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Is cheap really cheerful? Or is it a race to the bottom? Maybe it’s better to call these two cars ‘affordable’ given they’re two seven seaters sitting at the most budget-friendly end of the SUV market?
The Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max from China and the Mahindra XUV700 from India are relatively new to Australia, so you might not be familiar with them. They promise long lists of features for not much financial outlay.
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Read on and you’ll find out, because we’ve broken down the pros and cons of these two cars, and hopefully it’ll help you decide if either, or maybe neither of them, are right for you.
Price and features – Do they represent good value for the price? What features do they come with?
On paper, both of these cars are stacked when it comes to features, and both sit around the $40K mark. We’ll get to whether they feel properly nice inside shortly, but it’s hard to say there’s not value to be found when you can get a seven-seater at this price in the first place.
They both have dual digital screens inside, both with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, wireless phone charging, premium sound systems, dual-zone climate control, synthetic leather upholstery and the driver’s seat in each is electrically adjustable.
On top of that, there are functional elements like LED headlights and tail-lights, surround-view cameras and even advanced driver assistance systems that would have been the domain of much pricier cars even just a few years ago.
The Mahindra XUV700 AX7L wins on price at $39,990 before on-road costs, and is boosted by a standard panoramic sunroof. It also gets a tick for the 12-speaker Sony premium sound system which is four more than the Chery.
The XUV700 also features foglamps and cornering lights as standard, and it comes with a proper-sized headrest for the centre passenger in the second row.
The Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite is a $43,990 ask, but edges the Mahindra for having more features. For a start, its front passenger seat is also electrically adjustable and both front seats are heated and vented.
To add to the premium interior vibes, it has ambient lighting and its speaker system is also Sony-built. Functionally, a power tailgate makes things easier when loading up luggage and passengers, while built-in sat-nav and wireless phone mirroring make things easier on the move.
Despite the fact you probably won’t need them, there are also three selectable drive modes and the option of voice control in the Tiggo 8 Pro Max.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 6 | 7 |
Design – Is there anything interesting about their designs?
One of these cars looks about right for its price point, and the other one is very much aiming for a more premium vibe than its sticker price suggests.
It’s the Chery that’s out to impress, despite its relatively inoffensive (dare I say, uninspired) look.
The diamond motif in the grille, the LED headlight signature and some chrome around the body are easy-to-spot touches that aim for a premium look, while its tail-light bar spanning the rear is following a growing trend.
But it’s the Tiggo 8’s interior that’s likely to win hearts on the showroom floor. You’d be forgiven for thinking you were in a Mercedes-Benz if you hadn’t been in one for ages… and maybe you were squinting. The start button, shifter, window controls and even speaker covers are all very Stuttgart.
But the Tiggo 8 boasts a pretty flash cabin with decent materials, save for a few flimsy-feeling buttons or tacky fake wood grain. In the specification on test, dark grey and black trim for most elements only contrasts with some brushed aluminium-look trim, so there’s no garish mismatches in terms of colours or even materials.
Now, the Mahindra. I’m not trying to be mean when I say it looks a little mid-2010s, I actually think it’s got a design language that shouldn’t age too badly, given it doesn’t lean too much into trends.
It likely the design won’t immediately win over as many people as the Chery, but its C-shaped headlights and interesting tail-light motif strike a nice balance between safe and adventurous, probably a good move for a relatively little-known brand in Australia.
The headlights themselves are giving a bit of France, though. Possibly inspired by a certain diamond-logoed brand…
Inside, it’s a bit lacklustre after spending some time in the Chery, but remember the asking price and suddenly a synthetic leather interior with a sunroof is feeling pretty good.
It’s mostly function over form here, as there are some bits that look dated already, including the climate controls and the area around the shifter. Still, physical climate controls are preferable to digital controls via the touchscreen.
Despite the potential for a light-coloured interior trim to become the victim of dirt and spills, the seats themselves look nice and the material feels like it's decent quality.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 6 | 7 |
Practicality – How practical is their space and tech inside?
The ergonomics of the Tiggo 8 are quite solid. The driver's seat is good in terms of adjustment and it’s nicely shaped, more comfortable and holds better during driving than the seats in the XUV700.
Touch points are all nicely thought out, there are no hard surfaces for elbows for example, and there are even some soft materials on places you wouldn’t normally touch.
The cupholders fit the standard CarsGuide water bottle, but the door card bottle holders don’t, which seems like it should be the other way around. Unless you give the bottle a proper shove which seems like it could warp the plastic over time.
The rest of the storage in the front row is great though, the central storage cubby is huge and the phone charger bay is nicely out of the way.
The tech is where things start to get a bit annoying. Chery’s got a lot going on in its menus and sometimes it can be a bit of a hassle to find what you’re looking for. I had to regularly reconnect my phone despite no other phone being connected to the system.
The physical controls for the climate settings aren’t great, there are no actual buttons or physical feedback, and the material on the surface is a bit too reflective. It’s already a bit of a fiddle when you’re parked, let alone motoring along.
In the second, middle row of the Tiggo 8, the seats are also reasonably adjustable, and there’s still a nice combination of materials and soft surfaces. The seats move horizontally, so you can adjust for appropriate legroom, depending on the use of the third row.
Speaking of, getting into the rearmost two seats is a little bit clumsy for an adult. The smaller seat in the 40/60 split in the second row is the driver’s side seat, and it doesn’t quite fold far enough away for a comfortable step-in. It’s also on the opposite side of the Chery from the kerb.
But as long as the middle row is slid forward a little and not leaning too far back, there’s enough room in the rear row for an average-sized adult - just. You wouldn’t want anyone taller than 180cm to sit in the third row for any longer than a very short trip, even with the adjustable backrests.
There’s also adjustable fan speed for the third row with moveable vents on either side.
With those seats folded away, the boot has 479 litres of space according to Chery, or 117L with the third row up. That's enough for small luggage but you’ll be hard-pressed to fit much more than carry-on behind it.
In the Mahindra, some of the negatives of its visual design become positives when it comes to actually using the space. For example those climate controls as physical buttons is suddenly a huge plus. They’re a lot easier to see and adjust than in the Chery.
Yep, the XUV700 manages to avoid the increasingly common practice of making everything touchscreen bound, though its driver display could be a little more responsive with the menu on-screen distractingly slow to switch between settings lists and different views.
The graphics, layout and even the parking camera quality on the 10.25-inch screens are all a bit dated, so remember to bring your cable to plug in for phone mirroring.
The seats are good, but not as comfy as in the Tiggo 8, and the front passenger seat isn’t electrically adjustable like the driver’s.
The storage situation in the XUV700 is a bit of a reverse of the Chery. The central cupholders don’t fit a standard water bottle, but the doorcards do very comfortably. The passenger-side glovebox is also an odd shape, but it’s pretty spacious, while the central storage bin is pretty small but comes with a little shelf seemingly to hold the key fob.
The phone charger bay is (like the Tiggo) out of the way, though won’t be as useful with your phone plugged in for mirroring.
The second row is functionally about the same as the Chery, but there’s a bit more light thanks to the sunroof, and the centre seat has an oddly large headrest which actually gets in the way of the driver's rear vision.
The second row’s 60/40 split does, however, gets a tick because the single seat is on the kerbside here in Australia, and it folds forward properly behind the front passenger seat to allow easy entry into the third row, even for an adult.
Third row is, as with most third rows, not particularly spacious, but headroom is marginally better than in the Chery, and it also comes with fan adjustment and movable vents. The seatbacks aren’t angle adjustable though.
Mahindra hasn’t published official boot space capacity, but on test it fit the same luggage case behind the third row, and seems to have very similar space with the third row folded away.
In terms of being usable day to day and for having a couple of easier-to-use functions, the Mahindra chalks up a win in this category.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 8 | 7 |
Under the bonnet – What are the key stats for their engines and transmissions?
Both cars have a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, both driving the front wheels. But there are a few differences that impact day-to-day driving.
The Chery is more powerful, with 180kW and 375Nm, mated to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. It needs 95 RON as a minimum, but its power output is pretty solid for a mid-size SUV.
The Mahindra XUV700 has 149kW under its belt but a little more torque, 380Nm, with a six-speed auto sending power to the wheels.
It’s a little more ‘no nonsense, get the job done’ than the Chery, but we’ll get to that in the driving section.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 7 | 7 |
Efficiency – What is its fuel consumption? What is its driving range?
On paper, the Chery’s claims have the Mahindra beat. But our test showed otherwise.
The Tiggo comes with an 8.1L/100km claim for combined cycle fuel use, but we recorded 9.5L/100km over a couple of hundred kilometres of varied driving, including highways, suburbs and semi-rural backroads.
It’s got a 57L fuel tank that needs to be filled with 95 RON petrol minimum, meaning a theoretical range of just over 700km according to the claimed figure, but likely closer to 600km in reality.
The Mahindra's claimed 8.3L/100km fuel consumption figure actually turned out to be 8.0L flat in our testing on exactly the same roads, same time, same distance.
With a larger 60L tank and lower fuel consumption, as well as running on 91 RON petrol, the Mahindra should be able to go further for less. More than 720km according to the claimed fuel figure, but potentially even further, if you end up with economy like we did on test.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 8 | 7 |
Driving – What's it like to drive?
To keep things consistent in this comparison, let’s start with the Chery on the road.
There’s been a lot said about the driving experience in cars from Chery, and some of the early issues have been addressed. But there are still some frustrations with the Tiggo 8.
For example, it’s a little jolty at low speeds thanks to its dual-clutch gearbox. A torque converter would be smoother and absolutely fine for a family car, which doesn’t need sporty shifting.
It’s also not as comfy as it could be. Sure our roads aren’t perfect but much of our combined city, suburban, and rural test route proved too rough for the suspension. Road noise and an unsettled ride are noticeable, from vibrations caused by rough surfaces to wafting due to undulating roads. It handles sharper bumps well enough, though, and anyone coming out of an older SUV might find it a step up.
Mid-corner, especially at speed, is where the Chery has me scratching my head. It doesn’t feel properly planted on the road and I lost confidence in the car at high speeds on winding roads.
Its steering is not dialled-in in terms of feel, a bit heavier than the Mahindra but also sharper. It’s the more ‘sporty’ feeling of the two for sure, even if artificially.
Its powerful engine helps there as well. It’s a lot more eager to use its extra power and is sometimes even too much for the front wheels. The all-wheel-drive version of the Tiggo 8 might be a more secure feel if that’s important to you.
The elephant in the room for Chery is the driver assistance tech, which the brand copped a lot of flak for (including from us) at launch with its Omoda 5. It didn’t feel particularly safe to drive with lane-keeping on, but that’s no longer the case. Now it’s just annoying.
I turned the lane-keep system off after a few test runs because it doesn’t sit centred in the lane, and it gently nudges the wheel back to the left side of the lane every three seconds unless you have a light hold on the wheel.
What’s the point of these systems if they annoy the driver enough to be turned off?
Speaking of turning off, another of CarsGuide’s road testers experienced the Chery’s screens turning off mid-drive, and restarting with the strangely long startup animation resulting in 15 to 20 seconds without driving information, including speed.
It’s not something I’ve come across before, but if it’s happened once it could possibly happen again.
It’s a bit of a flipped script for the XUV700.
This car doesn’t really impress as much as the Chery when it’s stationary, but get going and the Mahindra punches above its weight.
It’s not as powerful as the Tiggo 8, but the Mahindra feels much more sorted in terms of road manners.
One initial concern about the Mahindra is the brake pedal feels a little binary and takes some getting used to. That and once it rained, finding out that the MRF Wanderer tyres don’t handle slick surfaces too well. Wheel spin off the line at the lights is embarrassing, but can be fixed with a calmer right foot.
But power delivery and the gearbox tune are much smoother, as is the Mahindra's ride on most roads. In fact, it's well sorted for highways at speed, as well as rough back roads.
The suspension is confidence-inspiring for a mid-size SUV, and while not perfect, it never feels like it can't handle a fast corner without a gentle warning in the form of some predictable understeer.
Steering is a little more vague, and the rack is not as capable of sharp cornering as the Chery, but the car as a whole feels a lot more planted and confident at speed, and on questionable surfaces.
A downside is the parking camera display quality and the slight lag, both in the reversing camera and the mirror-mounted units that show the sides of the car when indicating. It's one thing you really notice when it doesn’t work as it should. You don’t want to find out you’re too close to a car’s bumper or your garage wall via a bump rather than the camera feed.
But aside from relatively small annoyances like these, or the time it takes to navigate through the driver display, the XUV700’s driving ability feels well-suited to Australian conditions and wins the on-road section of this comparison. Convincingly.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 8 | 5 |
Warranty & Safety Rating
Safety – What safety equipment is fitted? What is its safety rating?
On paper, the Chery’s got more safety credentials - annoying lane-keep aside.
It has more standard advanced driver safety systems than the Mahindra, which you need this higher spec to get.
Its knee airbag and surround-view camera are examples of features you only get on the XUV700 AX7L and not in the more affordable AX7.
On top of that, the Chery's 10 airbags and five-star ANCAP rating tops the seven airbags in the Mahindra, which does not have an ANCAP rating.
The Mahindra’s curtain airbag does cover the third row, but the Chery's does not.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 6 | 7 |
Ownership – What warranty is offered? What are its service intervals? What are its running costs?
What seems to be a decisive win for the Tiggo 8 is the post-purchase cost.
Each car has a seven-year warranty, but Chery’s is unlimited kilometres, whereas the Mahindra warranty is 150,000km. Still heaps, but why not unlimited? Seven years is a lot of driving.
Both have 12-month servicing intervals, but Chery’s is on a 10,000km distance interval, Mahindra on 15,000km.
The Mahindra only has four capped-price services listed, along with a free one-month or 1500km check-in after purchase.
The capped-price services average out at a hefty $445 though, while Chery has seven years of capped-price servicing and the average price is almost $150 less at $298.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Score | 6 | 8 |
Verdict
When I crunched the numbers for these two cars, the various segment scores came to the same total under the CarsGuide format.
Each buyer has different priorities and you might value certain vehicle elements over others.
For example, the Chery has a better features list and is more stylish, but the Mahindra is a much better car to drive.
Chery’s ownership proposition is pretty good, but the Mahindra seems to be a more efficient SUV.
The Chery’s seats are better, but the Mahindra has a sunroof.
The Chery’s safety systems are annoying, but the Mahindra doesn’t have an ANCAP score yet.
There are things about both cars that would be dealbreakers for me personally. The Chery is more polished at a surface level, but the Mahindra is more polished underneath which shows on the road, and that’s why it would be my pick.
Just know if you’re keen on saving some cash and picking up one of these family-friendly SUVs that you might need a longer dealership test drive to make up your mind.
| Mahindra XUV700 AX7L | Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Max Elite | |
| Price and features | 6 | 7 |
| Design | 6 | 7 |
| Practicality | 8 | 7 |
| Under the bonnet | 7 | 7 |
| Efficiency | 8 | 7 |
| Driving | 8 | 5 |
| Safety | 6 | 7 |
| Ownership | 6 | 8 |
| Final score | 6.9 | 6.9 |
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