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21/12/2011
REVIEW by EWAN KENNEDY
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We are having trouble getting hold of Chery cars for our regular news and review pieces. The Australian importer of Cherys, one of the largest of many Chinese manufacturers, says it is selling the cars faster than they can be imported, so don’t have any to spare for the media to drive.
We then spoke to our local dealer, a guy we have known for years as he retails several other brands. He was reluctant to lend us a Chery as he would prefer that we waited for the updated models due in the first few months of 2012. He told us these would be significantly better than the current ones.
We are happy to report that “third time lucky” proved true on this occasion, when we drove from our home territory and acted anonymously when asking for a test drive in the smallest and cheapest car in the range, the Chery J1.
Cheap really does mean cheap, the recommended retail price of the Chery J1 is a mere $11,990 – which is all you pay, the dealer does all its preparatory work on the car for free, and also picks up all the government charges.
Just $11,990 buys you a lot of motor car. Chery J1 is a five-door hatchback with seating for four in reasonable comfort. The tall body makes for quite good interior room, though as is normal in a car of this size two adults and two kids is a more reasonable load. We like the styling, it has a cheeky look that almost mini-SUV in its lines, though without the extra ground clearance that would give it a macho (well, macho-ish!) appearance.
Quality of the exterior of the body finish and paint isn’t too bad. The interior has more hard plastic than we like, so as soon as you sit in the car it’s obvious Chery is built down to a price. But let us repeat that the price is just $11,990 driveaway so cutting corners is more than acceptable.
On the road the 1.3-litre four-cylinder engine, which produces only 62 kilowatts of power and 122 Newton metres of torque, struggles a bit at times. Hills tackled with two people and a bit of gear on board required a lower gear than in Chery’s competitors. The engine is not all that happy when asked to rev hard, but in the mid range it’s willing enough.
The gearbox is a five-speed unit, which is still the norm in cars in the sub $15,000 price group. The change action is smooth enough, which is just as well because you’re going to be using it a lot. Lower gearing may help overcome the lack of performance, but may increase fuel consumption. We say ‘may increase’ because we often find that a car that’s geared too highly uses more fuel than one that’s not being worked hard to keep it on song.
Handling is acceptable, but certainly nothing to get excited about. A good set of tyres may significantly improve the feel and dynamics, but with that low starting price topline tyres could add more than 10 per cent to your driveaway figure.
Smoothness and quietness are not features of a cheap car but the Chery J1 wasn’t too bad on the reasonable road surfaces we did put it over. Unfortunately, our brief 45-minute test run didn’t enable us to take it over our favourite stretches of road, so we will have to wait until the importer finally relents and gives us cars to test on a routine basis.
Australia is one of the first major markets to which Cherys are being imported. Given the critical nature of buyers – and we reviewers – in this country that’s a smart move. Because any faults will be passed back to the dealers in the very direct Aussie manner. The Chinese may not be as willing to listen to criticisms as were the Japanese importers in their early days. Time will tell whether this is the start of a new era which will see yet another Asian marque succeeding in the demanding Australian market.
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