 |
Nissan’s Almera is
the clear bargain buy for drivers who want
to get to point B in reasonable
air-conditioned comfort.
|
DEAR regular reader, this shoot-out is not
for you, the motoring enthusiast.
Instead, this shoot-out is aimed at the Majority Car Buyer, those thousands of motorists who know their car by its colour, rather than its kilo-Watts; and who require only that their wheels take them in reasonable air-conditioned comfort to point B.
Instead, this shoot-out is aimed at the Majority Car Buyer, those thousands of motorists who know their car by its colour, rather than its kilo-Watts; and who require only that their wheels take them in reasonable air-conditioned comfort to point B.
If their accountants add that
said car also has a big boot, comfy seats, power steering, a frugal engine and a
high resale value, they will buy it. These are practical moms and dads and its for them that the Toyota Corolla
Quest and Nissan Almera were custom-built.
But which one to get?
After driving both family luggers with full loads several times
between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, I can recommend the
smaller-engined Almera as better for your pocket, but the Quest is better for
South Africa’s economy, and here is why.
Power
 |
| Toyota’s Quest comes up short on all counts against the Almera, but it has a patriotic trump card up its sleeve. |
The 1,6 engine in the
Corolla Quest is over-engineered to last, rather than perform. While this is
music to the ears of the average car buyer, enthusiastic drivers will be
pounding the steering wheel while trying to take a gap and later even lift the
hood to check if it is not perhaps a 1,3 in there. The 1,6 is that wheezy,
yes.
By comparison, the Almera’s 1,5 engine — which in no other circles
would be considered powerful — feels quite peppy. (For those petrolheads who are
still reading, some numbers: the 1,6 Quest makes 90 kW at 6 000 rpm and 154 Nm
at 5 200 rpm. The 1,5 Almera makes much less — 73 kW at 6 000 rpm and 134 Nm at
5 200 rpm, but the car is lighter, so it feels faster.)
Ride height
The Quest rides 150 mm
high, the Almera 161 mm. This difference of 1,1 centimetres is barely the width
of a thumbnail, but in the Nissan it means you can go over that high-looking
hump. In the Corolla you will hear butt-clenching scraping noises.
Boot
With the rear seats in
place, the Almera’s boot can swallow 40 litres more than the 450-litre boot of
the Quest. In real life, the wooden blocks used to represent a litre in this
Verbund die Automobil Industrie (VDA) luggage test do not equate to large carry
bags, but the fact of the matter is the Nissan can fit 40 more of these
200x100x50mm blocks than the Quest, which is handy when you have stuffed the
boot to the brim and still have to find space for all those extra little
packages that come with visiting the family.
Prices and service plans
The entry-level Almera,
with a five-speed manual transmission, currently costs R170 600. The entry-level
Quest, with a six-speed transmission, costs R174 900. The automatic Almera costs
R181 200 and the automatic Quest costs R198 900.
These family luggers have the same warranties of three years or
100 000 km, but Nissan’s standard three-year or 60 000 km service plan is
15 000 km longer than the Quest’s three-year or 45 000 km standard service plan.
Because service intervals for both are 15 000 km, this means an extra service is included in the price of the Almera.
Creature comforts
The two family luggers
are evenly matched in the aircon stakes, but the 4,425 metre long Almera set a
new class record in terms of leg room for the rear seats — 250 mm.
The basic Almera also
comes with an AM-FM radio with CD and MP3 players and an auxiliary input. The
basic and automatic Quest models come only pre-wired for a radio.
The Quest does have two
glove compartments and a sliding armrest between the front seats, but its odo
meter will just about tell you how far you’ve come.
The Almera’s otherwise
utilitarian interior is blinged up by door handles that look like sculpted art
works, and is has a Renault-inspired drive computer that gives you average fuel
consumption, cruising range and service intervals.
Buy me! Buy me!
So it is an
open-and-shut case for the Almera then? Yes … except for one tiny point in the
Quest’s favour. While the Almera creates jobs for people in Chennai, India, the
Quest keeps people employed at the Toyota plant in Prospecton, KZN — as do the
halftonner NP200 and the excellend value-for-money Renault Sandero at Nissan’s
plan in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria.
It all comes down to
this question then: are you feeling patriotic, or practical?
