest front-load washing machines in my entire life. They come in a deep slate grey these days too, you know?