The Fiesty Whitey

I bought this car brand new, after the repair bills for the previous car, a Proton Waja 4G18, was starting to add up with no end in sight. Even though the Proton Saga was the cheapest car in Proton's stable, I bought the FLX SE which was the top of the line variant at that time, with the 1.6l NA engine (the others were 1.3l). Altogether with registration and the works, the car set me back roughtly RM 50k.

Ironically, as a replacement for the Waja which I owned for a little over a year, I had this FLX for only 11 months, but not because of what you think - Read on to find out

The Saga FLX model was a given significant upgrades from the chassis-mates Saga BLM and FL models that came before it. It had new engine components, new transmissions and at long last, an Antilock Braking System. The 1.6 liter naturally aspirated 4-pot mill churns out 108hp at 5,750 RPM, and is connected to the wheels via a continuously variable transmission (CVT). By now, if you haven't rolled your eyes on the puny engine displacement or the horsepower figure, you would definitely have when you see the word CVT. 

But hear me out.

When I first drove this car, the first thing that taken me aback was how stiff the suspension was. Not backbreaking stiff like a FD2R, but still stiffer than most bread and butter subcompact sedans in the market. This would sometimes make for a less-than-comfortable ride, especially on undulating highways surfaces where the car would follow the highs and lows more than I wanted it to. On the flip side, it does translate to less bodyroll and better body control during corners, which made it less panic inducing when I overcook a corner.

Even so, the chassis rigidity for the Saga platform was not particularly high. I know this because I added a front strut bar and rear strut bar to the car, and found the handling to be drastically improved. Steering response was quicker, the rear no longer feel sloppy around the corners and I felt that I could place the nose more accurately and have a better handle on the car's movement around the corner. I was amazed at how much it transformed the car for a mod that was so cheap.

(Note the front strut bar behind the engine, connecting both strut towers.)

On to the drivetrain. Ask any owner with a pre-2014 NA Campro engine, and most will nod fervently when you mention the torque dip between 2k-3k RPM. It is still there in this FLX, but the CVT did a good job of masking it, so much so that this being my first Campro I did not understand what the big deal was until I bought the Persona, but more on that in a later post. 

Anyway, any car enthusiast would scoff at the idea of a CVT being fun to drive....and they are right, it isn't. 

But it doesn't mean it doesn't perform. CVTs are meant to be efficient, and if driven right, they are the by far the easiest transmission to squeeze every last ounce of power out of an engine. Nowhere is this as apparent as uphill routes, where the CVT truly shines. When all other stepped transmission are hunting gears, dropping in and out of the engine's powerband, the CVT sticks the tacho at 4-5k RPM and hauls ass (well...hauls as well as 108hp would). It also helps that the FLX's kerb weight is just a hair over a tonne, so it has the lightweight body working for it as well.

Proton would continue to use this CVT by Punch Powertrain in their future models eg. the Preve, Iriz and new Persona, though they have tuned it for fuel economy and made them annoyingly sluggish, a fact that invited alot of criticisms.

On the other hand, while many praises can be heap upon it's handling, my pet peeve with the car is it's ride height and seat height. It is one of the tallest sedan I have ever driven. It was so tall that when parked in a mall parking, I can easily spot it over the roofs of most other cars in the same row. And because of it's height, whenever I take a fast corner I am more worried about the car tipping over than understeering or oversteering.

Then there is the assembly quality. Over the period of my ownership I had to send it in the service center for rattling from the aircon vent, leaking exhaust at the flexible hose, water seeping inside the headlamps, knocking drumbrakes and faulty door lock. The doors also rattled but I managed to fix that myself. The car also had nigh zero soundproofing, as a result the engine and road noise was quite intrusive.

(The car came with the 195/50/15 rubbish Silverstone Synergy M5 tires. I had them changed for a set of 195/55/15 Kumho Ku37s just before a trip to Genting Highlands.)

That said, I did not expect a perfect car right out the showroom (which seems to be a trend whenever I buy new cars). Despite it's flaws, the little Saga FLX SE was a fiesty little sedan. Yes, it is made cheaply with not much in terms of luxury, and even less in terms of prestige. What it did delivered was tonnes of character and more fun than an unassuming Proton econobox has the right to. If only the rumours of a 1.6l manual variant in the pipeline came to be, I'm sure that would be a cheap and properly fun car that would tick most boxes for many local enthusiasts. Proton did deliver later in the form of a Proton Iriz 1.6l manual, but even that was made in limited numbers and discontinued promptly.

(Leather seats, steering, gearknobs and door inserts with perforated trims. OK not real leather but still....)

As to why I sold it after 11 months? I took delivery of the car in January 2012, and bought a Fiesta in October 2012. The idea was to keep the Saga as family car as it has a boot, but turned out to be underutilized and was sitting idle most of the time. So with a heavy heart, I sold it to a student a month later, and he took it to Penang. The day I pass the keys to the new owner in a Tesco parking lot was the last I ever saw it. 

I still wonder how it is doing after 5 years - We might had a short time together but it was definitely a memorable one.

Thanks for reading, please upvote and resteem!