2023 Cupra Formentor (inc. 0-100km/h & braking) review

CarExpert

Cupra is a new brand to Australia - is it worth checking out? Paul Maric gets behind the wheel of the 2023 Cupra Formentor VZx to see if it's worth all the hype!  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More Cupra content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/cupra More Cupra Formentor content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/cupra/formentor  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:51 Interior 03:14 Infotainment 04:35 Safety Tech 06:25 Practicality 07:22 On the Road 10:37 Driver Aids 16:24 Performance 17:53 Verdict 19:52  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  #cupra #formentor #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So one of the newest brands to Australia is a brand called Cupra.

00:04 Look at that logo, it looks very scary. This here is the 4Mentor, which is

00:09 obviously an SUV, but the top spec is like a sporty version of the 4Mentor.

00:14 This is called the VZX. This competes with things like the Volkswagen T-Roc R,

00:19 Audi SQ2 and stuff like the Hyundai Kona N. It's about SUVs that just want to go

00:26 fast and hard. So this is priced at just under $65,000. If that's too expensive,

00:31 the entire 4Mentor range kicks off at just under $50,000. Today we're going to do a

00:35 detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this

00:38 review, you can use the time codes on the screen. If you're on YouTube, you can

00:41 scroll down and use the chapters below, and if you haven't done so already,

00:44 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. That way you'll find out every

00:48 single time we drive a white car. Now let's talk about colors. You've got nine

00:53 exterior colors to pick from. Four of those are standard, three are optional,

00:57 and then you also have two matte colors as well. It's all variant dependent, so

01:01 you'll be able to get some on some variants and some on others. Now the

01:05 design. This looks sensational. When I saw this in the car park at work for the

01:10 first time, I was like, "Holy crap, this is like, the design is just on point." This

01:14 looks so much sharper than any other SUV in this segment, and I don't know, to me

01:19 it looks from a distance like it is worth far more than the actual price tag

01:23 suggests. So, big fan of that. Down the front here, I love what they've done with

01:27 that logo too. This is kind of a startup brand for the Volkswagen Group, so

01:32 they've gone a little edgy there in terms of the way everything appears here,

01:35 and I think that it is, yeah, it is just a very cool looking setup. So, a lot of

01:39 piano black around here, and the bottom section as well. Radar down the bottom

01:43 there. Our slimline number plates look kind of weird here, given there's such a

01:47 big gap there, but yeah, you'd probably get a Europlate or something if you were

01:51 buying one of these. Camera nestled in there as well for the 360 camera. Over

01:55 here on the headlights, you have full LED headlights with an LED fog light just

01:59 beneath it there. Functional air vent there as well, or air vents rather, which is cool.

02:04 Now, around the side here, you've got a set of 19-inch alloy wheels. Really like

02:10 this design as well. Have a look at that. It's just a, I don't know, I love the fact

02:14 that they've integrated that sort of, that rose gold colour into there as well,

02:17 and the matte finish on the wheel. Cooper brakes there. Now, you can actually get

02:22 this with optional Brembo brakes as well if you want to go to town on stopping

02:26 power, so you do have a lot of availability there if you do want to

02:29 actually do something sporty with your car. A little bit of wheel arch cladding

02:33 there as well. You're not going to be going off-road, it only has a ground

02:35 clearance of around 160mm, but the intention is there nevertheless. You have a

02:39 camera built into here, you have a puddle lamp there as well, and in addition to

02:44 that you have an indicator built into that wing mirror. Nice and sleek looking

02:47 wing mirror too. Black around the edges here. Roof rails there, and then come

02:51 around to the back with me. You also have LED tail lights here as well, which look

02:55 pretty cool. VZ badge there, and then you also have CUPRA there with that logo as

03:01 well, with kind of like a faux carbon set up on there too, which is nice. Piano

03:05 black down the bottom there, and then this grey section here as well. So, let me

03:09 know what you reckon about the design. Do you think it looks good? I think it looks

03:12 fantastic, so let me know in the comment section below. So, we are inside the

03:15 4Mintor. We'll start off with the key. So, you've got lock, boot, unlock, and on the

03:20 back you've got the CUPRA logo. It's like a grippy material with a metal sort of

03:25 edge to it. It's a proximity sensing key, so you leave that in your pocket, and

03:29 then have a look at this. The start button is here on the steering wheel. How

03:31 sporty is that? So, yeah, in terms of the design, I really like the look of this. So,

03:36 you get a big infotainment screen there that I'll run you through in a second.

03:39 It's a bit hard to see on camera, but all of the highlights here, like the seats and

03:43 these side panels on the doors, are all like a dark blue, and that continues up

03:47 along the dashboard there as well. It's just really nicely presented. It is a bit

03:51 scratchy down the sides here, but outside of that it kind of looks pretty nice. I

03:55 love the seats, like they just look sensational. You've got this extruded

03:59 CUPRA logo at the top there, and they just really hug you in quite nicely. So,

04:04 we'll see what they're like when we go for a bit of a spin, but yeah, on first

04:06 impression all of this looks fantastic. Now, what about your touch points? So,

04:11 that's not too bad there. Not too bad on the door as well. How soft are they? We've

04:16 got our durometer. We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to

04:19 see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the

04:22 link in the description below. Alright, build quality, that is all very nice and

04:28 solid at our door slam test. And just for fun, yeah, sounds nice and solid. So, let's

04:35 talk about infotainment. It is a big impressive screen. Look at it sitting up

04:39 the top there. So, 12 inches in size. You don't actually have any physical buttons

04:43 though. You do have this stuff underneath. I'm not a huge fan of this, and I've mentioned

04:47 this before in Volkswagen reviews, that having to slide your finger around this

04:51 stuff is just a bit clumsy. You can go to the screen and do it here as well, but

04:57 one of those things that would just be good if there was just physical buttons

05:02 here. Same story with the volume, you can slide your finger along there, or use

05:05 the steering wheel, but no sort of physical knob to make it all happen.

05:08 Outside of that though, it is a pretty good infotainment system. So, you have

05:11 inbuilt satellite navigation. You also have the ability to configure all of

05:16 these displays to show different things. So, you can set all your shortcuts down the

05:19 bottom here. It also has gesture control, so as you get closer to the screen, you can

05:23 swipe your hand across like that. Actually, it doesn't work too bad. Sometimes

05:27 these things don't really work that well, but it's all sort of pretty

05:30 straightforward. In terms of smartphone connectivity, you have both Apple CarPlay

05:33 and Android Auto. This is what Apple CarPlay looks like. It's entirely wireless,

05:38 nice and quick and snappy there as well, and this is Android Auto. So, this is also

05:44 wireless, full-screen integration there, nice and quick as well. On the radio

05:50 front, you have AM and FM radio, but if I go over here to the sound system, and we

05:58 put some music on, you don't actually have digital radio, which I find really

06:03 strange. It's only AM and FM, so it's a little bit disappointing, but you do have

06:08 a nine-speaker Beats-branded sound system that isn't too bad. There is also

06:13 a display here ahead of the driver. You can configure a lot of stuff in here as

06:17 well, which is great. So, you can flick between different screen menus there. You

06:20 can then configure everything that you can see in there as well, so it should be

06:23 a bit of fun to play with when we actually go for a drive. Now, let's talk

06:26 safety tech. So, you've got autonomous emergency braking. You have an auto

06:31 dimming rear vision mirror. You've got a blind spot monitor built into this

06:34 little lit up section up the front here. You also have front and rear parking

06:40 sensors. You have rear cross-traffic alert. You have a lane departure warning with a

06:44 lane-keeping assistant. We'll have a little play with this later on, along

06:48 with radar cruise control. You've got a 360 camera as well. I'll show you what that

06:51 looks like in terms of the quality. There it is there. Quality is really not great.

06:56 It's a bit sort of grainy. Let's have a look at the back. You can read what it says

07:00 there, but yeah, you can see it's super grainy around there. But, you do get a

07:03 number of these little views which do come in handy, which is great. You also

07:06 have a semi-autonomous parking feature there as well. Trailer view, which is cool.

07:12 What else have we got here? And then an ultra-wide angle as well. So, yeah, not a bad

07:16 setup there for parking. I think camera quality could just be slightly better.

07:19 And this is what the horn sounds like. What about your practicality? And we'll

07:24 start off with connectivity. So, you've got two USB C ports down the front here.

07:27 You've got a wireless phone charger. 12-volt outlet snuck into there. In terms

07:32 of storing your phone, you can kind of pop it anywhere. You can live down there

07:35 on that wireless charger. It doesn't quite fit into there, but it does fit into

07:39 your cup holders and stuff. What about your coffee cups? So, here's our little

07:44 coffee cup. I've actually got a small sized hole up the back there, so you can

07:49 fit that in. If you go down the front there, you'll end up getting de-lidded.

07:52 The bottle fits in nicely as well without any problem. There are no teeth, but

07:56 because it is a deep hole, it sort of swallows it nicely. Fits inside the door

08:00 as well. We'll try our big bottle. Yes, that fits in as well, which is excellent

08:05 news. In terms of other storage, you have a center console here that's okay. It's

08:10 not huge. That does slide front and back. And then you also have a reasonably

08:16 sized glove box there with a very randomly big section up the top there.

08:20 Moving on to comfort, you have dual zone automatic climate control. You've got

08:25 heated seats here for the front row. You have a heated steering wheel. In terms of

08:29 seat adjustment, you have electric seat adjustment for the driver, manual for the

08:33 passenger. Driver can go forwards, backwards. Macrest can go forwards,

08:37 backwards. You can lift the front of the seat, the back of the seat. You also have

08:40 lumbar adjustment and memory as well. Seats are super comfy. Just have a look at

08:46 them. They just hug you in really nicely. The steering wheel sits nicely in the

08:49 hand as well with a flat bottom on it. It's got paddle shifters there too. Steering

08:53 offers both tilt and reach adjustment. And on our reach test, all of this stuff

08:59 is easy to reach while you're driving. Now, second row. I'm actually surprised by

09:03 the amount of room here. Normally with big sports seats like this, they eat into

09:06 legroom for the second row. But this is actually not that bad and I've got the

09:10 seat pretty far back. So, knee room's good, toe room's good, headroom is good as well.

09:15 In terms of creature comforts back here, you've got mat pockets in the back of the

09:18 seats, a third zone of climate control, two USB-C ports with air vents, center armrest

09:24 here with three cup holders. So, you've got one up the front there, a smaller one at the

09:29 back and then a little piccolo holder there as well. You also have a skim port

09:33 here in the center to give you access to the rear as required. You've got ISOfix

09:38 points on the two outboard seats with top tether points as well. Now, what about

09:43 our window test? Let's see if it goes down. So, it's auto up and down. So close to going

09:49 all the way down. Okay, cargo space, let's have a little look. So, you have 420 litres

09:57 available here. It's actually not a bad setup. It's quite wide. You have this high

10:01 boot lid but it does store things in there and stops it from falling out if you're on

10:05 an incline. Under here, you've got a space saver spare. This is where they integrate

10:09 the subwoofer as well. A bit of storage up to the side there too, some hooks as well.

10:15 Show you what it looks like with our bags in there. So, let's see if our suitcase fits

10:18 this way. Not quite but you can go sideways and it still affords you a fair bit of room.

10:25 Now, you can also drop the second row from the back which is good. You flick these

10:30 levers, away that goes, away that goes as well. We don't have a figure for your bigger

10:34 boot space but it is a fairly handy storage space.

10:38 So, we've just hit the road in the Ford Mentor. It's worth pointing out that these

10:44 are closely related to SEATs and SEATs are within the Volkswagen group which is why you'll

10:50 notice a whole stack of stuff that we talk about here is probably going to be fairly

10:55 common to other vehicles in the Volkswagen group. So, the engine, 2.0-litre turbocharged

11:01 four-cylinder petrol engine makes 228 kilowatts of power and 400 newton-metres of torque which

11:08 is a fairly healthy number for a pint-sized little thing like this and that's all routed

11:14 through an all-wheel drive system. So, it's one of those ones that predominantly sends

11:18 torque to the front wheels but can send torque to the rear wheels when there is slip on that

11:22 axle. Now, it is interesting as we're sort of driving along here, I did notice at low

11:25 speeds there it is just a little bit clunky and that is that standard dual clutch setup

11:32 and under the bonnet there you've got a seven-speed dual clutch. When I roll onto the throttle

11:35 it kind of has to slip the clutch a little bit and then it has to start getting moving.

11:41 You're going to notice it most when you are reversing up hills and that kind of thing.

11:44 A lot of brands are moving away from dual clutch transmissions and I'm wondering whether

11:48 Volkswagen's going to end up doing the same because ultimately I think a torque converter

11:52 is a much smoother option and I know that they use these for fuel efficiency but ultimately

11:57 it is just going to be a better option if you do want that comfort behind the wheel.

12:00 OK, let's talk fuel economy. So, CUPRA claims just under 8 litres per 100 k's. We are currently

12:07 sitting on 10.9 so significantly more than that and that's been with a mix of city, highway

12:14 and then driving here at the proving ground. So, it is a little higher than I thought it

12:19 was going to be. It's not the end of the world given this is a sportier vehicle but, yeah,

12:23 a little bit higher than I thought it was going to be.

12:26 Now, what does all that feel like behind the wheel? Let's give it a little stab here. Yeah,

12:33 it's really good. Look, 400 newton metres of torque is a really nice and healthy amount.

12:36 It means that you really are going to feel it when you do get stuck into it. You can

12:40 sort of use the paddle shifters here as well to move through those gears if you want and

12:45 then in addition to that you also have a sport mode that you access just by pulling that

12:48 down and you can see changes to sport mode down the bottom.

12:51 Okay, time to attack our sine waves here in comfort. Jack the speed up to 130 k's an

12:57 hour which is the maximum speed limit in Australia and about the speed you're going to be doing

13:03 if you're overtaking and that kind of thing. So, there we are there. Here comes our sine

13:08 waves. Oh, it's great. That is really, really impressive. So, this car uses adaptive damping

13:14 so they really have sort of calibrated that beautifully because when you're in and around

13:18 the city and even on these sort of country roads it is soaking bumps up beautifully.

13:23 It is on the firmer side of comfortable but it really isn't over the top. It's really

13:27 quite nice and comfortable. So, done a good job with that and with the adaptive damping

13:31 it means when you are in comfort you're getting the benefit of a really nice ride without

13:35 it being too intrusive when you hit those bumps.

13:37 And we've got our really bumpy, nasty road section here where you get to see all of my

13:43 man, boob related items shaking around. We do this at 90 k's an hour. This represents

13:49 a terrible country road and we've got our condensed sine wave here as well. Yeah, it's

13:56 actually doing a really nice job here. So, this is an absolutely appalling road but like

14:01 I said it is on the firmer side of comfortable but it is soaking up everything really nicely.

14:05 So, yeah, it's a very impressive ride and handling tune.

14:12 Now let's go for a bit of a drive. So, the button here on the steering wheel lets you

14:15 switch between your drive modes. You've got individual, sport, comfort, off-road. I reckon

14:20 we'll go to Cupra. That is the sportier of the settings. It turns engine sound on, I

14:27 like that. Puts it into sport mode.

14:35 Oh look, it's actually not too bad. Yeah, the sport mode, the noise that's coming into

14:42 the cabin is pretty cool. Sort of not over the top. The ride gets significantly firmer

14:47 in sport mode. Sorry, in Cupra mode. Actually, wow. Quite impressed by this. It is moving

14:55 along with a fair bit of pace and it's got stacks of traction as well. You can lean on

14:59 the throttle through these faster corners. And it's pinning us nicely back into the seats

15:04 and the brakes don't feel amazing.

15:06 I think this is probably where if you're going to be doing any track driving or anything

15:15 like that, you want to be going down the path of the optional Brembo braking system. But

15:21 outside of that, this thing is absolutely hammering. I'm really impressed by this.

15:26 So, we're going in. Wow, it is stacking on that speed. That is bloody good. Very impressive.

15:35 It does sound like there's a fair bit of road noise in here and I'll have to look at our

15:41 figures once we log on our calibrated sound meter. But yeah, I think there is a fair bit

15:46 of noise coming in through the cabin here, especially on these coarse chip sections of

15:49 country road.

15:50 Now let's talk about visibility. It's a really interesting driving position. You sit quite

15:55 low even though it's an SUV and the bonnet sits quite high. So you're in a position where

16:00 you kind of feel like you're in a hatchback but are looking sort of down the front there,

16:05 which I really like. And yeah, the steering feels really nice when you're going through

16:08 it as well. Visibility out the side is good. The wing mirrors are big enough. Visibility

16:12 out the back isn't great. It's a very narrow envelope. But outside of that, you've got

16:16 all your parking sensors and cameras and stuff to make parking pretty straightforward.

16:24 So, let's do some testing of the semi-autonomous systems here. I'm going to set the cruise

16:29 control at 70km/h. And then once it's set, we're going to put this travel assist feature

16:39 on which is designed to keep the car within its lane. We're going to test our three outer

16:45 lanes. So this one, the next one and then the furthest banked lane. Whole concept here

16:50 is that if a car is able to hold itself within the lane and apply enough torque, it's probably

16:55 going to do the same out on the road as well. So lane one here, everything looks pretty

16:59 good. Sort of staying over to the left a bit, but sort of doing an okay job. Jump over to

17:05 this next one. Let's see what it's like here. So that's now active. It looks like it's basically

17:13 just trying to keep you away from the line as opposed to centred. So it is doing an okay

17:18 job there because we haven't crossed the line yet. Some of the systems we've tested before

17:22 that are actually meant to keep you centred have crossed the line entirely. So it's okay

17:26 there for that second lane. We'll try this top lane. We have had issues here with Volkswagen

17:31 group vehicles before, but this looks like it's working fine. I'll just let go of that

17:36 wheel. It's crossing the line there, so it's not really interested in applying enough torque

17:42 to make that happen. So yeah, it's a pass in lane one and two and a fail for lane three

17:46 there. I think it probably needs a proper semi-autonomous steering function to work

17:51 in this type of testing.

17:53 Okay, let's do some performance testing. So I'll slot this back into Cupra mode. I'm going

18:00 to set the stability control to ESC sport so we get a bit of slip off the line. Now

18:05 Cupra claims a 0 to 100 time of just under five seconds. So I'm going to give this a

18:09 crack with launch control and we'll see how it goes. So launch control is pretty straightforward.

18:14 Foot is on the brake, hard on the throttle, it'll say launch active and then we let go

18:18 of the brake and away we go. So here it is, launch active, let go of the brake. Oh, that

18:23 is good. Go all the way through to 120 as well. Wow. This thing is bloody quick. All

18:31 right, we'll come to a stop and we'll have a look at our performance figures. That is

18:35 impressive. It really pins you back in the seat there. I wasn't expecting that. So 0

18:40 to 100 comes in at 4.94 seconds, so pretty much bang on the money. 80 to 120, 3.2 seconds.

18:49 That is seriously quick. Very, very impressive there. All right, let's go do a break from

18:55 100 k's an hour and see how quickly this pulls up for us. Okey dokey, let's get up to 100

19:00 k's an hour and we'll come to a stop and see how that goes. 90, there's 100, here we go.

19:17 So 100 to 0, 2.64 seconds and 36.17 metres. That is unreal. So yeah, look, some really

19:23 impressive figures there. If you do want to see how the Cupra 4 Mentor compares to other

19:28 cars that we've tested before in terms of performance figures, have a look at the link

19:30 in the description below. We're slowly building that page up, but we'll give you an idea of

19:34 how it performs. And now, time for our reverse acceleration test. Here we go, we're in reverse.

19:40 It starts off quickly and then it caps out there at 32 kilometres an hour.

19:47 Okay, so Cupra 4 Mentor. This is probably one of, I don't know, the most surprising

19:57 cars I've driven this year. It is just such an exciting package. It hammers harder than

20:02 I thought it was going to hammer. It's got plenty of room inside, lots of the latest

20:05 tech and it looks absolutely sensational. So it is expensive, I think, when you look

20:11 at how much you're going to pay for this. It is really getting up there and that's for

20:15 a brand that you may not have ever heard of before. So you are going to be paying for

20:18 it, but ultimately if this had literally any other badge, you'd be like, "Oh my god,

20:22 this is such a good all-rounder." So I really did struggle to find any downsides with it.

20:27 So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below. Have you driven one of these?

20:30 How did it go? Did you enjoy it? I'm keen for your feedback. Let me know your thoughts.

20:35 If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you share it with your mates. And if you haven't

20:38 done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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