I own this car for a year now, previously my daily driver is a Ford Ranger 2019. Need time to adapt from a turbodiesel 6speed to a 1.6NA CVT, but once I adapt then its a 10/10 experience. The body is solid, handling is insane for its price point, the ride quality and cabin is excellent. Even the center console and interface is miles better than competition on the same price point. I've been going up and down Genting, and the handling never disappoints. I sometimes drives till 180km/h and yet the stability of the car is rock solid. Only a RM100k+ car could match the comfort and stability of the car. The chassis is heavier than competitor, and used HPF tech to strengthen it. Its 200kg heavier than a MYVI. So its understandable why the fuel consumption is higher, but its only noticeable on stop go traffic in town. For long range drives its quite fuel efficient. The CVT gearbox so far never felt jerking or lag, its super improved compared to the first gen in 2016. But CVT is CVT, you cannot press foot to the metal and must be gentle in throttle, but 180km/h is achievable as the 1.6 engine also has sufficient power. Only two issue so far, radiator coolant need to check regularly and the driver power window could malfunctioned (but got 10yrs warranty for it)
I think...you have a great presenter there in Jim Kem. Super fluent English with superb line delivery in terms of tone and cadence. Oh yeah, and the car seems like good value, too. However, stories of the Punch CVT come to mind, which gives me pause concerning vehicle longevity. Granted, these stories that I heard are quite dated but has Proton done anything to address that?
The stories about punch CVT wasn't about longevity nor reliability. It was more about refinement, as it always jerking and sometimes the clutch could suddenly disengaged during slow "creep" driving in traffic jam. They said they've fixed it, but I don't know since I won't be upgrading to another Persona.
I've bought my persona MC1 2019. Already had 130k km. So far no issues with the CVT gearbox. Driven hard everyday over the speed limit. I notice, many gearbox issues were on the prefacelift version
I own a 2019 persona premium, no problems at all until today, i only got 2 complaints about this car. 1.The maximum wiper speed is not fast enough for heavy rain at highway. 2.Fuel consumption is abit high. Other than those 2 complaints, its a good car, its comfy, cheap to maintain, quality no issues, speed not fast but not slow too.
I owned a 2017 standard/ base model for five years. No issues whatsoever. It racked up 125k km of fuss free milage in five years of ownership. Bulletproof. Highly recommended.
This latest iteration of the Persona model is an improvement of the one before. Good job by Desmond and team and keep up the good work - the kaizen approach by one of your previous bosses should continue. Good review Jim. Been over this clip a few times.
Glad that you’ve driven the previous gen persona. Used to have both gen of Personas in my house and I really miss the last gen Persona. Fun to drive, trusty engine and gearbox, sit low to ground, very communicative steering and the prowess of Lotus RnH, even though not as updated and roomy as the current one.
My brother in law got the 2023 model and only thing he changed is the rear LED bar light…Service regularly and change the CVT oil it will serve you well…Recently the mileage is 40k plus although he got a 650cc bike…recently he go for dyno tuning doing some stuffs and gained 3 hp & 4 nm more,Not bad for standard car
In my opinion, the current persona has almost everything we need, decent interior, good enough space for a family of 4, good handling but the only thing is that campro engine, I have heard and seen many people complaining about the engine. It would be great if they can swap the engine with the geely 1.5 NA engine for the facelift persona
Please consider having three proper headrests at the back to save people from whiplash injuiries in rear collisions. At the moment the two protuding headrests are not going to help normal adults because large part of their heads will not have headrest support. Middle passenger does not have any support.
Owned the 2016 version of this new model. I'd say, Persona have come a long way. Driving the latest one, it feels like a different car altogether until you notice the styling, handling, and engine behavior doesn't change much. Only the NVH and maybe the CVT has been greatly refined. Plus a few new features like infotainment, led headlight, and a very comfortable leather seats (minus the missing adjustable headrest at the back). I'd still skip to S70 anyway.
Speaking of the first proton saga, a British friend and I were in KL during the mid-1980s when a Proton Saga demonstration car happen to draw up near us. Remember, this was almost a few months to a year before actual production began, and the PR exercise was just to get Malaysians excited about the first Malaysian-built car. Being fresh mechanical engineer graduates, we took the opportunity to have a critical look at the car and pumped Proton representatives for more details. One thing that caught our eye was that the front and rear bumpers were made of steel, unlike rubber or plastic which was already the standard on most cars then. When we asked the representative why it was still in steel, they told us that they wanted to source the parts locally as much as possible and at that time, there was no local manufacturers who could manufacture Proton bumpers in rubber or plastic. They could only do it in steel. My friend and i was of the opinion that Mitsubishi had really palmed off a decade old car to the Malaysian government to be built and rebadged as Proton. To be frank, we said that the only way they could sell such cars was to make all other cars more expensive and Proton cheap. Sell them cheap and pile them high. Which turned out to be the case. Unfortunately, Malaysia was too hyped up on the Proton as a locally manufactured car. They should have actually followed the Thai model in setting up Malaysia as a vehicle manufacturing hub which Thailand is now. Thailand was wise enough to allow vehicle manufacturers to come in, set up their plants, and then use them to manufacture and sell vehicles to the ASEAN and later ANZAC market. Thailand is ASEAN's vehicles hub, providing jobs to many and local sub-contractors which have grown in expertise and volume to provide parts to these vehicle manufacturers. Malaysia was then poised to be able to do that, but for political reasons, we ended up with Proton, which survived due to tariffs but finally ended being sold to the Chinese.
If would be great if you could pass by the information for mr desmond to please, facelift the persona with a better and slicker design ( especially) the door side panels and for saga, just give it the LED headlights. That car is already near perfect for it price point and segment.
Persona no doubt is value for money but it misses out on 2 key aspect. refinement and efficiency for its class. Those who values refinement will opt of budget Japanese and those values efficiency will go for perodua. Believe the new S70 has both in place
Still remember my 2018 new persona, proton still fail to solve the cvt jerking issue. Now it is collecting dust in somewhere around my office parking basement. Fun car, but big fail for aftersales service. Funny things, I have to book prior almost 2 months for checking and inspection. That's the reason I already abandoned that car.
It always works for me 7 years of owning one. A word "rare" for problem could be an overstatement, as I hardly encountered any. Perfect beater car for "do it all". Just don't expect "refinement" out of it. S70 would be a leap of an upgrade in every way.
I'm a Proton S70 owner and I love it. But if the car never came into Malaysia, the Proton Persona is, without a doubt, the choice I will go for!
Is S70 okay? I'm planning to buy one but still checking out few other model such as persona,city and Vios.
I own this car for a year now, previously my daily driver is a Ford Ranger 2019. Need time to adapt from a turbodiesel 6speed to a 1.6NA CVT, but once I adapt then its a 10/10 experience. The body is solid, handling is insane for its price point, the ride quality and cabin is excellent. Even the center console and interface is miles better than competition on the same price point. I've been going up and down Genting, and the handling never disappoints. I sometimes drives till 180km/h and yet the stability of the car is rock solid. Only a RM100k+ car could match the comfort and stability of the car.
The chassis is heavier than competitor, and used HPF tech to strengthen it. Its 200kg heavier than a MYVI. So its understandable why the fuel consumption is higher, but its only noticeable on stop go traffic in town. For long range drives its quite fuel efficient.
The CVT gearbox so far never felt jerking or lag, its super improved compared to the first gen in 2016. But CVT is CVT, you cannot press foot to the metal and must be gentle in throttle, but 180km/h is achievable as the 1.6 engine also has sufficient power.
Only two issue so far, radiator coolant need to check regularly and the driver power window could malfunctioned (but got 10yrs warranty for it)
I think...you have a great presenter there in Jim Kem. Super fluent English with superb line delivery in terms of tone and cadence. Oh yeah, and the car seems like good value, too. However, stories of the Punch CVT come to mind, which gives me pause concerning vehicle longevity. Granted, these stories that I heard are quite dated but has Proton done anything to address that?
The stories about punch CVT wasn't about longevity nor reliability. It was more about refinement, as it always jerking and sometimes the clutch could suddenly disengaged during slow "creep" driving in traffic jam. They said they've fixed it, but I don't know since I won't be upgrading to another Persona.
I've bought my persona MC1 2019. Already had 130k km. So far no issues with the CVT gearbox. Driven hard everyday over the speed limit. I notice, many gearbox issues were on the prefacelift version
I own a 2019 persona premium, no problems at all until today, i only got 2 complaints about this car. 1.The maximum wiper speed is not fast enough for heavy rain at highway. 2.Fuel consumption is abit high. Other than those 2 complaints, its a good car, its comfy, cheap to maintain, quality no issues, speed not fast but not slow too.
As a former 2017 base model owner, I concur.
This car only need ADAS system, middle back headrest and change the backlight then boom.. Perfect cheap family sedan
Backlight must change 100%
I owned a 2017 standard/ base model for five years. No issues whatsoever. It racked up 125k km of fuss free milage in five years of ownership. Bulletproof. Highly recommended.
This latest iteration of the Persona model is an improvement of the one before. Good job by Desmond and team and keep up the good work - the kaizen approach by one of your previous bosses should continue.
Good review Jim. Been over this clip a few times.
Glad that you’ve driven the previous gen persona. Used to have both gen of Personas in my house and I really miss the last gen Persona.
Fun to drive, trusty engine and gearbox, sit low to ground, very communicative steering and the prowess of Lotus RnH, even though not as updated and roomy as the current one.
My brother in law got the 2023 model and only thing he changed is the rear LED bar light…Service regularly and change the CVT oil it will serve you well…Recently the mileage is 40k plus although he got a 650cc bike…recently he go for dyno tuning doing some stuffs and gained 3 hp & 4 nm more,Not bad for standard car
In my opinion, the current persona has almost everything we need, decent interior, good enough space for a family of 4, good handling but the only thing is that campro engine, I have heard and seen many people complaining about the engine.
It would be great if they can swap the engine with the geely 1.5 NA engine for the facelift persona
Current campro engine still ok what?
Please consider having three proper headrests at the back to save people from whiplash injuiries in rear collisions. At the moment the two protuding headrests are not going to help normal adults because large part of their heads will not have headrest support. Middle passenger does not have any support.
yeah that is so weird to me cuz the Iriz, its sibling has the headrests for the rear passenger but not in the Persona
Owned the 2016 version of this new model. I'd say, Persona have come a long way. Driving the latest one, it feels like a different car altogether until you notice the styling, handling, and engine behavior doesn't change much. Only the NVH and maybe the CVT has been greatly refined. Plus a few new features like infotainment, led headlight, and a very comfortable leather seats (minus the missing adjustable headrest at the back). I'd still skip to S70 anyway.
Thank You Mr Jim Kem for the wholesome review.
Speaking of the first proton saga, a British friend and I were in KL during the mid-1980s when a Proton Saga demonstration car happen to draw up near us. Remember, this was almost a few months to a year before actual production began, and the PR exercise was just to get Malaysians excited about the first Malaysian-built car. Being fresh mechanical engineer graduates, we took the opportunity to have a critical look at the car and pumped Proton representatives for more details. One thing that caught our eye was that the front and rear bumpers were made of steel, unlike rubber or plastic which was already the standard on most cars then. When we asked the representative why it was still in steel, they told us that they wanted to source the parts locally as much as possible and at that time, there was no local manufacturers who could manufacture Proton bumpers in rubber or plastic. They could only do it in steel. My friend and i was of the opinion that Mitsubishi had really palmed off a decade old car to the Malaysian government to be built and rebadged as Proton. To be frank, we said that the only way they could sell such cars was to make all other cars more expensive and Proton cheap. Sell them cheap and pile them high. Which turned out to be the case.
Unfortunately, Malaysia was too hyped up on the Proton as a locally manufactured car. They should have actually followed the Thai model in setting up Malaysia as a vehicle manufacturing hub which Thailand is now. Thailand was wise enough to allow vehicle manufacturers to come in, set up their plants, and then use them to manufacture and sell vehicles to the ASEAN and later ANZAC market. Thailand is ASEAN's vehicles hub, providing jobs to many and local sub-contractors which have grown in expertise and volume to provide parts to these vehicle manufacturers. Malaysia was then poised to be able to do that, but for political reasons, we ended up with Proton, which survived due to tariffs but finally ended being sold to the Chinese.
If would be great if you could pass by the information for mr desmond to please, facelift the persona with a better and slicker design ( especially) the door side panels and for saga, just give it the LED headlights. That car is already near perfect for it price point and segment.
Thanks for the review, I own it since 2022 still good except accessories easily spoil.... LED bulb
Persona no doubt is value for money but it misses out on 2 key aspect. refinement and efficiency for its class. Those who values refinement will opt of budget Japanese and those values efficiency will go for perodua. Believe the new S70 has both in place
Step 1: Turn on Sports Mode
Step 2: Drive a twisty road
I am recent Proton Persona MC2 owner, only concern the Punch CVT, hope it can last long, at least mileage, 200,000 KM?
i heard that only the pre facelift (before 2022) that have that problem, they've tuned the CVT for the current facelift
Best car for all the family
Still remember my 2018 new persona, proton still fail to solve the cvt jerking issue. Now it is collecting dust in somewhere around my office parking basement. Fun car, but big fail for aftersales service. Funny things, I have to book prior almost 2 months for checking and inspection. That's the reason I already abandoned that car.
Persona is a great car.... when it works.... when it not? Well...
It always works for me 7 years of owning one. A word "rare" for problem could be an overstatement, as I hardly encountered any. Perfect beater car for "do it all". Just don't expect "refinement" out of it. S70 would be a leap of an upgrade in every way.
Is this Punch CVT ??
Ni ada lah "musuh" MIB .... hehehe
is this space grey color? thank you i hope somebody answer im planning to buy
yes
1st gen persona is much better
High rpm and high fuel consumption.
I love your review, clear and straight to the points. Keep it up 😊
Thank you! 🙏🏼
Is it berbaloi to make this car a Grab car
Better buy Perodua Bezza / Myvi for Grab
Better go for a Bezza, fuel consumption benefit is significant
After sales still sucks, please improve
The proton manufactured models like Saga, Iriz and Persona have this problem?
@stbernard1196 yes