General Comments:
I previously owned Saxo Furio, and had been wanting a new car for a while. I was either going to get a BMW 318 coupe, or a Saxo VTR. I am 18 and felt I was a little young for a BMW. The VTR caught my eye because of its age, only 3 years old and low mileage, 21000. It is also red, my favourite colour. I have heard storys about saxo’s being unreliable and potentially unsafe, but I like these cars and I have had few problems with the previous one.
To look at the car it is much the same as the furio. It has arches, front fog lamps, nice exhaust tip and a spoiler. It also has 14 inch alloy’s which I think suite the car. It does have that boy racer image and I have only added to that by fitting some LED back lights. I find the interior to be much more conservative on the VTR than in the Furio. It has a simple square pattern on black material. It also has black carpets and a black plastic dash board, although those white dials make a lot of difference. The interior does feel a bit cheap.
The driving position is good in my opinion with the steering wheel not set to far to one side and at a good height. The seats are like semi-bucket seats. They have high sides and lumber support as well as the side bolsters. The foot well is a bit cramped though and I have trouble on occasion when driving in my work shoes.
The gear change is precise, but I have to stretch forward a bit to put it into first although that isn’t much of a problem.
The car handles well, as it should do for a hot hatch. It sticks to bends, but would be more fun with low profile tyres like the Fiesta Zetec S. The steering is pretty much point and go and it is weighted well, you get enough information to no what is going on and at the same time you're not battling with the steering wheel.
The brakes on this car or good, but not great. I think a small car with all round disks should be able to stop a bit better than this. Although they do the job and are years ahead of the brakes on the Furio.
Fuel consumption is good. The engine doesn’t have much car to haul around so this gives 44mpg according to the figures.
The engine on this car is a good one. It has lots of torque. On paper 100 is not much, but for such a light car it makes all the difference, as does the 98bhp. Once the car reaches 4000rpm it puts you back in the seat in 1st and 2nd gear. My Furio was different, It seemed to be more low end power, where as the VTR seems to have more in common with a 16 valve engine. It will pull all the way to the red line should you ever want to. The car still pulls very well in 3rd and 4th, but 5th is nothing special. So far I have took the car to 125mph just to see if the claims are true and for the fun of it of course. The VTR feels almost fast to me, and then I remember that there is a quicker one out there, the VTS…one day perhaps.
The VTR is great car for a young person. I say this because of the image it has. If you treat and drive these cars with respect then you will have little trouble with them. People always complain that the VTR’s and VTS’s break easily, but I think this is because of the speed that they can take corners and how quickly they can accelerate, especially with the VTS. Thrashing them around a lot will break them.
I will probably keep mine for the next 3 or 4 years.
14th Aug 2008, 12:44
Whats mods have you done to the engine?