P-Series Initial Impressions Pt.2
The Interior:
This is where the build quality belies the vehicles price. Full Leather, (real leather from the finest Chinese cows/bats) with diamond quilting on the seats, and the door panels, real leather on the top of the dash. What really surprised me is that they didn’t skimp in the rear. Same full leather in the door panels, super soft and feels really expensive. Everything feels really well put together and solid, no rattles, shakes or shimmies anywhere (in the first 700km anyways).
The seats are seriously comfortable. Like seriously comfortable. Reminds me of the E-Class rental I had last year, it’s that good. Drove 400km yesterday, no back aches or stiff necks. I’m really impressed. Bolster hold you in firmly, without making you feel claustrophobic. Seats are fully (manually) adjustable but don’t have lumbar support.
Rear room is excellent. Definitely built with the average South African in mind. My dad is 6’4” and in his Navara, I have little to no knee room behind his seat. In this thing I have about 4 fingers space between front seat and knees. Rear Seats are comfortable too, not too upright and with the same leather as the front it’s a very comfy place to do some long distance miles.
The LS has the traditional dash layout, which I think looks smart. Trip computer could probably be a little bigger, but again not a deal breaker. Everything is neatly laid out and functional.
Steering Wheel is fully rake/reach adjustable , and generally very well laid out. It has paddle shifters, which is a nice feature and helpful when you need to overtake quickly (more on this later). One thing that does bug me a bit, the steering wheel is plastic. Feels thin and cheap. Leather covering would sort that out, so again a bit of a head scratcher as to why this was omitted on the LS.
The Radio is a bit of a hit and miss. Functionality wise it’s amazing. 9” and Full HD quality, it looks the part. Rear and Side View Camera display in Full HD quality, clear and crisp and full of detail. Rear Park Sensors are stock, as mentioned before and the camera displays dynamic movement lines and the sonar read outs.
Apple CarPlay works flawlessly, albeit with a cable, but the display quality is fantastic and the functionality is good. Minor annoyance, is that the Apple CarPlay controls are set up for LHD vehicles, so everything has to be managed on the left hand of the screen. Have to stretch a bit to hit the buttons but that’s nit-picking, really.
Where the radio really disappoints is in the sound quality and in the slow initial load times on start up. Sound quality is awful. Speakers are tinny, no bass and the volume needs to be pumped over ¾ to have any decent sounds while driving. It does offer a Dolby CTS feature that improves sound a little bit, but it’s still not great.
This can be fixed with a DSP and some better speakers, but it’s annoying this hasn’t been fitted out of the box. The Gala feature (increases volume when speed increases) is very sensitive and I recommend you turn that off or on low, otherwise the volume changes drive you mad.
On start up, the radio goes through an extended boot cycle. It takes a good 45-60 seconds before the display is usable. Again not a deal breaker, especially since the camera works pretty much instantly, but a minor annoyance.
While the aircon can be adjusted with the screen, it does have “old school” A/C control, same with Volume which I really like. Easy to adjust without taking too much focus off the road. A/C works well enough, kept it on auto and set at 20° and it worked well enough.
What I really don’t like/understand is the interior lighting situation. There are only two small LED lights above the rear view mirror. It barely provides enough light for the front, and there is no lighting in the rear… but I did buy myself some LED modules that will be connected to the front interior lights. No Idea wtf GWM was thinking here.
Overall, this interior is a nice place to be, feels very solid and again, not cheap.