SsangYong Kyron Review

In 2005, Korean car manufacturer, SsangYong announced a model renewal with the newly introduced Kyron taking its place between the Rexton and Rodius, 7-seater, MPV.

It may be a name that is virtually unknown in the UK but SsangYong has been working away in the background for a good few years and now, with a new UK distributor, the marque is undergoing something of a revival and alerting customers to the keen pricing and value-for-money motoring that the range has to offer.

The updated Kyron is a good example of this with prices for the 5-seater Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) starting at a meagre £14,995, which is £3,000 less than its predecessor. The main competitors are said to be the Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe, and Chevrolet Captiva, although none of them can compete in terms of price.

Furthermore, at the time of this report, SsangYong has introduced a raft of attention-grabbing, incentives. For instance, in order to combat the rise in VED that was announced in the March 2008 budget, SsangYong and the importer Koelliker UK, have decided to absorb the increase in road tax and leave the OTR prices unchanged.

More recently, it was declared that SsangYong would pay the £3,299 deposit on certain Kyron and Rodius models. Of course the finance package will mean that the money is recouped but it is enough to get customers over the initial hump, especially in this period of ‘credit-crunch’.

Yet another ‘carrot’ is the free upgrade; such as having the Mercedes Benz T-Tronic, automatic transmission version for the same price as the manual version or an EX model for £1,000 more than the equivalent S, which is a saving of £1,500. Again, a saving of £1,500 is to be gained in buying the Kyron 2.7 SPR AWD for the same price as the 2.0EX version. And, on top of all this, the company has cut the cost of ownership by reducing the price of parts and service by an average of 40 per cent.

Working out the various offers is a logic puzzle equal to Sudoku but the 35 (and rapidly growing) dealerships throughout the UK will be more than happy to talk customers through it.

In the meantime here is a run down of the range. There are six models in all starting with the 2WD Kyron S, the Kyron S 4WD is followed by the Kyron S 4WD Auto version. The EX models are also available in either manual or automatic, while the top-of-the-range is the 2.7 Kyron SPR AWD auto.