Why did I buy a Persona?
I wanted a manual car (and I'm not rich)
That will remove stuff like civic type R.
Leaves us, vios, almera, perodua and proton persona / saga.
I was using a Saga BLM and therefore, I wanna upgrade to something better (size and feature). So that strikes out axia, bezza and saga. Leaving almera, vios, persona and myvi.
For manual standard variant, only persona offers good features and safety is not really a luxury package as the standard variant has most of the safety features as well. Meanwhile, other cars require me to purchase the top of the line to get esc or hill start assist and etc.
So it became no brainer for me on which car to choose. Even if I'm not looking for manual, the premium persona offers a lot of features for a lot lesser in price.
Rear seat comfort is one of the reason why I choose persona as well, as I tend to drive people around and I've sat in cars which offers very little thigh support. Those cars are really uncomfortable during long distance. Persona rear seats are slightly inclined too. Perfect for long journey.
Sound proofing? The stock persona has already been sound proofed. It sounded really deadened inside the car. Go to showroom and try driving it. Also open the front bonnet. See how much sound proofing material they placed around the engine compartment.
Proton reliability? Read around other car forums and you realized persona problems is around the same as other car makes, if not lesser. I used saga BLM and although I sent the car to workshop a lot of times. Most of it is around the area where I crashed (one of the reason why I insist on safety features). The parts that i did not crash, lasted me pretty long. So I don't feel proton is as problematic as public perceives it to be.
For future proton persona owner, one thing you need to take note is, parking sensor is really slow. Get the premium variant for the reverse cam if you really need parking assistance. For me, I resort to mark 1 eye ball. Lol
Totally agree on the sound proofing part, try remove the door panel, the rear boot spare tyre, very thick soundproof material comes as standard already. But one my frd complaint to me, persona sound proof is terrible. Well I think some of them dunno how to different CVT noise and external noise..