Chinese cars, are they as bad as everyone thinks?

FiestaST said:
I'll give you a two part answer.

1) For the "budget conscience" allrounder:

Chery Tiggo 4 Cross LIT. The value aspect is unreal relative to the "legacy" brands. Sure it is an N/A motor in this application but it looks good, has a great warranty & is well kitted out.

If you can do a stick shift tranny then R280k new, you will find it for less than this OR R310k for the CVT.

2) If budget was less of an obstacle then the Haval H6 GT PHEV, the aggression, sheer performance & efficiency are the main reasons. 321 kW, 762 Nm, 180 km electric range, R800k.

What about you?
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https://twitter.com/x/status/2099844251353759977
 
EmmanuelGoldstein said:
@FiestaST confession time:
I have driven a DongFeng BOX as it's called. Call it a professional situation I was in
I have one concern... well two...
1. The range on this car is not great, and I don't know about you.. charging that thing at my home, used over 100 units on my prepaid overnight. I cannot afford that. Petrol is still cheaper even with the ANC and the Big Orange Man making troubles.
2. I've seen one crashed- if you've crashed yours, be prepared to wait 6-9 months to GET SPARES FROM CHINA!

Not at liberty to discuss whose car it is or where it is currently sitting but yes... that car's been there since June... no spares, they're going nuts because they're losing income... DongFeng just say "Be patient you... factory busy"
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The extended range version has a 42kWh battery, even with AC/DC losses there is no way it used 100kWh/units to charge.

Also, I don't think you have a dedicated wallbox so with the standard 3 pin charger, there is no way you could have pushed 100kWh through it overnight.
 
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chickenbeef said:
The extended range version has a 42kWh battery, even with AC/DC losses there is no way it used 100kWh/units to charge.

Also, I don't think you have a dedicated wallbox so with the standard 3 pin charger, there is no way you could have pushed 100kWh through it overnight.
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Ignoring the car entirely it’s a stretch to use 100kWh overnight in any normal household residential scenario.

But yes the standard wall socket travel charger would max at 2.3kWh.

Kak praat stories.
 
FiestaST said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2092564278205132884
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Features a ''full-width front light bar''.

I don't know how anybody else feels about this, but modern LEDs on their own are irritating for how bright they can be and I find these full-width bars to be extremely obnoxious.

This is also compounded by the fact that you barely travel on a road with working streetlights, so your eyes are never quite adjusted for light, and then these LED lights are blasting in you the face.

For the record, my car does have DRLs, but old school halogen lights for actual lighting, so I can complain about this.
 
thestaggy said:
Features a ''full-width front light bar''.

I don't know how anybody else feels about this, but modern LEDs on their own are irritating for how bright they can be and I find these full-width bars to be extremely obnoxious.

This is also compounded by the fact that you barely travel on a road with working streetlights, so your eyes are never quite adjusted for light, and then these LED lights are blasting in you the face.

For the record, my car does have DRLs, but old school halogen lights for actual lighting, so I can complain about this.
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That's only an issue with people retrofitting the **** to their cars.

Made for purpose LED arrays are not an issue to other drivers, in fact they would be less so than old school halogen setups.
 
SauRoNZA said:
That's only an issue with people retrofitting the **** to their cars.

Made for purpose LED arrays are not an issue to other drivers, in fact they would be less so than old school halogen setups.
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These are modern cars blinding me. Especially the big SUVs and double cabs that can blast directly into your eyes because of their height.

Quick Google search tells me that I am not alone in this, and it appears to be a global thing.

Modern car headlights are blinding Britain’s drivers​


A Government-commissioned report last November found what almost every driver already knows: in their efforts to make cars safer and improve visibility at night for drivers, car manufacturers have inadvertently gone too far and made driving after dark unpleasant, if not downright unsafe.
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The glaring problem with the LED headlights dominating Australian roads​


The lights on new cars are whiter and brighter, but they are a dazzling hazard for oncoming traffic.

LED headlights, which often deliver three to five times more light than old-fashioned halogen globes, have reduced single car crashes at night by nearly 20 per cent, according to data from the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

But their impact on other road users, who are faced with a wall of oncoming white lights, has not been tested by Australia's official car safety assessor.
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And lo and behold, the Chinese are singled out for their haphazard use of walls of white light. -

"The really good LED headlight systems have what are called active matrix headlights where they'll have a couple of hundred LEDs which can individually turn off and on so you don't cause glare to people coming towards you," he said.

"The trouble is, the bad ones don't do that. They just throw a huge amount of light out the front of the car, and, because a lot of these lights are on big pick-up trucks, they're set up so high they cause ridiculous amounts of glare.
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Gover said the greater issue was the quality of headlight systems rather than their shape.

"It's mainly the lesser Chinese brands," he said.

"They have these lights on their SUVs and pick-ups and the trouble is they don't work that well."
Click to expand...
 
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Considering trading my wifes Picanto for a Chery Tiggo Cross 1.5 Lit.

It's the first time I am considering Chinese but that particular car seems simple to fix. Common NA motor, manual gearbox, still has physical buttons for the essential things. I must say the fact that Chery have invested in the local plant also just helps with the confidence a bit. That and the super price.
 
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