Articles by Keith Didham

Think of affordable sportscars under $80,000 and what models come to mind? Nissan's 350Z, Mazda's RX-8, Alfa Romeo's GT or Brera — or perhaps the Chrysler Crossfire.But there's one missing from the list — and it comes loaded with equipment, looks good and has a tiny $34,990 price tag.Hyundai's ageing Tiburon. around in this form since 2001, has been a bit of a Cinderella in this market and sales haven't exactly set the market alight. Why? It beats me, but Korean-built cars are still perceived as lacking emotion — and, let's face it, the very name Tiburon doesn't quite have the cachet of its rivals.And until now the V6 Tib hasn't quite delivered in terms of the raw power and seat-of-the pants handling expected of a real sportscar.Hyundai has set out to change all that with a revamped and slightly restyled version of the coupe now on sale. Its somewhat dated muscular styling has been given a facelift. Hyundai lovingly describes the styling as “sensuous”. I wouldn't go that far, but Tiburon does turn heads.It's a big solid coupe for two — it has four seats but the rear is, in practical terms, generally off-limits to adults although bearable for short trips. At least you can flip the rear seat backs to stretch what is already a massive load area under the deep opening tailgate.The cockpit, which is bathed at night in disco blue lights, is thoroughly modern and works well, thanks to well-designed controls and instruments. The Tiburon's big appeal, however, is its value for money and it's backed by an industry-leading five-year unlimited warranty.There's plenty of standard kit for the money, including extensive safeties like stability and traction control, multiple airbags and smart anti-lock brakes.You can also tick the boxes for alloy wheels, automatic air conditioning (with pollen filtering), an audio system that accepts MP3 players, cruise control, leather steering wheel, remote locking with alarm, trip computer and electrics for the windows and mirrors. And there's plenty of other neat stuff as well, like a retractable cup-holder cooled by the air conditioning system, sun visors that can be extended to fully cover the windscreen, a purpose-built holder for a mobile phone, a tray in the spare wheel to store anything wet and loads of storage bins and pockets.The driver's seat has manual height/tilt adjustment, which is a bit downmarket nowadays, but the passenger seat at least has a memory setting and returns to its position after you fold it to get the kids into the back seat. There's still no reach adjustment for the steering wheel and the doors are heavy to open but at least they shut with a reassuring clunk rather than a tinny clang.The big changes for the latest Tiburon are hidden under the sleek skin. Hyundai has answered critics of the previous model, which was a tad nervous under cornering, by tinkering with the suspension geometry. The car no longer feels as though it's going to bite you on the bum mid-corner and sits flatter into the curves, while the steering feels sharper, especially in turn-in.Power comes from a sedate 2.7-litre V6 with 123kW of power and 245Nm of torque. The six-speed manual is the version to go for and offers short-throw shifting, but the sequential auto is still very likeable.Hyundai quotes a 0-100km/h sprint time of a leisurely 8.2 seconds but remember this car weighs in at more than 1400kg. Keep the revs up to ride the torque wave and the car can be rewarding to drive.You'd expect a car like this to be thirsty but fuel consumption isn't too bad. Official figures are 10.2L/100km for the auto and 10.3L/100km for the manual on standard unleaded, but I couldn't get anywhere near those figures.The six-speed manual is $34,990, the four-speed sequential auto $36,780 and a powered sunroof adds $1500.Hyundai also launched a limited edition version called the TS — only 62 were imported but they are available on order — that has its own blue paintwork, sunroof, leather upholstery and badging, for $37,590 for the manual and $39,380 for the automatic.

Mazda this week added more features to its revamped Mazda6 lineup while lowering the price, which Mazda says gives it more value for money.The sedan, hatch and wagon have been rebadged to come in Sports, Classic Sports and Diesel variants. The former slow-selling Limited version which was the entry level to the Mazda6 sedan range has been dropped. There have been no changes to the all-wheel drive model, the MPS.The entry model is now the Sports, priced from $28,990 for the six-speed manual sedan. It replaces the old Classic that sold for $31,980.New trim, alloy wheels and a rear spoiler on all but the wagon versions have been added to its already comprehensive equipment list that includes six air bags, a six-stack CD player, auto air conditioning and remote locking.Next comes the Classic Sports ($39,990), which replaces the old Luxury Sports ($40,955). It adds dynamic stability control and comes with bigger wheels, sunroof, leather seats, Bose sound system and power-adjustable driver's seat.The turbocharged Diesel wagon and hatch have similar equipment levels to the Sports and will sell from $35,205.The biggest-selling feature is fuel consumption — a claimed 5.9 litres per 100km for a mix of city and highway driving, giving it a potential 1000km range on a single tank of fuel.

So the latest findings by the University of Melbourne will come as a shock. The university's Business School surveyed 2000 car owners to rate how well they would recommend their cars to friends.The survey was based on a system called the net promoter score (NPS).German marques came out the winners ahead of Japanese carmakers such as Subaru, Toyota and Honda.The Australians - Mitsubishi, Ford and Holden were a poor third. It's an interesting result considering Holden and Ford are two of this country's biggest sellers.Study leader, associate professor Mark Ritson, says it pinpoints which cars deliver the best overall customer experience.He says the best performer was BMW with a score of 59, followed by Volkswagen with a ranking of 47. Audi, which has spent big money on its revival in Australia, scored 45, finishing ahead of Mercedes-Benz on 39.Mitsubishi and Holden both scored in the red, with a minus 16; Ford was worse, scoring a minus 25.Ritson says more than half of the owners of the four leading German marques are "promoters". They will actively encourage others to buy the brand and are more likely to buy their next car or a second car from the same brand."Perhaps even more impressive is the remarkably low number of detractors that these brands have," he says. "More than a third of Holden drivers are detractors and they will spread an enormous amount of negative word-of-mouth about their car. Contrast that with either BMW or VW which have almost no detractors to speak off. Their whole customer base is either passive or a promoter of the brand."It's important in a category such as automotive to recognise the crucial importance of low numbers of detractors for a brand. Detractors spread more than 80 per cent of the word-of-mouth on a brand."We are much more likely to tell our friends bad things about our products than the good things. For a big social purchase such as a new car, this can have a major impact on sales."The study provides depressing reading for Australian producers. Mitsubishi, Holden and Ford all posted dire results, he says. The bottom-ranked brand was Saab."There are many potential explanations for this position, but perhaps the most likely is that Saab's operations in Australia are handled by Holden," Ritson says. "This is a company that struggles to generate positive NPS for its own brand, and is probably too busy and too distracted with this mission to successfully manage an additional brand."The NPS is based on analysing the results from a single key question: How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or a colleague?The NPS is calculated by measuring the difference between the percentage of customers who give high responses (promoters) and those who give low ones (detractors). Customers who scored in the middle are deemed passively satisfied and are not calculated in the final score.