GT Premium 4dr Auto Saloon

Not as premium or reliable as expected.

Outside the car:
When I first saw this car I really did like its sweeping lines and sitting behind the wheel, the arches on either side at the front gave an imposing look to it. However, these arches on the wings act like massive reflectors for the sun to blind me. Several times I not only have to contend with a low sun, but also the retina burning reflection from these arches - something I am sure that was not thought of when they designed them.

I am not keen on the rear of the car, it looks 'fat' and the rear light clusters look bulbous, but since I rarely look at the rear of the car I forgave that, as from the side the car does have a purposeful and menacing look to it.

The paint work on this car, whilst covered under warrant for 5 years, is of a poor quality. My car needed to have some paintwork done on it as the paint tends to flake away, this was on a one year old car.
During my almost 6 months of ownership I have had 3 courtesy cars and 2 of them have also experienced this flaking of the paint. I do not expect this paint work to last past the 5 year warranty.


Inside the Car:
Visually, on my GT Premium model, the highly glossed wood looks nice and has the flecks of aluminium in it to give it a sparkle - but it looks like fake wood. I would have much preferred the piano black version, but I wanted the GT Premium and this only came in the 'old man' highly glossed wood version.
I was, yet again, disappointed with the fit and finish as there was so much creaking from the centre console that I had the dealer take a look at it as the courtesy cars I had were nowhere near as bad as
mine - yet, they all exhibited some creaking of the plastics. However, this creaking can be heard as inside it is amazingly quiet with the noise cancellation system. You can barely hear the engine at idle - in fact, you feel it in the cabin rather than hear it and when you put your foot down you can hear the growl of the v6.
The cabin also seems to have a harmonic frequency around the 2k revs mark when in a specific gear (I believe it is 2nd) and there is a very annoying vibration that occurs from the passenger side door. Again, this I heard on 2 courtesy cars I had and points to a poor fit and finish.



The seats in the GT Premium are very comfortable - I am 6ft6" and well built and I am suitably impressed with the seats. Unfortunately, the heated/cooled seats do not work properly - they do not use an electric heating element in the seat but a Thermo Electic Cooler/Heater that can produce heat or cold, which is then blown through vents in the seat. The passenger heated seat only heats on one side of the base and the driver side base does not heat at all - another issue with this car. Again, with the courtesy cars, the heating/cooling of the seats was non-uniform and very poor.

The MP3 player - this supports 'apple' and has a usb interface to accept music on a usb stick. What I found is that the order of the songs is played based on when the song is written to the usb stick. I have no idea why they would do this - what is wrong with doing it either by filename or an ID3 tag like 99.9% of mp3 players - this is immensely annoying and is hidden away in the manual of the car.

The Bose system in this car is fantastic. I read other reviews on this car that rave about the sound system and they are not wrong - I enjoy listening to my music in this car, far better than my previous car.

I really like the comfort access on this car - no longer do I have to fumble for my keyfob when laden with shopping/children, I can unlock the car when I am close by pressing a button on the car itself - a very good feature.

Initially I thought the forest air was a bit too much of a gimmick, but I have come to like it. I do enjoy the pulsing of the air conditioning and the subtle fresh smells do enhance the cabin space. Like any scent, you do get used to it, but I notice it everytime i return back to the car. Yes, you could buy an air freshner to put into your car, but this just seems to work and it works well.

Safety Features:
This car has alot of safety features (active cruise control, brake assist, lane departure prevention, blind spot warning). For me, I personally only use the active cruise control and it is a very pleasant experience. I would hope that they improve it in the future by doing something similar to chrysler in that the torque of the engine increases when the radar/indicator senses you are going to overtake.
I do enjoy the ability of the active cruise control to come to a complete stop in traffic - however, I wish it would 'follow' the speed of the car in front once it stops and not disengage the active cruise control when stopped for a few seconds when in heavy traffic.

The blind sport warning light never catches my attention as when I am looking at my blind spot the indicator cannot be seen - you either have to look at the indicator or look in your blind spot!! Do not forget that the blind spot indicator is an aid and there is no guarantee that it always works - in fact I do observe lots of false positives.

Just after purchasing this car, I had a complete failure of the blind spot warning, active cruise control and lane departure warning system. It took the dealer some 4 months to fix it (hence why I had so many courtesy cars to compare). Another highlight of reliability being poor.

Ride Quality:
I chose the GT model over the S premium (i test drove both) as I wanted comfort on my drives as I regularly go up and down the country. Whilst the S has the paddles, 20" rims, sport seats and a tighter chassis with stiffer suspension - I knew that 95% of my time I would want comfort over sport. This GT is quiet and supremely comfortable, I do not mind sacrificing a little body roll for comfort - even over our poor excuse for roads in the UK.

Accessories:
As this is a new brand, you will find that you cannot purchase alot of things for this car (roof rack, replacement mats etc). With the number of these models being registered only being in the hundreds, I don't expect this to change any time soon.

Summary:
I am not a brand snob and I thought I was making an intelligent choice (especially considering the price I paid for it), however, I feel especially let down by the quality of the car. Also, the warranty level is poor by industry standards, in fact I would go on to say that they offer the bare minimum in terms of warranty (3 years 60k miles).
Of all the issues I have had with this car, I feel I made a buying error and cannot recommend this to anyone. The car industry is very competitive, even more so for a new brand trying to carve its way into Europe.
I took a leap of faith on this car and I have been let down drastically, I now have a car that has amazingly poor residuals and reliability, I should have stuck with one of the German rivals and I would urge others to heed my warning.

Report as offensive