KGM Actyon review

Utterly conventional. The Actyon is a quirky choice, but there’s nothing outlandish about how you operate it: you just get in, hit start, flick backwards for drive and off you go. Right pedal for more speed, left pedal of less speed. And – without wishing to be disingenuous – you get the impression that’s as far into ‘car enthusiasm’ as most KGM buyers will ever delve.

There isn’t much to like about how the Actyon goes: apply the faintest brush of pressure to the throttle out of a junction and it’ll spin its wheels, having overloaded the front tyres with torque. Ask for acceleration and there’s a noted pause, before the six-speed auto insists on kicking down and ballooning the revs – a bit like one of those horrid CVTs.

We live in an age of stupidly overpowered e-SUVs so 161bhp sounds about right, but under heavy load that 4cyl is coarse and gutless. So you’ll drive it as such, keeping pace with traffic perfectly well but always in the shadow of the Actyon’s limitations.

Oh, and there’s no sense of connection between the wheels and the steering, with a small amount of dead travel off-centre. So you don’t arch your way through corners, you sort of tug the car through them. Hmm. At least body roll isn’t too pronounced, so little ones in the back won’t bring up their breakfast.

Oh dear. Is it comfortable?

The nice way to say it is that there’s lots of room for improvement. The suspension feels challenged no matter what your rate of knots, but at village speeds in particular there’s a constant jostle – even at sedate B-road pace, it’ll find the tiniest undulations in the road surface and amplify them by means of pronounced vertical travel. There’s a constant buzz in your fingertips courtesy of the steering column.

Overall the ride is too firm, turning potholes from a minor annoyance into a reason to book a chiropractor. Slowing to 3mph for a speed bump becomes an act of self-love and – if you have company – your good deed for the day.

Gosh. Is there anything you like about it?

KGM is adamant it has worked hard on NVH (noise, vibration, harshness), and to give it its dues the sound damping makes the Actyon quiet at a steady speed. Even those blocky wing mirrors won’t burst your eardrums with buffetting at 60mph. Which is impressive because the exterior doesn’t exactly scream ‘streamlined’.

The brakes are also nicely progressive, free from having to blend in any hybrid-induced regen. Tick.

Is it efficient?

33.1mpg is what Actyon achieved in the lab… 20mpg is what we got in Gloucestershire. And it’s not like our test route rivalled the Nürburgring for commitment. Nor did we do any motorway or dual carriageway. Sheesh.

We reckon you could coax that figure up a bit higher, but acceleration is so demanding on the engine it just seems to eat through fuel. Which is not what you want from a family SUV, let alone a supposedly budget option. Which the Actyon isn’t.