Genesis G70 turbo V6 review 2022: Should BMW be worried?

CarExpert

I'm a big fan of the Kia Stinger - so what happens if you need a more luxurious and slightly quicker version of the Kia Stinger? Well, you get your luxury sister brand involved. The 2022 Genesis G70 3.3T is basically a Kia Stinger beneath the skin, but it comes with a lot more luxury and a different exterior design.  Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the updated Genesis G70 to see if it's any good!  Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Genesis content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/genesis More Genesis G70 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/genesis/g70  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 01:04 Interior 03:27 Infotainment 05:36 Safety Tech 07:39 Practicality 09:01 On the road 13:23 Verdict 20:49  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #genesis #g70 #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So look, while styling of Genesis SUVs can be a little bit hit and miss,

00:05 according to some, because styling is subjective, I think the styling of Genesis sedans is

00:10 top-notch, and this is a good example. This is the facelifted, restyled Genesis G70. This one

00:18 right here is the top specification 3.3 T Sport, which means it has a dirty big twin-turbo V6 under

00:25 the bonnet. This competes with things like the Audi A4, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the BMW

00:31 3-Series. If this is a little too expensive at the top end, at just over $75,000, the entire range

00:37 kicks off at a little over $60,000. So there is kind of a little bit of everything there if you

00:42 do want one of these luxury sports sedans. Now, today we're going to do a detailed review of this

00:47 car. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review, you can use the time codes up on

00:51 the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below. And if

00:55 you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could subscribe to our channel and press the bell

00:58 icon. That's going to let you know every single time we publish a new review. Okay, before we

01:04 kick off on exterior styling, I have to apologize for the wind. It is seriously windy today, and

01:10 cold, so if you hear any wind noise, apologies. You've got 18 colours to pick from - 18, that is

01:16 ridiculous - and they're all free, which is good, except the matte colours. They're $2,000. This is

01:20 one of the matte finishes. I really like the look of this. It stands out beautifully in traffic. I

01:25 actually saw the bigger GV80 SUV in a matte green, and I think it looks absolutely shmicko. Now, I

01:31 know that styling is entirely subjective, but I think what they've done here with the design is,

01:36 it just looks razor sharp. When you have a look at some of the styling elements here, you've got

01:41 this big old grille, that piano black finish on it, you've got this gloss finish along the top

01:46 there, and then a proudly worn Genesis badge. Over here, you've got a big old set of headlights.

01:51 You can get a luxury pack that makes these Matrix LED, otherwise they are just a standard LED setup

01:56 with LED daytime running lights. I think it's just a really cool design there with that split

02:01 headlight, and this is the theme that follows other Genesis products as well, so it's kind of

02:05 their staple. Over on the side, we have a set of 19-inch alloy wheels with a gloss black alloy

02:12 wheel along the front there. Interesting thing about the brakes, Brembo, four-piston, 350mm

02:18 rotor. It is a meaty set of brakes, and you can actually get this as part of a sport package on

02:23 the entry-level four-cylinder as well. It comes standard in Australia for the V6 because ultimately

02:28 this is a lot of power, and it needs to be able to stop pretty quickly. Decent set of Michelin treads

02:33 on there as well, so that means you should have plenty of traction and plenty of grip when you

02:38 start attacking the corners. Over here, a kind of fake/real air vent. It's got a hole down the bottom

02:44 there, but for the most part, I don't think it actually does anything. Over here, you've got an

02:49 indicator built into that wing mirror, camera down the side there, and then if you have a look here,

02:53 they've gone away from chrome, and they have this shadow chrome setup that runs all the way along

02:57 the side of the car. See that panoramic glass roof along the top there? Shark fin antenna, and then

03:02 whip around to the rear. More of that split tail light design along the back there, and they kind

03:07 of try and model a lot of their cars off Bentleys. I don't know if you remember with the GV80, it has

03:12 that sort of Bentayga look to it. 3.3T badge there, and then Genesis badging along the rear. The other

03:17 curious thing as well, this has a sports exhaust now with real exhaust outlets, so I'm hoping it

03:22 sounds good because it looks good, so hopefully it sounds as good as it looks. So we're inside the G70.

03:30 Let's start off with the key. Here it is. So it looks similar to other Genesis keys. You have lock,

03:35 unlock, you have a remote start function, and then also a button there for the boot. On the back, you

03:40 just have the Genesis logo. It's got like a rubbery sort of leatherette type thing on the front of it,

03:46 so pretty cool looking key I reckon. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can just leave

03:49 that in your pocket. Once you're inside, you hit the push button, start. Now, if I had have told

03:54 you that this bears a lot of resemblance to the Kia Stinger, you'd never know by looking at it from

03:59 the outside, but also never know by looking at it from the inside. It kind of looks like a completely

04:03 different car, and that's what I like about this. So Genesis is charging a fair chunk of money for

04:08 this thing, but ultimately it looks and feels completely different to the product that it's

04:12 based on, and that comes down to everything. Look at this dashboard. You've got this beautiful sort

04:16 of material along the top there with that red stitching. You get the Nappa leather all over

04:20 the cabin. I will caveat as well here that this car has the optional luxury pack. It's $10,000,

04:25 so some of the stuff that you see here won't be standard on the Genesis, so just make sure you

04:29 check that before you buy, but I'll just point out the stuff that I'm looking at. So you've got

04:33 your Nappa leather, you've got that stitching running along the dashboard there, all of these

04:36 soft touch surfaces. It really does look quite high-end and premium, and if you compare it to,

04:41 I guess, an equivalent 3 Series or C-Class, this definitely feels a cut above the rest. I mean,

04:46 have a look at the seats. They just look sensational. So what about your touch points?

04:50 So centre console, not too bad. It's a little bit firm, but okay, and over on the door there,

04:56 that's nice and soft. We have a device to check how soft they are. This is our durometer. We've

05:00 tested all the main surfaces in this car. If you want to see how this compares to other cars we've

05:05 tested before, have a look at the link in the description. Now, what about build quality?

05:09 Yeah, look, this feels good. So I'll share a quick story with you. When I was at the old place,

05:15 we owned a Kia Stinger, and I don't know, it developed a lot of sort of rattles, one in the

05:20 boot, the sunroof sort of creaked and had another rattle in it as well. So wasn't amazing. We did

05:25 have one of the first cars in the country, but still didn't feel all that good. This, on the

05:29 other hand, actually feels quite nice. It feels like they've put a lot of effort into making sure

05:33 this feels robust and premium as well. Let's talk about infotainment. So I'll run you through this

05:38 screen and then also through the screen ahead of the driver. So up here, you have a 10.25-inch

05:44 display. If you've driven a new Kia or Hyundai product before, this will look familiar because

05:48 it is pretty much the same. You have your home screen there with profile selection on the side,

05:53 and then if you swipe over, that's where you access all of the menus. It's a really nice

05:56 screen because it's high resolution and very quick. You can see there as I scroll between

06:00 those menus, it is razor sharp. You have inbuilt satellite navigation, but you also have the

06:05 ability to connect a smartphone. It is wired, so you have to use a wire regardless of whether

06:09 it's Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first. Here it is

06:14 here. Look at that. That is such a beautiful display. It's so rich and sharp. Absolutely

06:20 love that. Now let's have a look at Android Auto. So almost a full screen integration. So this

06:25 section over here, for some reason, isn't in use. Even when you go back to the home screen,

06:28 there's no sort of anything displayed on the side there, which seems like a bit of a redundant

06:33 waste of space. But anyway, in addition to that, you have a 15-speaker Lexicon-branded sound system,

06:39 and that also offers AM/FM, DAB+ digital radio, and also Bluetooth streaming as well.

06:46 And finally, I thought I'd point out as well here that this is where you access all the car's

06:50 settings for some of the custom drive modes, including the sounds that get pumped into the

06:56 cabin. So there is a lot of fake noise in here, despite the fact that, as you just saw, it has a

07:00 proper set of exhaust pipes. Ahead of the driver is a 12.3-inch display, so this gives you all the

07:06 critical car information, your trip computer, your radar cruise control settings, and also the key

07:12 statistics for faster driving. Down here you have the driver attention monitor, but the cool thing

07:17 is with the Luxury Pack, this screen comes with 3D. So that's off at the moment. I'll put it on

07:23 normal, and then maximum 3D. You probably can't tell the difference there on the camera, but what

07:28 it's showing is different heights for all of these gauges and the vehicle there as well. So,

07:34 I don't know, when you look at it for a while, it kind of makes your head hurt, so I don't know

07:37 how useful it is as a feature. Let's talk about safety tech. So you have autonomous emergency

07:41 braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection. You have a lane departure warning and a lane

07:46 keeping assistant, including a self-steering function. Traditionally, I've found with Hyundais

07:50 and Kias, this doesn't really work that well. It gets really confused with some of the lines,

07:54 especially on freeways as you have gradual turns. It sometimes sort of just pinballs between the

07:58 lines, and I just switch that stuff off. I don't really like it all that much. You have blind spot

08:03 monitoring built into that wing mirror, but in addition to that, you also have a camera that

08:08 comes on just in the driver display here, and you'll see that when we go driving. That really

08:12 gives you good visibility down the side of the car, and I think that this kind of technology is

08:16 where we can really benefit from features like 360 cameras. You've got an auto-dimming rear

08:20 vision mirror, rear cross-traffic alert, and also a junction assistant. Now, in terms of your parking,

08:25 you have front and rear parking sensors, including a 360 camera, and this is what that looks like.

08:31 It's okay. Not the best camera in the world. You can see here it's not incredibly sharp,

08:36 and some of the sort of items there look quite washed out, but you do have a number of different

08:40 views you can select to sort of increase visibility down the sides of the car. You can also

08:45 zoom in and out. Okay, quick question for you. Is Genesis a luxury brand? That's what they want

08:52 you to think, but are you convinced? Let me know down in the comments section. They share a lot of

08:57 platforms. Are you convinced that it's a luxury brand? I'm really keen to get your thoughts.

09:01 Let's talk about practicality and charging your devices. So, you have a 12-volt outlet over here,

09:06 a USB port just next to it. Let me unplug this. You also have a wireless phone charger down here,

09:12 so you just slot your phone onto the pad there, and that charges away. Another USB port inside

09:17 here as well. All USB-A ports. In terms of storage, your phone can live down there on

09:22 that wireless phone charger, or it can live quite comfortably there in the cup holders.

09:26 What about your coffee cup? It can live in here, but beware, it'll get caught by these edges. If

09:33 you have a tiny little coffee cup like I do, you might need something to prop that up. What about

09:38 your bottles? So, bottle storage, pretty straightforward. You've got teeth there,

09:42 and then storage inside the doors. You've only got enough room for one bottle, and even then,

09:45 kind of only just fits if you slide it in sideways. Centre console, reasonably sized,

09:53 not too big, not too small. Glovebox, not too bad either, and then you have storage for sunglasses

09:59 just above here. Righto, let's talk comfort. So, you have heated and cooled seats for the

10:05 front row. You have dual-zone automatic climate control, steering wheel heating.

10:09 The seats. Now, with this luxury pack, you get Nappa leather, which is why you get this sort of

10:14 beautiful setup here. Nappa leather is the type of stuff you expect to see in pretty high-end cars,

10:18 so that's nice to see that they've gone to the effort of actually fitting it here. The Luxe

10:22 pack also brings with it this suede headliner, which I think looks fantastic. In terms of the

10:27 seats themselves, they are very comfortable, and they've got a whole bunch of controls down the

10:32 side here, so you can actually move these bolsters in and out, and just like the Stinger, when you

10:36 pop it into Sport mode, it sort of hugs you in nicely and gets you ready for Attack mode.

10:40 Seats are electrically adjustable for the first row with memory for the driver. Steering wheel

10:45 is electrically adjustable, and in terms of reach of all of our controls, easy peasy.

10:52 Okay, second row. Let's start off with the coat hook, because a coat is pretty much all you can

10:58 fit in here. It's, this is actually pretty bad in terms of legroom. Actually, there is no legroom.

11:06 Toe room, there's even less toe room. It's so strange. My toes are basically, the only place

11:13 I can go is off-center, because there's a rail in the way, stopping me from actually fitting under

11:18 there. Then on top of that, the seat is so low that I can't even get my shoe under there.

11:22 So, it's pretty disappointing. In terms of my seat, yes, it is quite far back. You can see here,

11:27 when the seat's all the way forward, you get a whole lot more legroom, but it means your front

11:31 sort of passenger gets no legroom at all. So, yeah, no knee room, no toe room, headroom is okay.

11:37 We found a similar thing in the Stinger as well. They just haven't really proportioned it well,

11:42 despite how big it looks from the outside. But if you put those points to one side, you have

11:47 air vents over here, USB charging, map pockets. You get that same Nappa quilted leather,

11:53 center armrest here with two cup holders, so you can fit your bottle in there if you need to.

11:59 Slide it back up there, and then your bottle can't even fit into the door. So,

12:04 just to add to the disappointment of the second row. Now, what else have we got back here?

12:09 Suede headlining continues down the back. You have seat heating for the second row as part of that

12:14 Luxe Pack. You also have these controls to move your front passenger seat forwards and backwards

12:19 if you need to. Okay, let's talk cargo space. So, you crack the boot open by pushing that little

12:25 button just there. That opens up 330 litres of cargo space. So, it's not the most cavernous

12:30 boot in the world, but beneath the cargo floor, you have a space saver spare tyre.

12:35 Got some hooks off to the side. You can see they've tried to make this feel a little more

12:39 premium by fitting it with things like a first aid kit, warning triangle. It's all stuff that

12:43 you traditionally find in a German car. Then, in addition to that, you have a roadside assistance

12:49 kit, which includes... Let me open this up. You have a poncho, just in case it gets wet,

12:55 some fancy-looking gloves, and a towel in case it's a hot day and you're sweating. But I think

13:00 this is the look and feel they're going for. They want it to feel like a German vehicle.

13:04 Now, what does it look like with our bags in there? So, laptop bag fits there. Suitcase

13:09 fits all the way in as well. You can expand the space a little bit further by

13:15 dropping the second row. I'll show you what that looks like.

13:17 And that gives you access to a fairly flat load floor.

13:23 So, we are inside the Genesis G70. Now, I should mention that one of my favourite cars,

13:32 I guess, in the history of big sedans has always been the V8 Commodore Australian product,

13:37 and they just finished off brilliantly with an LS3-powered version, and it was just very

13:42 smile-inducing stuff. Then Kia came along and said, "Hey, we're going to produce a Stinger,

13:47 which has plenty of go rear-wheel drive sedan," and that made me just as happy.

13:51 They then added an exhaust to it to make it louder and stuff like that. So,

13:54 it is a good generation of cars. This, under the skin, if you didn't know, is basically a Kia

14:00 Stinger. They share a lot of the same components, it's the same chassis, so it is virtually a very

14:05 luxury, nice version of a Stinger. So, that means you get the same 3.3-litre, twin-turbocharged,

14:11 V6 petrol engine, makes 274 kilowatts of power and 510 newton-metres of torque,

14:17 and that's all mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission. So, the eight-speed,

14:22 we were kind of critical of that early on because it wouldn't let you do, I don't know,

14:26 high-performance driving, and we haven't had the chance to track this car yet, but given it'll be

14:30 the same gearbox, I don't know, it is one of those things that I think was a slight miss in the

14:36 Stinger's field, and that was simply the gearbox wasn't quite sharp enough or engaged enough to do

14:41 high-performance driving, and I think this is going to be the same bit. But, if you put that

14:44 to one side, it actually still has heaps of go. Here in Comfort mode, you can just lean into the

14:51 throttle and the thing just hooks up like you wouldn't believe. It has so much punch in the

14:56 mid-range, I just don't think you really need to be worried too much about a gearbox because

15:00 you're not going to be out on the track in this anyway. Let's give this a little kick here.

15:03 Yeah, look, it responds really quickly. There's not really a great deal of lag, even

15:09 if you sort of lean on that torque band, it just sort of slingshots you beautifully.

15:15 It's actually quite addictive, and you certainly feel that sort of rear-wheel-drive feel from the

15:21 back end. It squirms a little bit just as it hooks up, and I think that is an indication of

15:26 this being right near its torque limits. I think you would have to go for a grippier, wider tyre at

15:31 the rear to be able to harness any more thrust out of this engine. I think it'd send you off into the

15:36 trees if you were just a little bit too excited with it all. So, before we get stuck into the

15:40 drive modes and that kind of thing, what does the ride feel like in Comfort? What they've been able

15:45 to do here is give this a slightly more luxurious, sort of cushy feel above and beyond the Stinger.

15:52 It doesn't feel like a sporty car unless you engage the Sport mode, and I think there's a

15:57 bigger differentiation there between Comfort and Sport than there is in the Stinger. Steering feel

16:02 is good, about centre. It doesn't have a great deal of feel. It kind of feels just a little bit

16:07 numb, and I think that was always the issue with the Stinger. It had good steering feel,

16:10 but it wasn't amazing. If I compare it to the SS Commodore, for example, they really were able to

16:15 dial in some great steering feel into that car, and this kind of feels just a tiny bit underdone

16:21 in terms of what you'd expect from a big performance sedan. But, I mean, at the end of

16:25 the day, you really want to be going through these Sport modes. So, you've got Eco, Comfort,

16:29 Sport, Sport Plus and Custom. So, Sport Plus disables traction control and puts everything

16:35 into its most aggressive setting, and then I've got Custom set up to give us comfort steering,

16:40 but Sport everything else. Let's see what this exhaust sounds like.

16:44 Yeah, it's not too bad. It's not as raucous as the exhaust you can get on the Stinger.

16:53 Far out this thing absolutely hammers.

17:00 I think you could find yourself in a pretty decent degree of trouble if you overcook this.

17:08 Oh man, it absolutely goes. So, yeah, one thing I noticed just there as I grabbed the end of

17:12 first, it just pulled the next gear. It doesn't actually let you hold the gears,

17:18 which is one of my pet hates with cars like this. If I want to be in manual mode and I want to run

17:23 it right up to the limiter and I've got a corner coming up or something, don't then grab the next

17:27 gear because then there's an unnecessary gear change to come. So, that is a little bit annoying,

17:31 but if we just give this another punch. Yeah, it actually feels really good. It hooks up nicely,

17:39 yeah, like I said, I think a little bit more power and you wouldn't have enough

17:41 traction at the rear, but as it stands, this is actually really impressively done.

17:45 Righto, now what about the brakes and the handling? How does it all feel? So, the brakes are

17:52 good. So, Brembo, they have a decent amount of stopping power. As I lean into them, they're

17:59 getting progressively sort of snappier as we go. I found with the Stinger that we didn't really get

18:04 a great deal of brake fade when we had that car at the track. It was just a decent sized brake for

18:09 the engine. This takes a lot of concentration because this thing absolutely hammers.

18:15 Okay, so steering feel, yeah, not amazing as we sort of load it up through a corner,

18:19 but in terms of handling, even in the sport mode when you do have the suspension in the sport

18:24 setting, it isn't over the top. It's not too firm. It's just nice. Man, this thing is absolutely

18:32 quick. Far out. Absolutely hammers. It's deceiving how fast this is. When you really get stuck into

18:40 it, it means absolute business and it's really nice and tidy. It's not sort of midway through

18:45 the corner trying to snap out sideways. If you feed in the throttle, it's really nice and

18:48 progressive and gentle. And I know when Atco had the Stinger at the track, click up here to watch

18:53 that, when he had everything switched off, he had an absolute hoot of a time because at the back

18:58 there you've got an electronic differential lock and when that thing wants to lock up and you

19:02 feed it full torque, it will do the most epic drifts you've ever seen, especially with someone

19:06 capable behind the wheel. So if that is your thing and you want to go do some drifting, I think this

19:11 could be the car for you. Genesis says this will do 0-100 in 4.2 seconds. This is how it went when

19:17 we put it up against our stopwatch. Okay, let's go into comfort mode. We'll make it all quiet again

19:30 and let's talk about fuel economy. So the official fuel economy figure is 10.2 litres per 100km.

19:35 We're currently sitting on 14.2. Now keep in mind, before we had the car, this was on a drive loop

19:41 with one of my colleagues and he was giving a fair old hammering. So look, yes, it is going to use a

19:46 bit of fuel if you get stuck into it, but it's not over the top. I mean, with some highway driving,

19:50 this really comes down and becomes an efficient car. I know, again, I'm throwing back to the

19:54 Stinger here, but I did a long distance drive in that when we had one ages ago and it ended up

19:59 averaging like 8 litres per 100km on the freeway and I think that's pretty impressive for a Turbo

20:04 6. Now what about visibility? So at the front, it's great. I can see sort of clearly the edges

20:09 of the car. I've got a good sort of sight over that head-up display. Visibility out the sides

20:15 is pretty good. Decent size wing mirrors, blind spot monitor into there and then when I put the

20:18 indicator on, I get the camera come up as well, so you're really just covered on all bases.

20:23 And then looking out the back window, visibility is also good. It is a narrow-ish envelope,

20:28 but it's pretty easy to see out of. Now what about road noise? Yes, this is a luxury car. You

20:34 want it to be quiet and it is quiet enough. Out on course-trip roads, these tyres do attract a

20:38 fair bit of noise, but for the most part, it's nice and quiet inside the cabin. It doesn't feel

20:43 as noisy as a KIA Stinger, so I think that's a big bonus. So normally we would do the outro

20:49 outside the car, but it is way too windy and we thought we'd just do it in here instead.

20:54 So Genesis G70, what do we reckon? Look, it feels luxurious. There is absolutely no doubting it.

21:00 When you sit in here, everything feels really nice. Behind the wheel, it hammers as well. That

21:05 V6 turbo engine is an absolute pearler and this is just a proper sports sedan, so it puts a smile

21:12 on your face. That's all good. But would you buy it over a equivalent C-Class, BMW 3 Series or an

21:18 Audi A4? Well, that's the question that you need to answer and the reason I say that is you kind

21:23 of know what to expect when it comes to those other brands in terms of resale. With these guys,

21:27 you really don't know what this car is going to be worth in a few years' time. So my understanding is

21:31 they will do some kind of a future value type arrangement where you'll know for certain what

21:36 it's worth. In that case, I think it's worth the punt. I mean, it is a really nice car to drive.

21:40 It is disappointing that there is no legroom in the rear, like literally no legroom. The boot is

21:45 pretty small as well, but if you put those things to one side, they've accomplished a fair bit here

21:49 if you're willing to pay just a little bit more to have it sit between the entry level of the 3

21:54 Series and then the slots as you move your way up. So let me know what you think in the comments

21:58 section below. Would you buy one of these? Have you bought one of these? What's it been like to

22:02 live with? And if you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates

22:06 as well. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon as well.

22:09 But until next time, take it easy.

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