Test drove both GR and Hybrid. In the end opted for Hybrid. Car is for my mom anyway. Styling wise, GR is nicer, particularly the white with black roof (although I feel they should have made the wheels an inch larger) but for majority of people on our lousy roads, the Hybrid is a better buy for it’s softer drive. GR ride quality is more jittery over rough roads. Honestly, my mind was already set on the Hybrid model (was mainly trying to decide between HR-V Hybrid or Cross Hybrid) when I visited the showroom so maybe my judgement is unfair. I just test drove it since the the SA offered, because we were waiting for the Hybrid test car to return from another potential customer’s test drive session. Frankly, I don’t really consider it a true GR model. It’s just a 1.8 Cross with a couple of bits added and slightly different mapping. Maybe rolls less during harder cornering, but it’s negligible at best. More noticeable is the GR’s front compressing less under harder braking compared to the Hybrid, but that is also what makes it feel firmer and less comfy over bumps and holes. The CVT in the GR is still too lazy even in Sport mode, and for sedate driving in Eco/Normal mode it’s also not as smooth as the e-CVT on the Cross Hybrid. The HR-V Turbo (also CVT) actually felt sportier than the Cross GR to me.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 28 2023, 05:59 PM

I numbered and bolded the bits I will be replying to. Apologies, as I’m currently touch-typing on the iPad and it’s a bit troublesome to manually cut-paste and add quote tags for individual bits.

1. I apologize for not being clear earlier. I meant that the difference in degree of body roll between the GR and Hybrid is negligible. You can still notice the left-right tilt on both models, just that the GR has less of it and feels slightly tighter. Granted, it was still just a short test drive. The SA did let me push it a bit, but time and roads were limited.

2. Same for me. Honda is actually my favourite Japanese automaker (because of their 2/4-wheel motorsport pedigree) but their CKD quality has gone downhill over the years. Aside from the issues you stated, what put me off the HR-V was the poor cabin insulation, particularly from road noise. Insulation materials used seem like they’re supposed to be in a RM40k car, not a RM140k car. I also sit in a colleague’s HR-V Turbo when we head out for lunch some days, and my impressions haven’t changed. Even the roof lining during rainy days sounds cheapskate.

3. HR-V Turbo has better acceleration for starters. CVT also feels like it shifts faster, although both Cross and HR-V gearboxes can probably get confused if you drive expecting them to develop a “rev-matching memory” to your style. That simply won’t ever happen for this segment of cars. Steering input/immediacy is around the same for the HR-V Turbo and Cross GR (a bit quicker than Cross Hybrid) but both are numb as heck. GR steering has a bit more feel than the HR-V, but it’s more like torque kickback rather than actual road surface feel. But if it’s a very bad surface, the Cross will somewhat try to let you know that you’re putting undesired stress on the steering rack (which I find useful, given our craptastic roads) whereas the HR-Vs steering will remain numb until the day you realize the rack is gone. Suspension-wise, honestly hard to A/B as the test roads around Honda and Toyota SCs were different. I would say the GR shaves it slightly. Neither of them “float” over undulations. Chassis-wise, the Cross (all models) feels like it has less flex than the HR-V, but that might just be down to the poor noise insulation of the Honda clouding my judgement. Can’t say for certain. Both are still FWD SUVs at the end of the day, and even in that segment I doubt either will be as driver-focused as something like a Mazda (my assumption only, haven’t tried any current Mazda, because Bermaz).

Please note that I’m what /k would call an “oldfag” and when test driving cars these days, in this country, the feedback I tend to look for is more reliability-centered (how much can the car tell me about its overall health) rather than handling/performance-centered (I still look at fundamental characteristics, just probably not at a nuanced level as an enthusiast). I tend to treat cars as appliances (I drive a Harrier, Cross Hybrid is for my mother - basically zero character in my garage) nowadays, so best to take my input with a grain of salt.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 28 2023, 09:25 PM

SportyHandling && constant_weight

I have a great counterpoint example for both your “Honda Quality” and “NVH vs Handling” concerns, from the most unexpected candidate - the Honda e

I know one of the Weststar Auto partners and got to try out the Honda e when it was first recon’d to Malaysia. It was awesome. The quality is insane and it goes over all kinds of surfaces incredibly well with no looseness or vibrations. In that short drive, body control remained taut even on bad junction corners, steering feel was nice and linear (for an EPS). Overall it had a lot “road manners” of a bigger premium car shrink-wrapped into a small package. Whilst most cars driven on our roads feel like they’re cast from sheets and welded/glued together, this one (if you allow me to exaggerate a bit) felt more like it was forged from a block. Honda CBU Japan is really different standard, and this felt even better than that.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 29 2023, 01:11 PM

Just don’t expect JDM perfection. Toyota/UMW QC might be better than the local CKD median, but there will always be the lingering shadow of Malaysian “jaguh kampung” incompetence. We’re typically a country that’s used to assembling lower-end DNGA models. My mom’s Cross Hybrid is scheduled to arrive next week and I’ve already compiled a list of issues I need to look out for thanks to the LYN Cross thread and other complaints I’ve found from various social media posts.

My take after test driving - accurate and sharp, for a conservative FWD family SUV (don’t compare it to a Focus), but also artificial at the same time. It’s definitely better than any generation CR-V. You don’t get that looseness over bumpy surfaces where the wheel totally loses all weight in the 10-12-2 o’clock positions (like it suddenly got disconnected from the steering column). Saying that, the CR-V steering is a very low bar to compare it to, so still best to temper your expectations until you can get a test drive to determine of the GR is “good enough” for you.

If you want me to elaborate, at least based on my impressions from that short test drive; Basically, there’s very little “lag” between your steering input and and the rest of your body feeling the change in direction. As long as your steering inputs are clean and linear, the car will track accordingly. Just don’t expect to be instant pin sharp like a performance car or convey much road feel from the steering wheel.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 29 2023, 10:36 PM

Calculating a hybrid’s max power and torque isn’t a matter of adding the outputs of the petrol and electric motors together and calling it a day. They’re tuned for fuel economy. Peak horsepower and torque will still be lower compared to the 1.8 version because the hybrid’s combustion engine is very lowly tuned and the electric motor’s assistance plateaus lower down the rev range.

Electric motor is used for initial movement and to augment the dips in the combustion engine’s torque curve. You will get better low speed acceleration going up hilly bits in short busts as long as the driving done prior to reaching the incline has sufficiently charged the battery. It works great for daily urban driving in towns with sporadic undulations (flat-uphill-flat-flat-downhill-uphill-flat) at normal speeds, but won’t help much on a sustained hillclimb as the small battery gets discharged faster than it can recharge.

You can drive any hybrid and try it for yourself. When the battery is sufficiently charged (say 3/4 full) just set it to EV mode and drive slowly on electric power alone. Wait till the battery gets depleted and the ICE fires up to start charging it, and then try flooring the pedal. You will hear the engine revving quite high but the car struggling to accelerate, because (a) it’s already an engine in a low state of tune, and (b) there’s no more electric power coming from the empty battery to provide the “torque fill” required for that sudden burst of acceleration.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 30 2023, 12:24 PM

Article written during GR’s debut month/quarter, so it’s possible that GR bookings at the time exceed all other Cross models. That’s normal for most cars.

GR and Hybrid target different buyers. Majority of Cross GR buyers are likely comparing it to the regular Cross G/V models and equivalent petrol models from competitors (eg: HR-V Turbo, CX-30, XV/Crosstrek, etc), while Cross Hybrid buyers are likely comparing it to competing hybrid offerings.

When I made booking (last week of Feb 2023), SA told me Hybrid waiting time is longer than GR and V models, but that could be due to other factors like battery supply constraints and whatnot. They don’t release (afaik) the factory output for each specific model, so hard to draw conclusion.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jun 30 2023, 04:31 PM

In that case the Hybrid makes little sense for you. One small piece of advice; for any new car, it’s good to give it some decent mileage on the first month. Get it as close to the 1000km mark as possible, or at least do more than 500km in both stop-start traffic and highway conditions (and rainy weather if possible). That way, it’s easier to suss out any potential issues and have the SC settle it in the first service.

It might have been the Eco mode that you were driving it on (which is the default). I found Normal mode okay. Eco mode was lethargic, especially initial pickup. Like those junctions where you need to drive into a road across oncoming traffic - Eco mode gives you zero confidence in actually making it across before the oncoming cars reach you, while Normal mode is more… normal, I guess.

This is a characteristic of all Toyota hybrids I’ve tried, from a relative’s Prius (forgot which gen, it’s the one that shares architecture with the Lexus CT200) back when they were new in Malaysia, to the Camry Hybrid I was leasing up until 1.5yrs ago. Best to just forget about Eoo mode and leave in Normal. The mileage difference on the Camry Hybrid was only around 0.5L/100km at worst anyway.

Sport Mode on the Cross Hybrid just shortens the throttle response slightly and tightens up the CVT ratios a bit. Steering weight remains the same (slightly lighter than GR), from what I could tell

I too would have preferred the Altis over the Cross. Just pay a little bit more for double wishbone setup. But UMWT doesn’t offer a hybrid Altis variant here. Other reason is that my mom (I mentioned buying the Cross for her in earlier posts) had knee replacement surgery a couple of years ago and isn’t comfortable with the knee bending required to get in/out of a sedan anymore (I think it’s more psychological than physiological, because her surgery and rehab went great), and she likes the entry*/exit height of my Harrier (XU80), so the Cross was overall a better fit for her.

* instead of putting some weight on the knees or one knee like how we do it, she prefers resting her bum on the seat first before lifting her legs in, and most urban crossovers seem have their seats at a better height (compared to sedans) for her to do that.

This post has been edited by dev/numb: Jul 2 2023, 11:18 PM

See his first sentence about different modes only changing response. See my bit about the Sport mode only improving the response and CVT gearing. In that sense, he and I actually concur. We only differ in our daily needs - I mostly just want to get to work on time and he wants to set Nordschleife lap times.