We are now into our second week of ownership of the Ssangyong Korando.
We traded our 2012 Citroen C4 Picasso 1.6HDI for the 2.2D Auto 4X4 Korando. This is the first brand new car that I have ever bought, well not exactly brand new….

I managed to get the dealer to give me a very good deal on the demonstrator that I had driven on the test drive. 
The car was now 2 months old and had obviously been registered  and driven.
Demonstrator vehicles quite often give a great opportunity for a good deal. They are usually fully spec’ed, this one is top of the range ELX model and even though they have been driven it usually means that any initial issues have already been found and dealt with. So if you fancy a bit of a haggle you can land a good deal.

I walked away from the first deal that I was offered a couple of months ago and made the excuse that I was looking at other cars, I’d already looked and this was the one I was going for.

I managed to get enough money off to make me happy with the deal. Of course being a caravanner we need a towbar. These are never cheap for a new car! The fixed towbar is £500 and the detachable is £800 +. I managed to get the dealer to fit a detachable towbar with full 13 pin electrics for free! Yes I got the towbar thrown in with the deal…. What a Result!

I also ordered the Progressive Rear Spring Assisters and DAB radio upgrade.
The Spring assisters for this car are secondary coil springs installed inside the main spring. I’m not sure who supplies these for Ssangyong as they are an optional accessory available to order with a new car but there is a company called MAD Suspension that supplies kits for lots of cars. www.mad-suspension.co.uk 

We have not yet towed with the new Korando so I can’t actually say how good it is or how much better it is with these springs. However, the car did win “Tow Car of the year” without the springs installed so I’m making an educated guess that they should help stability, and sag…. After all who wants a Saggy rear end?
 This is our van with our old C4 on the way home from France. That rear end sag is what I am trying to avoid. OK the boot was full of booze but that will always be the case returning from France right?

The only thing I was dissapointed with was the DAB Radio upgrade.
There was 3 options listed. A Pure Highway upgrade for non touchscreen radio, a Pure Highway Upgrade for 7″ touchscreen radios and a Kenwood option. The Kenwood option was £1050.00 the other 2 Pure Highway Options were £140.00.
As it was listed for a 7″ touchscreen radio I assumed that it was some kind of module that plugged in the back of the radio and added DAB functionality to the unit.

It’s a universal DAB receiver that transmits an FM signal that you tune your radio into. In this case 87.60MHz. Seriously you can add this to any car! I’ll admit they have installed it quite neatly but it’s in the wrong place as you can’t see the screen to tune a station during daylight, it’s fine at night, and the station you are tuned to does not display on the main unit. I’m not impressed!
Had they told me what it actually was I would have had the Kenwood upgrade but I suppose I can live with it. I was actually more surprised that a 2018 car did not come with DAB. It does have Bluetooth Phone connection and Bluetooth Music streaming, USB connection HDMI Connection ( Yep you can watch a movie, but you can’t have DAB Radio) it also has another USB port for IPOD connection but who still has an IPOD?
Most 2018 cars have Android & Apple Connect these days, so you plug your phone in and your phone screen comes up on the cars touchscreen allowing you to use your phone via the screen.
I suppose the price would go up if that stuff were included? Maybe, Maybe Not as some of the other Ssangyong range already include this.

There is TomTom Sat Nav included in the Infotainment system….. (Big word that) but it is a very basic version that is not very configurable. I can’t find any way to add C&M club POI files etc…. I have managed to do the system update and install the up to date map.

A cool feature for caravanners is the reversing camera. You should be able to see the towbar when reversing, so lining up to hitch the van should be a doddle.

The Black piece at the bottom of the screen is actually the Bumper and the yellow at the bottom corners of the screen are the number plate. So you should be able to see exactly where your towbar is.

All leather seats, all heated seats front and rear and a heated steering wheel along with a heated lower windscreen mean that this should be a great car for winter. Couple that with the auto 4X4 (the 4 wheel drive kicks in if one wheel is spinning) and the 4X4 lock so you can select constant 4X4 and the 3 gearbox modes of Eco, Power and Winter mean it should also be great for the home of the caravanner….. a muddy field. OK it’s no Land Rover or Land Cruiser but the off road capabilities should be enough for what we need.

So what is it like to live with?
Well so far so good. I like the heated seats, they are really great on a cold morning and after a hard day at work to ease your aching back. We were a bit concerned that the boot was a bit small and although it is smaller than the C4 it’s not actually as small as we thought. In the depth it’s maybe 2″ shorter than the C4 but with the 4X4 extra ground clearance the boot floor is a little higher so the height is a little less but it’s not going to be a massive issue we should still have enough room for plenty of wine and  the rear seats fold down very easily.
Insurance has gone up a bit but I expected that with the increase in engine size and the higher value of the car but It’s still not too bad.
In some areas the car is quite well spec’ed and in others it’s lacking but for the price of £25,500.00 including Metalic paint for the top of the range or £17,500.00 inc metalic for the cheapest version it’s really not too bad. I’m looking forward to our first outing with the van on the back. We’ll let you know how that goes.