Chinese Cars

Micky_T

Micky_T

Player Valuation: £6m
In the last couple of years there's been a huge influx of Chinese cars to the UK market. We had the Chinese takeover of MG about 20 years ago and more recently the likes of BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda which all seem to have become pretty popular and a few I personally haven't yet seen on the road like GWM, Leapmotor, Skywell & Xpeng.

I've spent the last couple of months shopping around for a new car and looked at the Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai, Skoda Enyaq and Mitsubishi Outlander as I want something on the slightly bigger side. Not once was I ever tempted to include any of the Chinese brands mentioned above until I was in work on Monday chatting to someone who did a test drive of a Jaecoo 7 at the weekend. She ideally wants a Range Rover but doesn't want to spend Range Rover money. She instantly fell in love with it so I've been doing a bit of research on them and it turns out all these new Chinese brands aren't new at all, they're all very well established in China. Jaecoo and Omoda are actually owned by Parent company Chery which is the 4th largest in China and have been around since 1997. This made me suddenly realise I've been seeing adverts recently for Chery cars so I looked up what cars they offer.

Brand new to the UK in the last couple of months are the Chery Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8. I've watched hours of YouTube reviews and heard nothing but praise for the cars. They seem to have a very good spec and be very well made for the money. Obviously you have to add the 'for the money' because these are very decent SUVs for £27k+. They're not going to match the Mercs, Audi & BMW that are at least £20k more expensive but for anything in a similar kind of price range they seem to blow them out the water.

So anyway, long story short, I'm doing an extended test drive of a Chery Tiggo 7 Hybrid on Sunday with the intention of maybe getting one on a 3 year lease deal.

Anyone here drive a Chinese car yet or would you consider one for your next car?

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We looked at getting an MG a couple of years ago, loads of kit for the money, but were put off by the fact that you could be waiting months for parts, which meant the car being off the road for simple stuff for ages.

The build quality wasn’t great compared to European / Japanese makes either. ( everything felt light and tinny )

Don’t know if that’s still the case though.
 
If you do secure a car, check it over to see if it can be remotely controlled or access to a kill switch 😉

The missus has had a Tucson, for the last 10 years, drives ok tbf, but pretty sure they come off the same manufacturer floor as others.
 


Micky_T said:
In the last couple of years there's been a huge influx of Chinese cars to the UK market. We had the Chinese takeover of MG about 20 years ago and more recently the likes of BYD, Jaecoo, Omoda which all seem to have become pretty popular and a few I personally haven't yet seen on the road like GWM, Leapmotor, Skywell & Xpeng.

I've spent the last couple of months shopping around for a new car and looked at the Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Qashqai, Skoda Enyaq and Mitsubishi Outlander as I want something on the slightly bigger side. Not once was I ever tempted to include any of the Chinese brands mentioned above until I was in work on Monday chatting to someone who did a test drive of a Jaecoo 7 at the weekend. She ideally wants a Range Rover but doesn't want to spend Range Rover money. She instantly fell in love with it so I've been doing a bit of research on them and it turns out all these new Chinese brands aren't new at all, they're all very well established in China. Jaecoo and Omoda are actually owned by Parent company Chery which is the 4th largest in China and have been around since 1997. This made me suddenly realise I've been seeing adverts recently for Chery cars so I looked up what cars they offer.

Brand new to the UK in the last couple of months are the Chery Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8. I've watched hours of YouTube reviews and heard nothing but praise for the cars. They seem to have a very good spec and be very well made for the money. Obviously you have to add the 'for the money' because these are very decent SUVs for £27k+. They're not going to match the Mercs, Audi & BMW that are at least £20k more expensive but for anything in a similar kind of price range they seem to blow them out the water.

So anyway, long story short, I'm doing an extended test drive of a Chery Tiggo 7 Hybrid on Sunday with the intention of maybe getting one on a 3 year lease deal.

Anyone here drive a Chinese car yet or would you consider one for your next car?

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Heard some stuff from a mate who’s a computer boy, who reckons that your data isn’t safe in them due to built in spyware too.

The MG showroom staff, at Arnold Clarke who sell them in Liverpool, didn’t impress me one bit either. Didn’t seem arsed in the slightest whether you bought a car off them at all - we didn’t and bought a Hyundai, even though it cost more and had less kit / trim.
 
I remember an old joke about Chinese delivery driver who kept turning up at South African presidents house with brake pads one day, exhausts the next day, tyres the next…. After 3 deliveries the president asked why he was bringing him those car parts, the Chinese man explained he just delivered to the address on the boxes “Nissan Main dealer”

It’s a better joke when told properly


And he was probably a Japanese driver come to think of it … who knows ???

Who cares 🤷‍♂️
 
The MG cars have pretty decent build quality and paint finish but, have been prone to some reliability issues, so if buying used, ensure you can get a full record of the cars service history.

The BYD, Jaecoo and Omoda cars also meet ‘European’ standards of build quality and paint finish, and are very competitive on price compared to the cars they’re competing against.

My personal reservation on Everton models is the realistic range of the cars on an 80% charge (normal, day to day use) particularly when the AC is used.

The BYD and also the Volkswagen ID EV models all lose between 10-15% of the indicated range if you engage the AC… this can be quite alarming when you set off on a journey with say 250 miles of range, and you turn on the AC and the range drops in just a few seconds to around 220 miles.

This clearly visible loss of range is not something Tesla EV owners suffer from.

Back to the original question of Chinese (Asian) cars, if you haven’t got a preference, I would suggest you look at Hyundai as their build quality is excellent, the paint finish is as good as anything else on the market… and in terms of the in-car technology, theirs is much easier to get to grips with than Kia, which can be bloody annoying when connecting your mobile to use Apple/Google maps rather than the Kia satnav system.

Take as many test drives as you can before committing to anything.
 
NeilMorepies said:
Much cheaper and better than one of Elmo’s Nazi milkfloats.
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Cheaper than Tesla, yes… better, No.
In Everton market… Tesla is still the best on the market for the price you would pay.
Forget the abhorrent politics of Musk and concentrate on the quality and reliability of the product.
 

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