Haval H9 vs Renault Koleos

What's the difference?

There's a lot to like about the Havel H9 - it's great value, practical and spacious, packed with advanced safety tech, and also darn good looking. More comfortable seats would be an improvement and so would a better feel to the cabin materials and switchgear. 

As for the H9's on-road performance - the 2.0-litre engine isn't the most responsive and the ladder frame chassis limits its dynamics.

So, unless you need an off-road SUV the H9 is borderline overkill in the city, where you could step into something without four-wheel drive and with more car-like comfort and handling. 

To be fair to Renault, when the second-generation Koleos launched in 2016, it was a competitive offering. The problem is, a bunch of medium SUV rivals have been replaced in that time and some of them - Toyota RAV4, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5 and Hyundai Tucson, to name a few - are high-quality offerings with an engaging drive and the latest tech and in-car features.

Unfortunately, that leaves the Koleos towards the rear of the medium SUV pack.

It offers solid value-for-money, handles reasonably well and is still one the best-looking SUVs on the road. But beyond that, the Koleos can’t keep pace with those top-notch rivals.

The Haval H9 Ultra's design is not pioneering any new style standards but it’s a good looking beast and far more handsome than those rivals I’ve mentioned above.

I like the gigantic grille and chunky front bumper, the tall, flat roofline and even those tall tail-lights. I also like the fact the red background of the Haval badge hasn't been kept in this update.

There are some nice touches you won’t find on rivals at this price such as the puddle lamps which burn a laser projected ‘Haval’ into the footpath.

Okay, it’s not burnt into the ground, but it’s intense. There are also the illuminated door sills. Small things that make the experience a bit special and match the tough but premium exterior looks – like its insides.  

The cabin looks plush and high-end from the floor mats to the panoramic sunroof, but some elements lack a high-quality feel such as the shifter and switchgear for the windows and climate control.

Haval has obviously worked hard to get the look right, now it would be good to see if the touch and feel points can also be bettered.

The H9 is the king of the Haval line-up and it’s also the biggest at 4856mm long, 1926mm wide and 1900mm tall.

An area that Renault has excelled at in the past decade has been exterior design. Under the stewardship of design chief Laurens van den Acker, Renault has transformed from somewhat quirky to modern and sleek.

The Koleos is getting on in years, having arrived in 2016, but it’s still a handsome SUV. A 2020 facelift sharpened its looks further and we reckon it’s one of the best-looking models in the medium-SUV segment.

Piano black inserts around the gear shifter are a nice touch, but the fake carbon-fibre inserts look and feel cheap. It’s all a bit generic.

But the appealing contrast yellow stitching on the seats, gear shifter housing, doors, centre armrest and more breaks up the grey with a little pop of colour.

The Haval H9 Ultra is super practical and that's not just because it's big. There are larger SUVs with far less practicality. It's the way the Haval H9 is packaged that's impressive.

For starters, I can sit in all three rows without my knees touching the seatbacks, and I'm 191cm tall. Headroom is getting tighter in the third row, but that's normal in a seven-seat SUV and there's more than enough space for my noggin when in the pilot's seat and middle row.

Cabin storage is great with six cupholders on board (two up front, two in the middle row and two for the back seats). There's a large bin under the centre console armrest up front and more hidey holes around the gear shifter, a flip-out tray for those in the second row and big bottle holders in the doors.

Entry and exit to the second row is made easy thanks to the wide-opening, tall doors and my four-year old son could climb into his seat by himself thanks to the rugged and grippy side steps.

Third-row seats are powered to lower and raise them into position, too.

There are air vents for all three rows, and controls for the climate in the second row.

Cargo storage is also impressive. With all three rows of seats in place there's enough room in the boot for a few small bags, but fold the third row down and you'll be given much more space.

We picked up a 3.0-metre long roll of synthetic turf and it fit in easily with the right side second-row seat folded, still leaving us with plenty of room for our son to sit in his child seat on the left.

Now the drawbacks. Access to the third row is affected by the 60/40 split of the second row with the larger folding section being on the road side.

Also the side-hinged tailgate makes it impossible to fully open if somebody parks too close behind you.  

And there's a lack of charging points on board - with only one USB port and no wireless charging pad.

It might lack the up-to-date styling of those rivals, but the Koleos is practical and spacious inside and great for family duties.

As with the outgoing fourth-generation Nissan X-Trail, the Koleos is one of the larger offerings in the medium SUV segment, and it’s evident when sitting in the front or rear seating row.

Rearward visibility could be better, with a small rear screen and thick C- and D-pillars impeding vision and creating a blind spot.

The front seats are well supported and comfortable and while the driver’s side is power adjustable, the front passenger seat is manually adjustable.

It has a deep central storage bin with a hidden shelf for coins and more. The Koleos features a sizeable glovebox and good bottle storage in the doors, with room for other items.

There’s a weird fixed cup holder in the centre console. It’s not adjustable and there’s room for two very narrow cups and two larger, but not wide, cups. It’s strange. Interior designers could have used that space better.

The CVT's position indicators are located to the left of the shifter and are thus obscured, so you have to rely on the instrument cluster display to confirm what gear you want. 

The steering wheel looks and feels good, but the controls aren’t super logical. There are old school switches in the console to activate the cruise control and speed limiter, but then to adjust and reset the speed you have to hit buttons on the wheel that are not clearly marked. 

The audio controls are housed on a panel-like stalk to the right side of the steering column, which isn’t ideal. These make more sense if they’re housed on the wheel itself. 

Along with a number of cars we have sampled recently, the Koleos has split analogue and digital controls for the air conditioning. Just integrate it in the screen or have traditional controls - not both!

It has a part-digital instrument cluster which is fine, but there’s no head-up display.

Renault’s 'R-Link' multimedia set-up in the Koleos is old, with dated graphics and a small screen, but the menu layout is clear and logical. 

The Koleos lacks wireless phone charging and it makes do with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. The quality of the Bluetooth and CarPlay phone audio is poor and sounds tinny. 

The proximity key that locks and unlocks the vehicle remotely when you walk towards or away from it works every single time. Many of these systems from other brands are patchy at best but the Renault system is faultless. 

The rear seats recline and fold manually 60/40. They’re also surprisingly comfortable. There’s enough bucketing to sink in a bit, and the seats are set high up so kids can easily see out windows.

Space is ample in the second row, with loads of head, leg, toe and knee room, even behind my six-foot (183cm) driving position.

The rear pew has ISOFIX points on the outboard seats, lower air vents, a 12-volt outlet, map pockets, a centre folding armrest with two cupholders, but no USB ports. You have to make do with the two ports at the front.

Open the power tailgate and you’ll find a decent 458-litre boot with all seats in place (maximum 1690L), which is off the pace of its cousin, the Nissan X-Trail (565L), as well as the Toyota RAV4 (580L) and Hyundai Tucson (539L).

A 17-inch steel spare wheel is housed under the boot floor which might explain the lower boot capacity, and there are handy tie-down hooks, a couple of smaller storage nooks and a solid cargo blind. 

A European badge doesn’t always mean you pay more than say, Korean or Japanese offerings, and Renault is an example of that.

The Koleos line-up, for now, starts from $33,590, before on-road costs, for the two-wheel drive Life and tops out at $46,390 for the Intens all-wheel drive.

But after July 1, 2022, prices will increase across the Renault line-up, with the Koleos set to range from $35,000 to $47,500.

There’s only one petrol engine option since the diesel was dropped in 2019 and each variant is paired with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) driving either the front or all four wheels.

That pre-July pricing is competitive against its rivals, undercutting the opening price of automatic versions of the Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Mitsubishi Outlander, Subaru Forester, Toyota RAV4, and more.

Our test car, the Koleos Black Edition, is priced at $40,090 (rising to $40,500 from July 1) and is based on the specification of the mid-range Zen front-wheel drive (FWD). It is limited to 400 units in Australia.

Renault is one of a number of car makers to offer a black-themed model in recent times, alongside Kia, Mitsubishi, Toyota, SsangYong, and others.

The Black Edition adds dark flourishes like 19-inch dark-grey alloy wheels, gloss black roof rails and door mirrors, sidesteps, French flags on the B-pillar (even though it’s built in South Korea) and a choice of three exterior metallic paint colours including black (of course), grey or white. 

It also gets a hands-free powered tailgate, black synthetic leather upholstery with yellow stitching, matt carbon-look inserts, an 8.7-inch multimedia portrait touchscreen and ‘Limited’ badging on the chrome door sills.

That’s on top of features that are standard on the Zen, like a proximity key, push-button start, dusk-sensing headlights, rain-sensing wipers, auto-dimming rear-view mirror, auto-folding exterior mirrors, an electrically adjustable driver’s seat, heated front seats, a reclining rear seat, dual-zone air-conditioning, and heated and cooled front cupholder.

The multimedia system houses sat nav and comes with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, Bluetooth, digital radio and an eight-speaker audio system.

There’s more details on the safety front below, and many rivals come with more modern in-car tech but there’s no question the Koleos offers very good value-for-money. 

The Haval H9 Ultra is powered by a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder engine making 180kW/350Nm. That's the only engine in the line-up and if you're wondering why a diesel isn't offered, then you're not the only one.

If you're asking where the diesel is you're probably wondering how much petrol the H9 uses, and I have the answers for you under the next heading.

Shifting gears smoothly is an eight-speed automatic transmission from ZF, the same company chosen by brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and BMW. 

The H9's ladder frame chassis and four-wheel drive system (with low range) are the right ingredients for a capable off-roader. During my time with the H9, however, I stayed on the bitumen. 

The H9 comes with selectable drive modes including 'Sport', 'Sand', 'Snow' and 'Mud'. There's a hill descent feature, too. 

The braked towing capacity of the H9 is 2500kg and Haval says the maximum fording depth is 700mm.

The Koleos shares its powertrain with the X-Trail. That means it uses a Euro 5-rated 2.5-litre four-cylinder, naturally aspirated petrol engine delivering 126kW of power at 6000rpm and 226Nm of torque at 4400rpm.  

It is paired with a CVT and drives with the front, or all four wheels, depending on the grade. 

The Koleos has a braked towing capacity of 2000kg.

I travelled 171.5km in the H9 but in my 55km loop of motorways and urban roads I used 6.22 litres of petrol, which comes to 11.3L/100km (the on-board read-out said 11.1L/100km).  

That's not terrible for a seven-seat SUV. Admittedly, I was the only person on board and the vehicle wasn't loaded up. You can expect that fuel figure to rise with more cargo and people piling in.

The official combined cycle fuel consumption claim for the H9 is 10.9L/100km, while the tank has an 80-litre capacity.

A pleasant surprise is that the H9 has a fuel-saving stop-start system, but a not-so pleasant surprise is that it needs to be fed a minimum of 95 RON premium fuel.

According to Renault, the combined fuel consumption figure for the FWD Koleos is 8.1 litres per 100 kilometres. The AWD Koleos sips 8.3L.

After a week of mixed urban, freeway and semi-rural driving, we recorded 11.3L/100km.

Koleos uses 91 RON petrol, has a 60-litre fuel tank and emits 188g/km of CO2 emissions.

The H9's ladder frame chassis will work to its advantage off the road, providing good rigidity, but as with any body-on-frame vehicle on-road dynamics aren't going to be its forte.

So, the ride is soft and comfortable (the rear multi-link suspension set up would be a major part of that) the overall driving experience can be a little agricultural. These aren't show-stopping issues, and you'll find the same in a Mitsubishi Pajero Sport or Isuzu MU-X.

More disappointing are the things Haval could easily fix. The seats are flat and not the most comfortable, the steering is a little slow, and that engine has to work hard and isn't particularly responsive.

There are also some strange quirks, too. The altimeter read-out said I was at 8180m driving through Marrickville in Sydney (Everest is 8848m) and the auto parking system is more of a guide which tells you how to park rather than doing it for you.

Imagine being 16 again and being coached by your mum or dad and you've got the idea.

That said the H9 handled life with my family without breaking a sweat. It's easy to drive, with good visibility, great insulation from the outside world and excellent headlights (the Ultra gets the brighter 35-watt xenons).

So while it's not the most adept and comfortable car on the road, I feel the H9 could be better suited to off-roading adventures. As I mentioned earlier, I only tested it's on-road performance, but keep an eye out for any future off-road tests we do with the H9.

The drive experience is a mixed bag with some highlights and lowlights.

The ageing 2.5-litre engine is responsive enough from a standing start - it has a 0-100km/h time of 9.5 seconds - but it lacks any real punch and becomes breathless the second you encounter a hill.

It is noisy and revs hard when pushed, with the CVT drone not making for a particularly pleasant aural experience. You’ll hear a fair bit of road and tyre noise in the cabin, too.

The steering is dull and feels quite artificial, but the brakes feel strong.

Unless you’re on a perfectly smooth road surface, the ride is a little busy and the damper tune fails to adequately soften corrugations, potholes and speed bumps. 

It is, however, a more capable handler than expected. The chassis is well sorted, and aside from feeling top heavy with body roll when cornering, it has decent grip and displayed impressive roadholding characteristics, even on a sweeping bend with a loose shoulder surface.

There was a little understeer detected turning into a particularly tight bend.

It can’t match the dynamism of the Kia Sportage or Mazda CX-5, but it does engage the driver to some extent.

The Koleos was awarded a five-star ANCAP crash safety rating back in 2017.

It comes as standard with six airbags, auto emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, cruise control, a reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, and a tyre pressure monitor. 

It lacks some of the more modern active driver aids that are offered as standard in rivals, like an active lane-keeping system that helps ensure the vehicle doesn’t cross line markings. The Koleos makes do with an audible warning that, oddly, sounds like a whoopie cushion when activated.

The cruise control is not adaptive, instead it’s the old school version that doesn’t detect vehicles ahead and lower its speed accordingly. 

Having more up-to-date safety gear would improve the Koleos’ appeal.

The Haval H9 is covered by a seven-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty. Servicing is recommended at six month/10,000km intervals. 

The Koleos is covered by Renault’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, which is stadatd in the meainstream market, now. 

It is available with a five-year capped-price servicing plan, with each service costing $429, except year four which will set you back $999.

The servicing schedule is every 12 months or 30,000km, whichever occurs first.