Proton X70 2022 review: brand new engine, same old wrapper

The car you see above is the new 2022 Proton X70, and the first thing I’m sure you’ll want to know is if little three-cylinder engine powerful enough to move this big SUV. I’ll just stop you right there: it is. But wait, don’t go yet – there’s so much more to this engine than that.

Let’s be honest, you’re not here for the design changes or the new wheels. No, you’re here for the engine – a 1.5-litre turbocharged three-cylinder from Geely, derived from the smaller X50. It may not look like much, but this engine is probably the most important one for Proton since the CamPro was introduced back in 2004. But we’ll get to that in a moment – for now, you want to know about the performance.

Yes, the headlines are true – this is the same engine you’ll find in the plug-in hybrid Volvo XC40 Recharge T5. But whereas that car adds an electric motor on top, in this one the three-pot (together with the existing seven-speed wet dual-clutch transmission, also shared with the Swedish SUV) provides power all on its own. And it makes a decent amount of power – 175 hp, to be exact, from the direct-injected version of this mill. That’s 6 hp less than the old 1.8-litre four-cylinder made, but you’re not really going to notice that.

What will be noticeable is the torque, which has dropped from 300 Nm to 255 Nm. That’s the bit that worries me – if you want to move a big car, you need big torque. Proton says that peak torque is produced lower down, and that, coupled with the weight saved by having one fewer cylinder, should be enough to make up for that loss.

But it’s not just the relative paucity of twist that has us concerned – the greatest strength of the outgoing X70 was its ability to trounce cars twice, even three times the price in terms of refinement and comfort. Three-cylinder engines, on the other hand, are known to be so uncouth that they would basically rattle the fillings out of your teeth. Proton, however, is confident that the work it, Geely and Volvo have done has been effective enough for you not to notice the difference – so much so, in fact, that it sent us on a 477 km trip with to Desaru, giving us plenty of time to test out the company’s claims.

Right off the bat, one thing is clear – the X70 has lost none of its ability to isolate its occupants from the unpleasantness of internal combustion. The latest model remains remarkably free of vibration and, at a cruise, is so quiet to the point of being almost inaudible. This despite the fact that three-cylinder engines are inherently unbalanced.

By the layout’s very nature, one cylinder will always be out of sync with the other two, causing the engine to rock about. Those of you who have driven a Perodua Kancil in driving school will know what this feels like, and even the company’s latest three-pot products like the Ativa SUV exhibit the same issue.

To solve this, Geely and Volvo’s engineers added balance shafts. These are two rods with eccentric weights that are connected to the crankshaft and rotate in opposite directions – counteracting the forces coming from the pistons and crankshaft and hence, smoothing out the engine’s vibrations. Other improvements include a noise-insulating soft polyurethane engine cover that’s exclusive to the three-cylinder models; the four-pot retains its hard cover.

The result is profound. Even at idle – when three-cylinder engines are at their most rattly – the X70 is buttery smooth, and this continues once you get up to speed. This is accompanied by very low noise levels all around, except when you bury your right foot; even then, the thrummy engine note is much more entertaining than the the four-cylinder’s characterless drone. If I had to guess, the new car might be ever so slightly louder than the old one, but most people won’t actually notice.

The only issue that I can see in the long run is that a lot of these refinement measures – such as the X70’s trick engine mounts – may wear out over time, causing the engine’s vibrations to make their way back into the cabin. We’ll have to wait and see if customers have any complaints in the long run.

What about performance? Well, when you’re driving it normally the X70 feels very similar to before. Under partial throttle the car still responds quickly to your inputs, getting you up to speed very easily. I mean, it’s a turbocharged engine, what else were you expecting?

It’s when you floor the throttle that the news isn’t so rosy. Next to the old 1.8-litre model, the 1.5-litre version feels a trite sluggish and doesn’t give you quite the same shove in the back. Yes, peak torque is made lower down, but we’re only talking about a difference of 250 rpm (1,500 versus 1,750 rpm), which isn’t much.

And even with the 43 kg weight saving over the four-cylinder model, the car still gets from zero to 100 km/h three tenths of a second slower at 9.8 seconds. I mean, Proton itself is still selling the 1.8-litre version and is actually positioning it as the top-of-the-line model, so clearly the company knows there’s a noticeable difference.

The lack of torque is compounded by the gearbox. This isn’t the kind of DCT that gives you Volkswagen DSG-style lightning-fast shifts; it prefers to chill out, take its sweet time to downshift – a bit like an old-school automatic. It’s very happy to stay in the same gear and let you ride the wave of turbo torque; the problem is, you have 45 Nm less to ride on, so it doesn’t feel as effortless. The car also judders slightly when lightly accelerating from a stop, as if it’s struggling to move a little. Still, it’s not like a dry-clutch Volkswagen Polo with a busted clutch – it’s nowhere near as bad.

I’m nitpicking here, of course. The difference between the 1.5-litre and the 1.8-litre model is only noticeable if you’ve spent a lot of time in the previous model – as I have, because my mother has one. If you have not tried the old X70 before, I don’t think you’ll have many complaints.

Other than the new engine, this just feels like any other X70 to drive. There are no suspension changes, so the car still feels quite soft and the steering quite vague. Okay, there’s a decent amount of grip, even on this front-wheel-drive model (and yes, you can get all-wheel drive again, still strangely limited to the mid-spec Executive variant), but this is still nowhere near a sporty SUV.

The benefit of all this softness is that the ride is super comfortable. It absorbs the bumps but, crucially, it doesn’t bounce around when you’re going quickly – it just feels very composed. It’s also very quiet, with hardly any road or wind noise to speak of. All this gives the X70 the coveted ‘big car’ feel that made it such a popular buy in the first place.

It’s at this juncture that I want to tell you why this new engine is so important to Proton. You see, the 1.8-litre four-cylinder might still be fairly new to us, but it’s already nearing the end of its life in China. Yes, it remains a modern engine – it too is turbocharged and direct injected, and it makes a lot of power – but it’s reached its maximum potential.

The 1.5-litre engine is different: it’s jointly developed by Geely and Volvo (as is the DCT), supports electrification and is capable of meeting the latest Euro 6 emissions standards. Proton also says the new mill is 7% more efficient than the old 1.8-litre unit, with a fuel consumption figure of 7.4 litres per 100 km. That doesn’t sound like a big improvement, but at a time when the government is considering targeted fuel subsidies, every little bit helps.

Most importantly, this engine is the future for Proton. Yes, it’s not great that the future of Proton is an internal combustion engine and not an electric car, but I digress. This three-pot is being built at the company’s own Tanjung Malim plant; Malaysia is the first factory to produce the engine outside of China. Apparently, this power plant will eventually be rolled out across the entire Proton lineup to replace the old CamPro mill. This engine could end up in the next Saga.

Which is why it’s so frustrating that the X70 looks exactly the same as before – it isn’t readily apparent that this is the brand new era for Proton. All the designers did was slather some black paint to a few exterior bits and called it a day. You do get different wheels, but the 19-inch rollers fitted to the Premium variants were already fitted to last year’s SE, so they aren’t exactly new.

Inside, you get black headlining and…that’s it. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a nice and spacious interior that (mostly) looks and feels expensive, coming with extremely comfortable seats wrapped in soft Nappa leather. It’s also well equipped, available with dual-zone climate control, powered and ventilated seats, a hands-free powered tailgate and a cool (if rather useless) three-dimensional 360-degree camera system.

But it’s all still the same – the gently undulating dashboard, three-spoke steering wheel and cheap-feeling silver dash trim are identical to what you got before, and everything’s starting to look dated. It’s been four years, man, come on.

That eight-inch touchscreen that seemed huge all those years ago is now tiny. In China, you can have now have the Geely version, the Boyue, with a 12.3-inch display, but not here. And it’s still using the same old GKUI interface, which was a little slow to respond even back then. Yes, it comes with “Hi Proton” voice control, which is still a neat trick to show off to your friends, but there isn’t actually much you can do with it.

The seven-inch instrument cluster, on the other hand, is just awful with its low resolution, lack of contrast and mid-2000s-era graphics. And to this day I still can’t wrap my head around the steering wheel controls – why on Earth do I have to perform the Konami code with the indicator stalk button and volume rocker just to change the most basic of functions? I’m surprised more X70s haven’t crashed.

Thankfully, Proton has since confirmed that the X70 will get the new ATLAS OS currently offered on the Iriz, Persona and, now, the X50. What it hasn’t confirmed is whether the change would require hardware changes, so it’s unclear if the existing cars that customers have will be able to support it.

The safety features are also quite outdated now. You do get autonomous emergency braking, lane departure warning and blind spot monitoring, but those are only fitted to the most expensive Premium versions. Worse still, the AEB doesn’t detect pedestrians, there’s no stop and go function for the cruise control and there’s also no lane centring assist, so this car doesn’t do Level 2 semi-autonomous driving.

These things are all fitted to the X50…which is cheaper than this car. Think about that for a second – this is the most expensive Proton you can buy, and you don’t get the features of a car that costs around RM20,000 less. That’s insane.

I’m conflicted with this car. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic effort to make a three-cylinder X70 feel almost exactly the same as the four-cylinder one. And four years on, this is still a great SUV, especially if you want that premium feel and driving experience on the cheap. I should point out, however, that it is a few thousand ringgit more expensive than before, ranging from RM98,800 for the base model to RM128,800 for the most expensive Premium variant with the 1.8-litre engine. By comparison, the old model cost between RM94,800 and RM122,800 before the sales and service tax (SST) rebate.

The problem is, the rest of the car is too much the same. Us Malaysians have had to watch on as Geely added update after update to the Boyue. Okay, maybe Proton can’t afford to facelift the X70 that many times, but one or two new bits would’ve kept the car at least vaguely up to date.

We spoke to Proton about this and the company says it doesn’t have the sales volume to justify investing in any meaningful changes. That’s all fair enough – we’ll never have the market volume that China has. But I’m still not buying it: Proton claims to be the SUV leader and there’s a long waiting list to this day, so surely it has the volume for at least a couple of upgrades. This, to me, is just disappointing.

But the new engine does give us a tantalising taste of what’s next for Proton. Yes, not all of us can afford a RM120,000 SUV, but a car at half that price? Now that would be interesting. Either way, it’s going to be an exciting few years ahead.

This car, though? A good effort, but also a bit of a wasted opportunity.

Related

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