2013 Great Wall X240 Pricing and Specs

A common cause of this fault is failure of what’s known as the clock-spring which lives inside the steering column. But it’s not a spring at all, it’s actually the electrical connector that joins the air-bag (and steering wheel controls if your car has them) to the rest of the car’s electrical systems. It’s called a clock-spring because it’s wound in a spiral shape to allow the steering wheel to turn from lock to lock without the connecting wiring binding or bunching up. Eventually, fatigue gets the better of a clock-spring and it snaps, allowing the connection to fail. And that’s very probably what’s causing the air-bag light on your dashboard.

But don’t ignore it, as the clock-spring is also responsible for sending the correct signal to the air-bag in the case of a crash where the bag needs to deploy. And driving with an air-bag that may not go off when it should is a terrible idea.

Yes, it is.

As you say the Great Wall utes are new to this country, and so far too few have made it on to the market to give us a good picture of what they're like. Having driven them when they were launched last year I can say they are at least one generation behind the current market leaders in that segment, but they seem reasonably well built and they're made from parts that are mostly hand-me-downs from other makes and models, so they should be well tried. At the end of the day you would be a pioneer if you bought one, going where few have gone before, but given your budget it's probably worth a punt.