When I finished paying for my current car, the trusty old Alza, I thought that’s it. I won’t be paying for another car installment ever again. Or even if I do, it’s gonna be for a smaller car, the one that I can drive around to pick up the kids from school or bring to work when the sun don’t shine. My wife however had other ideas and that’s how we ended up getting the Proton X50 as our brand new car.
My first car was a Proton, the old clunky
Savvy. It didn’t take long for the car to screw up, within the first week in fact when the gear system went wonky. After that and numerous other problems later, I’m having trust issues with all Proton-made cars. So how come I bought another Proton anyway? Originally, we wanted to get another 7-seater for our big family. All 6 of us couldn’t possibly fit in a regular 5 seater in the long run. But then our choices were pretty limited. The Aruz from Perodua was one that we had in mind but we agreed that the design was not to our liking. Another car that caught our eyes was the Toyota Rush. 7-seater but frankly speaking, was a tad over our budget. Then why the heck that we ultimately chose the X50?
The reason was pretty simple actually. There was a special promotion from Proton for the bank staff like my wife so we can buy the car at a discounted price. Apart from that, we get really good interest rates by using the staff loan facility from my wife’s employee. So with all that special circumstances in line, we were enticed to sign up for the X50. How do we intend to fit all 6 of us into that space? That’s another story for another day.
That said, production of the car was delayed considerably because of the pandemic. Customers have to wait up to 6 months long for their car to arrive. We were lucky because it took us only 2 months after our loans were approved. Our model was the 1.5T Executive, which is only slightly better than the Standard model but even this one was priced at RM84,800 on the road. Our total loan is RM104,051 and the monthly installment is just slightly over 1 thousand ringgit. Forget imported cars, even national cars cost too much in my opinion.
It has been 10 years since I last bought a car so the technology has improved manifolds over the years. For starters, I was easily impressed by the keyless entry and push-button start (plus remote start!). The leatherette seats, while not completely exempt from stains, is a major improvement from the fabric seats which is a stain-magnet on my Alza. I love the auto-hold feature the most which was non-existent on my old car. It was godsend in this city traffic. Finally, passengers in the back seat can enjoy air conditioning from the rear air vents. Sure all three of them will have little room to maneuver at the back but at least they’re cool throughout the journey.
Beneath the rear air vents, there’s 2 USB ports for charging and another one next to the driver at the front. If that’s not enough, there’s the regular auxiliary power outlet, formerly known as the cigarette lighter socket. The reverse camera is obviously very helpful when reversing. I still turn my head around out of habit but for once I can see people and objects at the back and reverse safely. Finally this new car is fast. I mean driving 120km/h on my old Alza will start shaking like a Polaroid picture but it is fine on the X50. I can easily top 150/160km/h on the highway with the turbo engine without even realizing it. This is especially helpful for long distance journeys because you feel like you don’t have to drive that long.
Now for the little gripes. The 8” infotainment unit is mostly alright. You can’t watch any videos or movies while driving for safety reasons but you can now connect and save multiple Bluetooth sources to the unit. You can also search and save virtually any number of radio stations you like but strangely enough you can’t skip through the next station in the list using the steering wheel buttons. Clicking the next button will strangely dial through the next station in the frequency instead of the next saved station. I had no choice but to touch the screen manually if I want to change stations, which is a real hassle while driving. You are supposed to login through the QR code on the infotainment unit but the Proton Link login never-ever works. I suspect it’s there just for show. There’s built in navigation which is pretty accurate but the turn by turn navigation speech will override any music that’s playing so most times we just use our phones for directions. It has no Android Auto or CarPlay support so if you want anything fancy, you will need to change the entire unit. The only music app available is Joox which nobody literally uses. Lastly, my wife and I both agreed that the signal indicator sound could be better.
With new cars comes new NCD and expensive insurance rates. Since we agreed to share for the installment, it didn’t feel too burdensome to my budget. At the moment, Asif still sits on his mother’s lap since he’s still breastfeeding. In the future, he will need to squeeze in along with his brother and sisters at the back. Hopefully in a few years time, Adam will be able to drive a car by himself so maybe we split everybody in both cars if we need to go anywhere? Chances are, Adam will spend a lot more time away in some far off universities in the next few years so I don’t know.
Yes I have had trust issues with Proton before but that was before it was acquired by Geely of China, the owners of Volvo, Polestar and Lotus Cars. It had carried over the technologies and manufacturing smarts from its subsidiaries because there’s definitely less issues with the national car makers including with most of their newer models. I am speaking from my own experience after using it for over a year. No problems whatsover and I am definitely happy with this purchase and the value that it provides.
Had Perodua released the Ativa just a few months earlier we could have possibly chosen that one over the X50 only because it’s slightly cheaper. But then our choices were limited and the X50 was the best-looking family car there was back then that we could afford. Would I recommend the X50 to potential new car owners? Yes if you don’t mind the long waiting time (yes even now). It’s considerably cheaper than it’s older brother, the X70 and looks much better too. If your budget is limited and your preference is a decent SUV, then the Ativa makes more sense.
