LDV Terron 9 vs Peugeot Boxer

What's the difference?

There’s no doubt that the current crop of Chinese utes are better than previous versions. Similarly, there’s little doubt that private buyers are having a big say in which way the market is headed, particularly when it comes to alternatives to the Thai-built legacy players. And that’s precisely where the Terron 9 plays its best game. The value for money is hard to argue with, and the sheer size of the thing gives it an extra dimension if that’s what you think you need in a dual-cab. While we have no quarrel with the driveline of the Terron 9, it will be nice when somebody finally adds an on-bitumen four-wheel-drive mode to one of these in this price range. Until then, the Terron 9 can’t be criticised for this omission. In the meantime, the Terron 9 exhibits quite a bit of refinement in the way both the engine and transmission work together. Our biggest complaint is the way the driver-assistance systems have been calibrated. The driver-distraction warning is almost comical (for the first five minutes, anyway) in its zeal, and the lane-keeping assistance program is bordering on scary in the wrong circumstances. Again, LDV is not alone in this regard, but as a clean-sheet design, sketched up in a driver-assisted world, perhaps we were expecting a little more from this ute.

It has its faults like any vehicle but it’s a competent all-rounder, that combines sub-$50K pricing with a big payload capacity, mostly user-friendly design, improved safety and a compelling warranty. It also faces stiff competition in the 3501-8000kg GVM class, particularly from rivals with an automatic option. 

While the Terron 9 remains a ladder-chassis design with the body plonked on top (just like traditional four-wheel drives and most other dual-cabs) there is one important departure in design terms. And it’s one that rules out a whole sub-class of this type of vehicle.

Because the body sides are one piece in the Terron, with no gap between the rear bulkhead and the tray, there’s no way to turn the thing into a cab-chassis with a drop-side tray or service body. Yes, you can add a canopy to the existing design (LDV is working on its accessory line-up for the Terron right now) but there’s no cab-chassis variant now or in the works.

That might seem a bit odd, but when you consider the vast majority of dual-cabs are, in fact, styleside utes, maybe the sales hit won’t be a huge one. That’s especially so when you consider many of the Chinese utes rely on private buyers, not fleet customers, for their sales volumes. And in any case, says LDV, the way the body is constructed allows for a little more rear seat legroom and a touch more cargo space length for the same overall length. Which the company believes is a trade-off worth sticking with.

There’s also been a clear brief for the Terron 9 to make a visual statement. While it’s dimensions put it somewhere between the mainstream dual-cabs and the full-sized American pick-ups we see, the styling definitely leans towards the latter. The grille is huge, the vertical tail-lights very Stateside and the whole thing looks imposing. I’ll personally draw the line at attractive, but it’s definitely imposing.

The most adventurous piece of interior design must be the electronic door handles which need just a simple press to open the doors. There’s a manual, cable-operated door opener hidden in each door pocket if things go wrong electrically at some stage.

It comes ready for work with hard-wearing black plastic in the most vulnerable places for scrapes and dents, including the front and rear bumpers and down the sides. The same black finish can be found on the window surrounds, door handles, huge door mirrors (which would not look out of place on a Kenworth) and the housing for the high-mounted third brake light.

It’s a large vehicle measuring 5413mm long, 2050mm wide and, thanks to the conspicuously high roof line, stands 2522mm tall. So, like numerous rivals in this weight class, it can’t access most shopping centre and underground carparks.

The front-wheel drive chassis, with its 3450mm wheelbase and 12.6-metre turning circle, features a simple and rugged combination of coil-spring strut front suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, power-assisted rack and pinion steering and single-leaf/solid beam rear suspension. Long rubber bump-stop cones, attached to the underfloor above each end of the rear axle, provide extra support when the springs compress under heavy loads.

The steel bulkhead, which separates the cabin from the cargo bay, insulates the driver/passenger from cargo bay noise and doubles as a robust cargo barrier. Its window is large enough to allow the driver to make a quick over-shoulder glance at any time to check the load is secure.

Criticisms? The relatively small 5.0-inch media screen can make the reversing camera’s vision difficult to see in detail. The height adjustment on the driver’s seat, using two levers on the lower right side, is clunky to operate. And although the rear barn-door windows are heated, there are no wiper/washers, which we didn’t get to test in wet conditions, which is most unusual for Melbourne.

A longer, wider cargo bed is probably one of the Terron 9’s best party tricks. Compared with the T60, the Terron is larger in every direction and extends that lead into the tub’s dimensions where it emerges with 1230mm between the wheel arches and a cargo bed length of 1600mm (90mm more than the T60 Pro).

That’s partly all possible by the extra wheelbase which, at 3300mm, is about as big as it gets in this class of ute, although the turning circle has grown to 13.1m compared with the T60’s tighter 12.7m.

A spray-in tub liner is standard as is the spring-assisted tailgate. Pony up for the ritzier, Evolve version, and you add cargo rails atop the tub sides and cargo-bed lighting.

Inside the tray, there are four decent tie-down hooks nice and low in the tub and plastic side toppers to prevent damage to the tub’s top rail. The tailgate is a clever design that is supported by springs and struts so that it drops in a controlled way and is very light to lift back up. The latch on the top corner of the tray is odd, but the tailgate can be opened via the key fob, too.

The biggest omission in the tray is the lack of any power socket.

Inside, the cabin is wide and features a pair of cup-holders down low in the centre console, as well as a USB-A, USB-C and a 12-volt socket placed somewhat awkwardly in the centre bin. The front arm-rest looks like it should incorporate a wireless phone charger, which it doesn’t. Yet. Watch this space, is the whisper. A reach and height adjustable steering column is also a nice addition at this price-point. And, thankfully, LDV has worked out that most people don’t want to go fishing through a menu to adjust the climate control. So the Terron 9 has actual buttons on the dashboard. Hallelujah.

Side steps are standard and help you in and out of the cabin, and there are grab-handles in the right places, too. Rear seat space is generous and even the cloth trim of the entry-level version is not the cheap-and-nasty sort, even if it’s far from sporty looking.

The indicator wand is on the `wrong’ side for Australia, partly because the gear selector is a wand on the other side of the steering column. Some users will spend the first few days hitting the gear selector in error. The starter is a push button, but placed in the conventional position of a standard ignition key. Nice touch.

The Boxer 160’s 1865kg tare weight and 3510kg GVM results in a sizeable 1645kg payload rating. However, we always quote kerb weights (full tank of fuel) rather than tare weights (10 litres of fuel) to keep things consistent.

So, in this case, adding the missing 80 litres of diesel (67kg) results in a kerb weight of 1932kg, which reduces the payload by the same amount to 1578kg. That’s still almost 1.6 tonnes which is more than ample for this category. It's also rated to tow up to 2500kg of braked trailer and, based on European figures at least, can do this with a full payload.

The cargo bay provides a competitive 11.5 cubic metres of load volume and 10 sturdy load-anchorage points. Its floor, which is 3120mm long and 1870mm wide with 1420mm between the wheel housings, can  accommodate two 1165mm-square standard Aussie pallets or three 1200 x 800mm Euro pallets. There’s ample forklift access through the rear barn-doors with full 270-degree openings or sliding side doors with their big 1250mm openings.

The high roof cavity means even tall adults can stand inside with headroom to spare. It also provides a large and very useful open storage area over the driver’s cabin, which is ideal for storing ropes, straps, load-padding and any other gear a hard-working van might need.

Although the side doors and barn-doors are lined to mid-height, the cargo bay walls are unlined which leaves numerous cavities exposed that could make small items like pens, keys, phones etc disappear if they were dropped. The load floor is also unprotected.

Cabin storage options include upper and lower bins in each door, with the lower bins being wide and deep enough to hold several large bottles. There’s also a full-width map shelf that sits about forehead height for tall drivers, which is easy to access and can hold heaps of stuff.

The dashboard also has numerous storage choices including open shelves to the right of the steering column and underneath it, cup/small-bottle holders in the centre of the dash and on top a fixed clipboard with spring-loaded clamp. There’s also a glovebox with another large open storage bin below it plus even more storage, about the size of a baking tray, under the driver’s seat.

The Boxer 160 (which denotes its European horsepower or ‘PS’ rating) is available only with a 2.0 litre turbo-diesel engine and six-speed manual transmission, plus a choice of 4035mm long wheelbase or 3450mm standard wheelbase like our test vehicle, for a list price of $47,490.

It comes equipped with 15-inch steel wheels and 215/70 R15C tyres with a full-size spare, plus cargo bay bulkhead, hard-wearing rubber floor, 12-volt accessory socket and USB ports, height/reach adjustable steering wheel, two bucket seats with fold-down inboard armrests and lumbar adjustment and multimedia system with 5.0-inch touchscreen and sat-nav plus ample storage and more. There’s also AEB on the upgraded safety menu.

The only options available are three paint colours (Imperial Blue, Red and Aluminium Grey) in addition to our test vehicle’s standard Bianca White.

While peak outputs of both the Terron 9 and its smaller stablemate T60 seem similar on paper, in actual mechanical terms, there are a few important differences.

While the T60 uses a 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel with a pair of turbochargers, the Terron 9 is, on paper, a bit more simplified, but a lot newer in design terms. It’s a 2.5-litre unit, but reverts to a single turbocharger for a power peak of 163kW (three up on the T60, at slightly lower revs) and max torque of 520Nm (20 more). Fuel economy should be about line-ball with the T60 (more of that later).

Like the T60, the Terron 9 features an independent, coil-spring front end, but loses the T60 Plus’ coil-sprung rear axle for a leaf-sprung live axle.

The Terron 9 sticks with an eight-speed automatic transmission (although a different unit to the T60’s eight-speed unit) and also gets four-wheel drive with a low-ratio transfer case for proper off-roading. What’s missing (but nobody else at this price-point has it either) is Auto 4WD mode which allows the vehicle to be driven in four-wheel drive on bitumen surfaces. In the case of towing on a wet road, this is a huge boost to overall safety.

While the extra torque over the T60’s smaller engine seems welcome, it pays to remember that the larger Terron 9 is about 300kg heavier than its little brother. That said, the payload is a little higher at 1100kg for the Origin and 1005kg for the Evolve but with the vehicle’s full 3500kg on the tow-hitch, that payload falls to 600kg and 505kg respectively, thanks to the Terron’s 6500kg Gross Combination Mass. It’s far from alone in this regard.

The 2.0-litre Blue HDI four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine, which meets the toughest Euro 6 emissions standard using AdBlue, produces peak values of 120kW at 3500rpm and 310Nm of torque at 1500rpm.

Peugeot claims this engine was tested for more than 10,000 hours, subjected to more than 1.3 million km of drive-testing and 16,000 thermal shock cycles (cold starting and accelerations), corresponding to 15 years of intensive use. In short, it should be tough enough. Transmission is a sweet-shifting six-speed manual.

LDV’s official fuel consumption figure for the Terron 9 is 7.9 litres per 100km. That’s a number that you might – just might – see on a gentle highway run, but the 9.0 litres per 100km we recorded on our own test drive is probably closer to the day-to-day mark. That’s still pretty good, though and speaks of the tall gearing in the eight-speed automatic transmission.

Against the 80-litre standard fuel tank, that gives a useable range of close enough to 850km on the open road before you need to start watching the fuel gauge.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Terron 9 is Euro 5 complaint rather than meeting the tougher Euro 6 emissions targets. As such, it does not require the addition of AdBlue, representing another running cost saving.

Peugeot’s official combined average is a fanciful 6.4L/100km. The dash readout was claiming a more realistic 9.0L/100km when we filled the tank after 282km of testing, which included more than a third of that distance lugging its maximum payload.

However, our own figure calculated from fuel bowser and tripmeter readings came in at 9.9L, which is more than 3.0L/100km above the official figure. Even so, sub-10L economy is very efficient  for a vehicle of this size, so based on our figures you could expect an excellent real-world driving range of around 900km from its big 90-litre tank.

The first impression is that this is a very big vehicle. The passenger’s seat seems miles away and the bonnet is high, wide and mighty. That might not play too well off road where such a huge bonnet can hide the obstacles you’re about to fall off or drive over, but at least the forward facing camera system gives you a fighting chance. The other problem off-road is likely to be the sheer girth of the LDV where it might struggle a little for elbow room on tracks formed by smaller vehicles.

On the bitumen, the Terron 9 feels pretty relaxed with a gear for every occasion and an unstressed engine that is clearly tuned for mid-range oomph rather than top-end power. It’s smooth and relatively refined and, left to its own devices, the eight-speed automatic shifts up seamlessly.

The only complaint would be a degree of driveline shunt in the example we drove that could be both heard and felt, most notably in the transition from off-throttle to on-throttle, but also during the odd upshift. In 2025, this seems very odd indeed. We checked with LDV and they reckon this is a one-off glitch and possibly down to the car’s early build. Certainly, the second Terron 9 we sampled didn’t exhibit the same problem.

Ride quality is generally good and while the leaf-sprung rear axle can feel a little lively at times, it’s not a bad match for the front end, meaning that the car feels of a piece rather than two halves of a car fighting each other. While there is plenty of suspension movement, it also feels quite well controlled despite the obvious amount of unsprung mass. Cabin noise is commendably low, too. Thanks to tall gearing and that noise suppression, the Terron is a relaxed highway performer.

The steering is better than average for this type of vehicle with a good relationship between feel, weight and reaction speed. This is one ute than can be hustled along if it needs to be, and one on which the paddle-shifters are a meaningful inclusion (although they’re also a huge bonus when off-roading).

By far our biggest complaint is one that is far from exclusive to LDV. And that’s the (what we consider to be) poor calibration of some of the driver aids. The lane-keeping assistance is the main offender and, on a narrow road with a well-defined edge, the Terron 9 will intervene to prevent a wheel dropping onto the gravel. Unfortunately, at higher speeds, it does so with what feels like a stabbing action; violent enough to scare you the first time it happens. Could it frighten a timid or inexperienced driver into a crash? It’s a possibility we can’t ignore.

The driver-distraction warning is also, ironically, its own distraction. Take your eyes off the road for long enough to read the otherwise excellent dashboard display, and you’ll have the warning stepping in with a beeping admonishment as well as a visual warning that overrides the information you were trying to read in the first place. Again, LDV is hardly alone in this, but there’s definitely some recalibration required before the systems are as good as some of the (more expensive) competition’s equivalents.

You sit up high with the huge windscreen providing a commanding view of the road ahead. Clear eye-lines to the large door mirrors (with wide-angle mirrors in their lower thirds) provide ample coverage of side and rear traffic.

Vision through the central rear-view mirror is also relatively clear compared to the cluttered views found in numerous rivals we’ve tested. The join of the barn-doors obscures the mirror’s central portion, but the driver still has a good view of what’s behind.

The fold-down inboard arm-rests combined with the door contours provide balanced support for arms and elbows to reduce strain on neck and shoulders. This support is particularly good for the driver, as it also allows your hands to rest comfortably on the steering wheel.

There’s negligible cargo bay noise thanks to the bulkhead. However, engine noise is noticeable and tyre noise can be quite intrusive, particularly at highway speeds on coarse bitumen surfaces. Cruising in top gear results in a fairly relaxed 2100rpm at 100km/h and 2300rpm at 110km/h.

The engine, with maximum torque at 1500rpm, has good all-round performance and pulling power under heavy loads, but lacks the sharper throttle response of some rivals. Even so, the manual gearshift has a light but well-defined action combined with a light clutch pedal weight.

Steering is nicely weighted and the quartet of disc brakes have plenty of bite. Handling and stability are also good regardless of load. The rear suspension tuning is commendable when running without loads on bumpy roads, providing a surprisingly smooth ride given spring rates that are designed to cope with 1.5 tonne-plus payloads.

Our only gripes are that the driver’s seat’s adjustable lumbar support presses too firmly against the spine for our liking, even on its softest setting. We also detected a couple of rattles and squeaks on bumpy roads, which sounded like they were coming from the dashboard area.

There’s no ANCAP for this vehicle segment but the Boxer would probably score well if there was thanks to the latest features like video autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane-departure warning, LED daytime running lights, reversing camera, rear parking sensors and more. There’s also driver and passenger front and side-curtain airbags.

The Terron 9 is covered by LDV’s rather excellent seven-year/200,000km warranty. Service intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km with the exception of the very first service which is due at 10,000km to account for the running-in oil the engine is filled with from the factory. This sounds like an extra impost, but mechanical sympathists will love this attention to detail.

LDV is looking into capped-price servicing but there’s no announcement to be made yet, nor any hint of what the price structure of that might look like if it happens.

The Boxer is covered by Peugeot's five years/200,000km warranty and scheduled service intervals of 12 months/20,000km, whichever occurs first. Capped-price servicing applies for the first five scheduled services with a total cost of $3445 valid until June 30, 2020.