SsangYong Musso 2018 Review - International

SsangYong may be Korea’s oldest car manufacturer and the only one with a dual-cab ute (for now). But it faces an uphill battle to convince buyers to get onto its website, into its dealerships and behind the wheel of its vehicles, given it hasn’t even existed in Australia since 2016.

The all-new 133kW turbo-diesel SsangYong Musso ute is arguably the most important of the four models the Mahindra-owned brand will relaunch itself with Down Under in November, and one of the key tools it will utilise to win over the hearts and minds of Aussie buyers.

The dual-cab 4x4 turbo-diesel hay-hauler comes with a requisite 3500kg towing capacity and a one-tonne payload, and will almost certainly be offered here with a seven-year warranty.

You can have one with a six-speed manual or automatic transmission and the Musso will duke it out at the budget end of the dual-cab ute market against the likes of the LDV T60, Great Wall Steed, Isuzu D-MAX and Mitsubishi Triton.

Best of all, looking at it won’t make your eyes hurt… unlike the horrors that SsangYong unleashed in the past.

In total there will be three model grades of the SsangYong Musso offered to Aussie buyers: entry-level EX, mid-spec ELX and top-shelf Ultimate.

The two vehicles we punted on and off-road in Korea were representative of the Ultimate models and my first impression was positive, given the vehicle’s expected positioning by a budget brand.

Climbing into the cabin of the SsangYong Musso Ultimate for the first time revealed a decent, neatly-integrated look and feel. The Nappa leather-clad seats – powered on the driver’s side – don’t have Benz-like suppleness (they feel like faux leather) but they look good and offer decent support and adjustment.

The front seats are heated and cooled, which is pretty schmick for a ute, and you can option different upholstery colours too. Check out the light brown option in the pics.

The centre console with its giant 8.0-inch touch-screen looked great, the sat-nav worked well and even the Korean set-up had spoken directions in English, which was handy.

All the buttons and controls around the centre console presented well and felt good to press, while dash plastics and interior fit and finish was pretty good too.

Clefting the analogue dials in twain is a high-res colour display in the instrument cluster, featuring loads of options and a good trip computer, while the steering wheel controls are intuitive and well laid out – not too sparse, not too busy.

The heated steering wheel will be good for customers in southern states and territories in winter time, too.

Musso may mean rhino in Korean, but there’s a touch of class to the interior.

There’s only one USB port but an AUX and two 12-volt sockets up front.

Incidental storage ain’t great, with just two decent-sized cup-holders and very little space for phones, odds and sods around the gearstick and under the central display.

The centre bin/armrest and door pockets are pretty big though; there’s enough room for 1.0-litre metal flasks.

Other features in our test vehicle, which are also expected to be offered across the entire Musso range in Australia, included a six-speaker stereo, digital radio, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, electric windows and heated mirrors, rain-sensing wipers, automatic headlights, remote central locking and hill descent control.

The top-shelf SsangYong Musso Ultimate ups the ante with dual-zone climate control, heated rear seats, tinted windows and 18-inch alloy wheels.

Side steps, a front skid plate and rear plastic sports bar panels are also part of the top-spec model.

Throw in a reverse camera, parking sensors and a 360-degree surround camera and the ability to change the indicator sounds (yes, really!) and the Musso comes across as a well-equipped machine that doesn’t scream “cheap and nasty light commercial vehicle”.

That said, there’s still a lot of questions to be answered.

Key details, specifications and pricing won’t be announced until just before the official relaunch in November and although company execs say the Musso will be fully-loaded with luxury features, a five-star ANCAP safety rating will not be on the brochure.

Autonomous emergency braking (AEB), which is all but a pre-requisite for a top safety score, won’t be available in the Musso until early 2019. However, it does get six airbags, stability control and active rollover protection from launch.

The most impressive dynamic quality of the SsangYong Musso ute is how quietly it cruises. In downtown Seoul, out on crummy country roads and even off-road, the ‘Rhino’ is quiet and generally refined – for an LCV.

Thanks to savvy engine bay sealing and polyester wheel-arch linings, not a lot of road or engine noise comes into the cockpit. At triple-digit speeds there’s a bit of wind noise but it should be a capable and comfortable long-distance tourer.

A 75-litre fuel tank is par for the course in this category, but claimed fuel consumption of 8.6L/100km is far from class-leading. The manual is slightly better at 7.9L/100km.

The new 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine (133kW/400Nm) provided adequate grunt and the Aisin six-speed transmission is best described as diligent and worst described as average.

A modicum of lag off the line during standing starts was evidenced but it was difficult to tell whether it was due to turbo lag, gearbox delay or just poorly tuned throttle mapping. The ‘tiptronic’ manual mode was a bit sluggish too.

Neither nitpicks are deal-breakers but the SsangYong Musso didn’t feel quite as responsive as some rivals.

The steering on the Korean-spec Musso ute was a bit vague but more than apt for most situations, and ride comfort was pretty good through the front axle.

Despite riding on coil springs all round, like the Nissan Navara, the rear-end felt a bit jittery – more like a leaf-sprung ute with no weight in the back.

The Musso was a bit floaty around corners with more than a whiff of body roll, but when the SsangYong Musso arrives in Australian dealerships from November it will feature an Australian suspension calibration, which will hopefully dial out the fidgety rear-end.

The SsangYong Musso ute proved capable off-road and although our test loop was fairly tame, the water overflow from a rice paddy muddied up one section enough to give the 4WD system a good workout.

Like most dual-cab 4x4 utes, this one has three modes which are toggled via a small dial and initiated electronically. When the going got tough in 2H, 4H and 4L provided much better traction in the slop.

At 215mm, there’s ample ground clearance to clear deep ruts but the angular bodywork makes for average approach and departure angles of 20.2 and 23.0 degrees respectively.

The regular SsangYong Musso ute’s coil springs (a leaf-sprung version with a bigger tray will follow in 2019) exhibit the same issue that plagued the Nissan Navara – the suspension is too soft at the back and not designed for heavier loads.

With three average blokes sitting on the rear tray shooting the breeze, the suspension was compressed a lot, getting close to its bump stops. That’s maybe 300kg. Max.

The tech specs say the standard Musso ute can cope with between 688 and 800kg payloads. SsangYong says it’s a bona-fide one-tonne ute, but more testing will be required on Aussie soil with the local suspension tune.

There’s plenty of space for five passengers because the SsangYong Musso is fairly wide at 1950mm -- 135mm wider than the 1815mm Mitsubishi Triton. Shoulder room is ample front and rear, as is leg room.

While the cabin is spacious, the tray is not.

Measuring 5095mm long, the Musso is significantly shorter than most rivals. Allow me to use the Triton as an example once again; its 5270mm length is 175mm longer, and most of that is in the longer rear bed.

SsangYong reckons you can get a euro pallet – roughly 800mm x 1200mm – in the tray, but you’ll have to wait for the long-wheelbase Musso (which is 5405mm long overall -- slightly longer than most dual-cab utes) to fit a 250cc dirt bike in its bed.

All models have a 12-volt plug in the tray and rotating tie-down hooks, and SsangYong Australia is planning loads of accessories. It says the average dual-cab 4x4 ute buyer spends around $3000 on extras. One of the test vehicles had a lift kit, alloy sports bar, knobbly Cooper tyres and even a front winch.

Perhaps avoid the black roof option, however – our test model had peeling film on its roof.

If the SsangYong Musso was a tropical parasite that ate your optical nerve, going blind may not have been a bad thing given some of the repugnant designs that escaped the Korean factory in the early 2000s.

But today things are different.

SsangYong designs have matured and the execution of its models is far better than expected.

There’s still some way to go before this dual-cab ute threatens the Toyota HiLux, and a five-star ANCAP rating is top of the list.

But with better than expected performance, budget pricing and a seven-year warranty looking likely, the SsangYong Musso could carve itself out a tidy niche in ute-obsessed Australia.

Hyundai and Kia, it’s your move.