New car - Soju the Ssangyong

[Aar0sc]

Behold the wonder of my incredible new motor - a 2016 Ssangyong Turismo EX Auto. The mk 1, named Rodius (and this Turismo was too outside of the UK) was famously hideous. Thankfully they fixed this with Mk2, which I think just looks like a car. 

Why have I bought a car so derided on by people like AutoCar Magazine etc?

I am 6’6” and have two small babies, who go in huge rear facing car seats to avoid certain decapitation if I were to have a 2mph bump with a forward facing car seat. I therefore need an unusually large amount of rear row legroom. Previous cars which have failed to provide this include family wagon stalwarts like the Land Rover Discovery 2, and the Volvo V70 mk2 (apparently I like mk2s). To be fair to those cars, when they were designed in the mid 90s, car seats were a lot smaller. 

Anyway, my shortlist of cars within budget (whatever I could hawk my leggy but very smart Volvo for) became extremely short. I also wanted to avoid the top rate VED, ruining most newer Discos, and was missing the capacious boot of my D2 in the comparatively minuscule V70. It quite quickly became apparent that a leggy Turismo would do the job, and as Ssangyong’s tagline when they launched the Rodius (inexplicably there was limited attendance and 13 year old me sat the front row at the British launch, at the late lamented motorshow), “It works for me”. 

It turns out these are not especially common, being bought largely by those desperate for many seats, with much legroom, with not a lot of cash, or keen to avoid PPI etc, and were aware of the existence of Ssangyong and that the mk2 wouldn’t cause harm to the retinas of those around them. I made some enquires on Facebook and eBay (weirdly none on car and classic) and jumped on the train to Reading a week after selling my Volvo to view what became Soju. I immediately pressed it into hard family service, and it’s done a loop of England, starting and ending in SW Wales, and a trip to central France from SW Wales via Peterborough, during a heat wave. 

So, what do I like:
    •    It’s FUCKING MASSIVE. I can sit in every seat, as in, behind me, three times. And I could still fit a substantial volume of booze in the boot, which is bigger than the Sharon, Zafira, and Alhambra combined. 
    •    It’s ABSOLUTELY VAST. We’re on our way back from France in it now, and with all the clobber for four people for two weeks, including a double buggy, and a car fridge, we still have a whole usable spare seat, and space for the customs limit of vino. And you could fit more in without leaving the boot, probably the same again if you gave up the rear row of seats. I think I’d hit 3.5 tonnes with wine before I filled the back completely. 
    •    It’s surprisingly quick off the mark. A Mercedes 7 speed auto combined with the DongFeng diesel turbo (DongFeng are famed for their diesels) makes this massive thing quite spritely. It pulls quickly to thirty, and then well to your chosen velocity. It’s sat at 130km/h for four hours today with no problemo
    •    It’s not bad on diesel considering again that it’s smaller than some counties, first few runs in the UK were high 30s, this last week in France at higher speeds and with max AC it’s been mid 30s, but I reckon with care on a run 40 is doable. 
    •    Every seat has a vent for aircon, and it has two separate compressors and controls. Nothing cheers up overheating people in 40 degree weather like their nephew’s car having insane quantities of aircon
    •    It drives perfectly nicely considering autocar’s reviews. I am comparing it to my previous cars, and may suggest that when your pinnacle of chassis development is a Triumph Spitfire, and you thought your ACE equipped Discovery 2 could be hassled along quite nicely thank you, this may be exceptionally faint praise. But it’s got a fantastic turning circle, especially compared to the D2 and V70, when empty is controllable at low speed power slides thanks to RWD and traction control that is completely turn offable, and has sat happily of most of the UK’s motorways already with me. I’m sure when pushed along a B Road it wouldn’t be a rewarding drive, and there’s plenty of body roll and soft suspension, but obviously there’s plenty of body roll, it’s an MPV, and I like the soft suspension, it’s a comfortable ride. 
    •    This is turning into a review rather than just things I like
    •    The seating arrangement of 2-2-3 makes sense, certainly as a family of 4
    •    All the rear seats are on rails and can be moved fore and aft to give varying legroom or boot space. They all fold flat and also lift out completely, giving you a van 
    •    It has all the toys, on this almost top of the range model I have Apple CarPlay, a rear view camera and beepers, heated electric seats, DAB, cruise, auto wipers and some sort of very bright headlamp. I don’t really know what else you’d need

What don’t I like?

    •    These are quite minor
    •    The rear seats are not very clever - they are up, down, forward, back, or out. I imagine Honda or Vauxhall would have made a lot better use of the rails and space
    •    The cruise is odd. If you were doing 60, stop for some traffic, then as it clears hit resume at 20+, it seems to quickly pick the gear it will need at the target speed, i.e. 7th, and then apply some light throttle. This results in an absolutely glacial increase in velocity. However when faced with a hill at 130km/h it was happy to drop into 5th and give it quite some beans to maintain its intended course. 
    •    It likes to bong at you for indiscretions like putting the key in the ignition but not turning it and the bong is very cheap sounding
    •    Perhaps obviously, some bits of it are cheap feeling, the steering wheel and centre console are very worn out, and the gear knob rattles sometimes
    •    Apparently the pipes for the rear aircon are a PITA to replace but they are also aluminium on a steel chassis so erode away
    •    The central speedo is a bit annoying (but not as annoying as I expected)
    •    The handbook is in that slightly odd Chinese instructions font, refers almost entirely to the Korean market 11 seater, and isn’t particularly easy to understand. Every bulb has instructions on replacement, including all the interior lights, but the headlamps are not covered at all, which I personally see as quite the omission 

Other general observations

    •    It seems to have rudimentary hill hold for junctions, and if the cruise is set and you go down hill, it’ll change down to try and keep your speed in check
    •    Ssangyong clearly hadn’t really decided on a logo so the badge on the grille, the key, the steering wheel, and on the boot screen for the infotainment are all slightly different
    •    SsangYong are now KGM Motor, previously they were DongBang, which is obviously much funnier, so I’ve been referring to my Dong’. 
    •    There are various trim levels, base spec gives you a Ssangyong home brew manual which is both unpleasant to use and also impossible to get parts for, and they seem to expire at 100k. There are always Turismos needing “just the clutch bleeding” for sale for very little
    •    The top of the range ELX gives you all my trim AND MORE, including a heated steering wheel, and selectable four wheel drive with low range, which makes the whole car unique for seats/driven wheel combo. However the front wheels rely on vacuum actuators and these slowly die, leaving the front drive on (which it apparently doesn’t like when on-road), and are a grand a corner to replace  

That’s pretty much that. I think for the £2300 I paid it’s a cracking car and I hope for many years of service from it - with a new steering wheel and probably some facelift seats at some point. 
 

[angle]

£2,300 seems mega cheap. Question - is there any way to turn it from 2+2+3 to 2+3+2? I'm occasionally tempted by these and then realise I'd have to put a child in the boot.

(NB - right now I'm thinking this might be a positive, the arseholes)

[Aar0sc]

Oh - and having taken it down the Mulsanne straight  I can confirm it doesn’t jump up and flip like a Mercedes touring car from the 90s, which is a win. And I bought it a branded 24hr Le Mans keyring as a reward 

[Aar0sc]

2 minutes ago, angle said:

£2,300 seems mega cheap. Question - is there any way to turn it from 2+2+3 to 2+3+2? I'm occasionally tempted by these and then realise I'd have to put a child in the boot.

(NB - right now I'm thinking this might be a positive, the arseholes)

It’s got mega miles - just over a quarter million. However it wears them very well (to the point that I think it got accidentally clocked during a service as it did 10k a year except for year 6 when it did 130k). New engine in the last 100k. I think these are hard to price as they’re quite rare. 
 

I don’t think you can go 2-3-2, as the middle seats run on two rails (as in 4 rails in the middle of the car), and the rear bench also runs on two rails (so there are only two into the boot). But the Asian market 11 seater is 2-3-3-3 so it must be possible for the persistent 

[Blake's Den]

I have been tempted by one of these for a while. The 4wd version has good towing capacity and , in my opinion, is a better alternative to a VW Transporter. They are massive!

Have you seen the camper conversions? They are pretty cool.

[Aar0sc]

The camper conversions are ace, as I only need four seats I did consider the one for sale when I was looking - 4x4, pop top, sleeps and seats 4, cooker, fridge, awning, sink. Think it even had some sort of dodgy shower set up. But £16k more than this was!

[barefoot]

Soju, FFS.

[Dobloseven]

18 minutes ago, barefoot said:

Soju, FFS.

Naming cars is just wrong!

Had a test drive in a late Turismo at the then local dealer. Think it was 18 or 68 reg. 2.2 4wd ELX, IIRC. Not long after, they had a very light facelift and  then soon disappeared . Really liked it, but the seating just wouldn't have worked  for us. Pity. Not all bad, though, as we've a Korando we've owned since new, and of course the Rexton W. If the seating works for you, as it obviously does, a good choice.

 

[Aar0sc]

If you don’t name it then what can you chant reassuringly to it when struggling up a hill, low on fuel, or before an mot?!

[Dobloseven]

9 minutes ago, Aar0sc said:

If you don’t name it then what can you chant reassuringly to it when struggling up a hill, low on fuel, or before an mot?!

"C'mon, you heap of crap"?

[Dobloseven]

Did you know it's got two reverse gear ratios? Put  the transmission in winter mode and it uses the higher one to reduce chance of wheel spin.

[Aar0sc]

46 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

Not long after, they had a very light facelift and  then soon disappeared

The facelift gifted a much nicer steering wheel (which mine has) and tuned replacing a headlamp bulb from a 10 minute job into a 5 hour, bumpers off job!

18 minutes ago, Dobloseven said:

Did you know it's got two reverse gear ratios? Put  the transmission in winter mode and it uses the higher one to reduce chance of wheel spin.

I did not! So 9 gears!

[horriblemercedes]

2 hours ago, Aar0sc said:

Oh - and having taken it down the Mulsanne straight  I can confirm it doesn’t jump up and flip like a Mercedes touring car from the 90s, which is a win. And I bought it a branded 24hr Le Mans keyring as a reward 

Maybe pedantic (though I don't think so), but the CLR wasn't a touring car, it was a sports racing car.

 

Like an SL isn't an SUV. Just different types of car.

[warninglight]

What a glowing review, I'm sold.

Anyone want a L322 for one?

[Bear]

5 hours ago, barefoot said:

Soju, FFS.

Enough to drive you to drink?

[Bear]

4 hours ago, Aar0sc said:

The facelift gifted a much nicer steering wheel (which mine has) and tuned replacing a headlamp bulb from a 10 minute job into a 5 hour, bumpers off job!

I did not! So 9 gears!

Hence, 722.9 in Mercspeak.

[barefoot]

13 hours ago, Aar0sc said:

If you don’t name it then what can you chant reassuringly to it when struggling up a hill, low on fuel, or before an mot?!

I did enjoy the write up about your car, so without wishing to cause personal offence and said in the nicest possible way, anthropomorphism is for utter twats. 

[Aar0sc]

You’ve hurt Soju’s feelings and her check engine light has come on 

[Jazoli]

3 hours ago, barefoot said:

I did enjoy the write up about your car, so without wishing to cause personal offence and said in the nicest possible way, anthropomorphism is for utter twats. 

So in the nicest possible way you are calling the OP a twat, charming!

@Aar0sc great to hear about the car, its looks ideal for the job.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Aar0sc said:

You’ve hurt Soju’s feelings and her check engine light has come on 

Easy fix, just pop the bonnet and check it's still there? 😀

Great purchase, BTW 

[RoverFolkUs]

With such a seating arrangement, would it be more apt to brand it as an "Autoshite limousine" 🤓

[barefoot]

6 hours ago, Aar0sc said:

You’ve hurt Soju’s feelings and her check engine light has come on 

Her?  FFS!

[sdkrc]

On 08/07/2026 at 14:47, Aar0sc said:

 I am 6’6” and have two small babies, 

You and the kids when you bought the Turismo

[jonathan_dyane]

Looks lovely but you know you can buy smaller child seats don't you?

[meshking]

Excellent write up. I think you’ve done the right thing here - get a car that is perhaps slightly too big now, but the thing with kids is that they get bigger. Then they start making a mess. Then getting more stuff to carry about with them. Well bought sir!

[Aar0sc]

1 hour ago, jonathan_dyane said:

Looks lovely but you know you can buy smaller child seats don't you?

You can buy smaller cars too. This one is very big, I think I covered that. 

In all seriousness the baby seat is a regular baby seat and it couldn’t go behind me in the V70. The toddler seat is bigger and “extended rear facing” but I have several friends who are A&E Drs who have said the difference between a 2/3/4 year old in a crash forward facing to rear facing is day and night. It’s not colossal, but I am 75.8% leg and the kids safety is somewhat reliant on my being at to drive safely and not wincing in pain