Ssangyong

After some financial woes with its parent company, Mahindra, SsangYong has confirmed that it will be staying in Australia, hoping that its Mussu ute, Rexton and Korando SUVs and the upcoming battery-electric version of the Torres SUV will win over buyers as it tries to expand here in Australia.

SsangYong’s cars like the Rexton and Korando SUV, as well as the Musso ute are manufactured at its major production line in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, while the company also operates a large engine and parts facility in Changwon, South Korea.

SsangYong had a record-breaking year of sales here in Australia in 2022, delivering around 3500 vehicles in total, the majority of which was made up of the Musso dual-cab ute, making it SsangYong’s most popular model. Sales of the Rexton, SsangYong’s large SUV platform are also growing, making it the company’s second-best seller in 2022, which might actually overtake the Musso ute in the future.

SsangYong may not be the leading Korean manufacturer when it comes to reliability, though the company has received fairly solid scores and consumer reports for the reliability of its cars like the Musso, Rexton and the Korando. According to Product Review, the SsangYong Musso dual-cab ute has a 4.4 out of 5 star rating when it comes to reliability from around 122 owner reviews.

Fuel economy figures for SsangYong’s Korando SUV stand at 7.7L per 100km on a combined cycle, while the Musso ELX ute is rated at 7.9L per 100km in manual form and 8.6L per 100km for the automatic. The Rexton SUV’s 2.2-litre turbo-diesel is rated at 8.7L per 100km, which makes it, and the Musso turbo-diesel, slightly less fuel efficient than other car brands with a comparable turbo-diesel engine.

SsangYong’s Australian range is priced from $30,990 drive-away for the entry-level Korando EX midsize SUV, while its flagship Rexton Ultimate Sport large SUV is priced at $58,585. For reference, the entry-level Musso ELX manual dual-cab ute is priced at $36,790 drive-away, while the Musso ELX automatic is priced at $38,790.

SsangYong’s vehicles like the Musso ute, Rexton and Korando receive a number of active safety features like autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure alerts, driver attention monitoring, blind-spot monitoring, lane-change assistance, rear cross-traffic alerts, rear-view cameras with parking sensors, hill descent control systems and airbags.

SsangYong’s engine options range from a 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine in the Korando midsize SUV through to a 2.2-litre turbo-diesel unit powering both the Musso dual-cab ute and the Rexton large SUV package. Power outputs stand at 120kW/280Nm in the Korando, 133kW/400Nm in the Musso ute, with 420Nm of torque in the Musso XLV, and up to 149kW/441Nm in the Rexton SUV.

SsangYong’s warranty terms here in Australia are generous, with a seven-year, unlimited kilometre warranty packaged with all of its vehicles including the Korando, Musso and the Rexton. SsangYong also has capped-price servicing deals available on its new vehicles sold here in Australia.

Technology and innovation are not particularly strong points of the SsangYong brand, which has just emerged from financial troubles that no doubt held it back from large scale R&D investments. While SsangYong lacks its major Korean rivals like Hyundai and Kia when it comes to technology, the company packages its vehicles with 8.0-inch infotainment systems with Apple CarPlay & Android Auto support, as well as 12.3-inch digital instrument clusters which are quite difficult to obtain at a similar price range.