S P E C I A L     :     L O N G - T E R M    T E S T

Let's go on a short drive around Metro Manila and play a game called spot the Korean vehicles.  After a few kilometers, you won't be surprised to note that there are plenty of them bustling around the streets.  What might surprise you is that a lot of them aren't the small sedans and hatchbacks that have traditionally been the Korean carmakers' initial foray into a car market.  The Kia Prides and Daewoo Racers have come, gone and fallen by the wayside of the automotive sales charts.  What you will find plenty of instead are minivans.  To be precise, what you'll see in droves are Hyundai Starex vans. 

The Starex has been something of a runaway success in the Philippine market—it reportedly sold about 10,000 units in 2000, a figure that even our AUV manufacturers would find substantial.  Does the Starex deserve this success, given that for many months there was no official dealer network, and even now a lot of them are being sold by independent importers?  Will it hold well after years of shuttling the kids to school and the family to the mall? 

We decided to revisit the Starex SVX Standout that we featured in November 2000.   Obtained by the current owner when it was 6,000 km old, its odometer now read 29,395 km.  We took the vehicle for a spin around Manila, and checked most of its nooks and crannies to see it's still as good as it was fourteen months ago. 

A lot of the features that made the Starex trump the Mitsubishi Space Gear, with which it actually shares a platform and many mechanicals, are still up-to-date.  The dash is laid out in a clear if not stylish manner.  At least all switches are mounted high on the dash within easy reach and easily identifiable.  Seat fabrics are acceptably soft, and they seem to be wearing well—no real signs of scuffing or fading.   The driver's seating position itself is lofty but not perfect.  The steering wheel always seemed too close for my preference.  It's not at all cramped, though, and elbow room is sufficiently roomy.  The floor-mounted shifter means the front center passenger better guard the family jewels.  Three in the front only in an emergency, please.  Plenty of fake wood is of course de rigueur.

Seven people can fit comfortably in the Starex, eight if you count the family jewels guy.  Each one gets his own seatbelt and headrest, except, mysteriously, for the rightmost second-row passenger.  Perhaps it's for kids only.

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