New Car Test - VW Beetle Ikon

30 July, 2002

Putting a potential buyer into a new car for a week.

By Georgina Cobbin, pics by Julian Edgar

"I was very impressed overall with the Beetle. I found it quite easy to adapt to, and I'd be quite happy to buy one - to own it, and to drive it every day.

"I thought that the engine was a bit noisy at the top end, but it was quite smooth - it felt like it was durable. It didn't feel like it was going to die, like some of the Holdens I have driven. It didn't sound thrashy at the top end - it was noisy but it felt like you could hold it at higher revs for a long time without negative consequences. The engine was quite tractable all the way through, but from about four to six thousand rpm that's where it's the nippiest.

"If you hold it in any of the lower gears around four to six thousand - driving hard around corners - it's quite responsive."

"Although, one cold morning when I went to go to work, I had to have three efforts before I got up the steep driveway - and I was in the right gear! It was kangaroo-hopping, basically, going up the hill. Then it was quite hesitant driving along the road near my house, around three, three-and-half thousand rpm. But I didn't have that problem any other day.

"I thought that the gearbox and the clutch were easy to use - it's one thing that I didn't actually note, so I adapted to it well.

"The Beetle understeers but it's quite progressive in its understeer - it doesn't catch you by surprise. If you go around a corner hard - and it understeers - you just keep steering and keep your foot in and it pulls you out quite easily. It's quite predictable."

"The ride is quite bumpy; in some situations I'd call it harsh. But when you're driving fast on a bumpy road, although its ride is still harsh, it doesn't throw the car around. It's more of a straight up and down bump movement; it doesn't skip across the road or anything horrid like that. I enjoyed the steering - a few centimetres around dead-centre there's a bit of slack, but apart from that, it's quite precise.

"It's got ABS - and I did try the ABS out. It pulled up quite quickly and in a straight line from about 80 [km/h]. Also, for a swerve and recover - say around a child in the middle of the road - under ABS it pulled up quickly and it was quite controllable. I could steer around the supposed child in the middle of the road without any difficulties.

"The front passenger and driver room is acceptable; there's lots of legroom for the front passenger when the seat's fully pushed back, but in the back, though, it's quite cramped. I found it very claustrophobic in the back seat, with the C-pillar very much in my face - only centimetres away. Also, with a tall person sitting in the back, they have zero headroom. So much so, that I'd say if you were going over a bumpy surface, they'd hit their head on the roof."

"The hatch is very practical. I had no difficulty opening and closing the hatch, reaching up and pulling it down when it was open. It's not a hard hatch - there's no strain. I found the space under the hatch good to move big loads, but I think that when you push the back seats down it would be good if they could lie flat, because they stay up at an angle - which is quite a waste of space. The hatch has a release on the remote locker; there's also a hatch release on the driver's side door which is easy to reach down to for a quick flick - none of this awkward reaching under the dash or in the glovebox.

"The controls were quite easy to use - it's very small-person user-friendly. All of the controls are within easy reach and they're also designed very well - and with safety in mind. In the time that I drove the car I learned - without needing to look [any further] - the heater controls. It's a very easy layout to remember, and you don't need to take your eyes off the road."

"But I'd like to see a few more gauges. There's a speedometer and there's a very tiny tacho - which I got used to. The fuel gauge is placed at an angle with awkward increments - it takes a bit of working out. The lack of a temperature gauge worries me. Coming up the hill on the way home from work - it's quite a steep hill and I know cars do overheat and have horrible problems - and I'd just like to see what that temperature is doing, especially in summer when it's very hot.

"The seat and steering adjusted quite well for my [driving] position. At first I didn't like the hard feel of the steering wheel, but after a day I didn't even notice that. I found the seats very comfortable."

"The Beetle attracts a lot of attention and you feel very happy and carefree when driving it because everyone smiles and turns their head when you drive by. It makes you feel a bit special. It's a good fun car to hop into to go to work, and also on the way home from work.

"Comfortable and airy and fun and happy.

"I think that it's very good value for money because it has all of the modern features. It has a lot more accessories than some cars around its price. It has remote windows, remote locking, remote mirrors, the boot release is right there, it has a CD player, four airbags, adjustable steering, ABS...

"The worse aspects? I don't think that I'd like it in the wet. I didn't drive it in the rain or on very wet roads, but I just had a funny feeling over a few wet patches. It is very predictable in the dry, but in the wet I just have a feeling that it could quite easily do a big understeer."

"A problem I had was with the driver's side mirror. In a variety of situations it blocked my vision quite a lot. Say I was turning around a right-hand corner, it would actually block the whole median strip, so I couldn't gauge where it was because I couldn't see it. Also, the mirror blocks out whole stretches of road if you're going around windy roads - you just can't see that whole side of the road. The A-pillars I found to do a similar thing - the width of the A-pillar and the mirror together obstructs quite a large area. And one other thing - when you're doing 100 [km/h] with the window down, there's a lot of buffeting.

"On the motorway it blows around in strong cross-winds - like a strong crosswind, with the trees swaying around quite a bit. Another problem - because the windscreen is so far away, the sunvisor is hard to reach and it's also not very effective because it's a long way away. It's even less effective when you pull it around to the side of the driver's window - it's useless. It would be a good idea to have an extension to pull out."

"The best aspects of the car? I think that its appearance is very important - it's a groovy, funky little car. It's got a lot of good accessories for its money. And I think that it's not as slow as some people suggest - it's quite acceptable around town and on the open road at a cruising speed."