Chery J1 News

One of the most common questions I get asked as a motoring journalist is ‘what’s the worst car you’ve driven?’  To be honest, it’s not a hard question to answer because I was one of the unfortunate few to have driven the original Chery J1 hatchback.

Having departed the Australian market in 2015, the giant, state-owned Chinese vehicle manufacturer Chery is weeks away from a full-blooded comeback, with the first shipment of 1000 Omoda5 SUVs on the water and scheduled to arrive here by mid-February.

Good riddance, we say. It's been outed by the latest regulations on compulsory electronic stability control, which have also netted and rejected the Great Wall X240 and Suzuki Jimny.The bottom line is that ESC - a breakthrough system that uses computerised control of a car's braking system to maintain control in a potential emergency - is now fitted to every car in Australian showrooms.Because ESC is linked to a car's anti-skid braking system, basically working it in reverse to pull a car straight if it wobbles out of line, it means we also get the benefit on ABS to prevent wheels locking and give us the chance to steer around a potential disaster.Victoria went early on compulsory ESC but now the whole country has joined the latest safety party, triggering memories of my one-and-only outing with a J1. I spent a morning in Sydney with the Chinese cheapie and, although there was some promise, the reality of life with the $9990 newcomer was not good.It was slow away from the lights, had wonky brakes and wobbly cornering, and I compiled a list of 18 flaws in the assembly work, from body parts that were only undercoated to a dashboard that appeared to have been made using parts from at least four companies who had never spoken about anything, let alone the need to make all their bits and pieces with the same colours and textures.Chery changed the gearing of the J1 within a week, but that was about it. There are still some stocks of J1s in dealerships, and Suzuki says it has enough Jimnys until March of 2014, but those cars are part of the past and we're thinking about the changing safety picture in Australia in 2013.The bottom line for the Carsguide crew is pretty simple - if a car does not score at least a four-star ANCAP safety rating then it is not tested. That's partly about protecting the test team, but mostly because the bottom line for any Carsguide verdict is whether we would recommend a car to our own family or best friends.No-one at Carsguide is going to tell their best mate to buy a two-star car. It's the same on the secondhand side, and we also take a huge interest in any safety development work that could make our roads a better place to drive.Feedback from the Carsguide crew alterted Mercedes-Benz to a flaw in one of its new safety systems, which uses the next development of ESC to keep a car in its lane, and we had big smiles when the latest S-Class and E-Class cars arrived with a tweak that's directly linked to our driving and writing. But we're smiling for a very different reason when we reflect on the J1.This reporter is on Twitter: @paulwardgover 

New safety regulations brought into force from today herald the end of the Chinese-built Chery J1 city car and the Great Wall X240 SUV. The new laws require all new vehicles sold to have stability control -- a feature neither of those two offers. The Chery J1 has been a slow seller this year, beset by stiff competition from mainstream brands that saw it slice its price from $11,000 to $9,990 driveway. However even with the price drop, it has sold only 744 this year to the end of September -- down from 969 at the same time last year. The $23,990 Great Wall X240 SUV has fared even worse in sales, moving 340 year to date compared to 849 this time last year. Other vehicles affected by the new laws include the Suzuki Jimny Sierra, however some vehicles that miss out on stability control -- including the Toyota 70 Series LandCruiser and Foton Tunland -- are classified as commercial vehicles and therefore exempt from the ruling. This reporter is on Twitter: @KarlaPincott  

Chinese cars were tipped to dominate the budget-car class and challenge established brands in half the time it took Japanese and South Korean companies - but the bubble has burst before it's properly inflated. After some early success since becoming the first Chinese brand to go on sale in Australia, Great Wall Motors has hit reverse and its Chinese peers are struggling to get into first gear.Official figures for the first five months of the year show Great Wall Motors deliveries are down by 35 per cent compared with the same period the previous year in a record market that is up by 4.5 per cent.Other Chinese brands such as Foton have also had a stalled start. After announcing big plans two years ago Foton has sold fewer than 300 pick-ups in that time.Budget brand Geely has still restricted its sales to Western Australia and Chery's small cars have been stymied by newer competition from established brands. Chery sales are also down by 35 per cent.The Chery J1 hatchback was the cheapest car in Australia in almost two decades when it went on sale with a $9990 drive-away price in 2011, and is now available with a "pay half now, half later'' deal.But it too has failed to rock the sales charts. ''Sales have slowed for now but they will recover,'' says Daniel Cotterill, the spokesman for Ateco, distributor of Great Wall Motors and Chery passenger cars and the Foton truck range.''It's been frustrating for us and the dealers to not have more new models available to us as quickly as we would like."'The other challenge for Chinese car brands is that mainstream marques such as Suzuki, Nissan and Volkswagen have all responded with quality cut-price contenders priced from $11,990 to $13,990 drive-away. "In some ways we are a victim of our initial success,'' said Cotterill. "Other mainstream brands have had to come down in price to compete with us.''Other hurdles: more than 20,000 Great Wall Motors and Chery vehicles were recalled in August 2012 for having asbestos components in their engines. Chinese cars tend to earn poor to scores in crash tests (between two and four stars when the modern industry norm is five stars).But the companies hope to have a reversal of fortunes with a number of new generation Chinese vehicles made to international standards due in local showrooms in the next two years.''There are new models in the pipeline,'' said Cotterill.''We are confident in the ability of the Chinese to respond the Australian car market and boost sales.''This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling 

You might have seen the TV ad for a budget brand ute, the one in which the dopey looking bloke goes “d'oh” because he bought a far more expensive brand.Sure, he's down a few thousand bucks but he, his loved ones and possibly even his employer won't be so quick to self-admonishment should he survive a big prang.The chances of this happy outcome remains lower in Chinese-made working vehicles than in any from the Japanese brands, Ford, Holden or Volkswagen. Much lower in most instances.In the past month, the Australian New Car Assessment Program -- the line-filling moniker for the local agency that crashes cars into walls and rates how they hold up -- crunched the body of and the numbers on the latest such conveyance from Cathay.Foton's Tunland 4WD light-commercial dual-cab was awarded three stars from five. That's almost but not quite as poor as it gets these days, but a possibly generous assessment given the absence of electronic equipment mandatory for the full five stars.Nor is the Tunland especially cheap at $34,500. Hard to grasp why that sum shouldn't include stability control, a fixture standard elsewhere and arguably even more important for vehicles with a high centre of gravity.“There really is no excuse for a new vehicle coming into the market today to be without stability control, which is now mandatory for passenger cars,” ANCAP's Lauchlan McIntosh says.ANCAP is irksomely apt to claim credit for pushing major safety advances that originate with car makers and are compelled by market forces. Yet it has also admitted to being two years behind Euro NCAP in its methodology.There’s no quibbling on this point, however, certainly not when two such old stagers as Toyota's LandCruiser and Mitsubishi's Pajero have both been upgraded to five stars after equipment improvements.The Chinese brands fare not so well. The Chery J1 gets three stars, and the Chery J11 gets two stars. The Great Wall V240 gets two stars and X240 gets four stars. Carsguide does not recommend a vehicle of any sort that has less than four stars. Indeed, we’ve directed our team to not so much as test them. We say you shouldn’t so why should we. Some of us have families. None of us are suicidal. 

After designing Porsches in Germany for the past 15 years, 47-year-old Hakan Saracoglu will head to Shanghai, China to lead a new design studio for state-owned automaker Chery.

The original Holden Camira fell to bits during my preview drive in outback Queensland and, much more recently, the Chery J1 set a howling new personal low in motoring. I'm not surprised the Chery is now being re-honed for $9990 including on-road costs, which means it's really about an $8500 car. Chery says it's a great deal but it's not a car I would remotely recommend to a friend. In fact, the J1 is a car we should all avoid. It might be new, and it might have a warranty, and it might have some nice-looking equipment - including power steering, aircon and remote keyless entry - but it's a car you would need to tie up at night. Which reminds me of Chano Trentin. He's a car dealer in outback Queensland who has seen his share of dogs. But Chano saw a bunch of other livestock when he was getting established as one of Australia's first Suzuki dealers. He once took six pigs as a trade-in on a baby Suzuki four-wheel drive and also remembers taking cows and cattle as part-exchange on cars. Things have changed since then, and Chano is now retired as his dealership in Atherton. But he obviously laid the right foundations as it is celebrating a golden milestone in 2013 and, after 50 straight years, is recognised as having the longest continous history outside Japan. But I cannot shut the gate without recalling another animal trade-in story, with a big twist. When Holden was getting established in the Middle East the company's sales and marketing boss, Ross McKenzie, led a team that visited to get things moving. One of his staff, Megan Stooke, was early into a successful career that now sees her occupying a senior slot at General Motors in Detroit. She obviously made an impact, as one of the newly-appointed Holden dealers came to McKenzie with an intriguiging proposition. He wanted to know how many camels and goats it would take for him to release her from Holden, so she could move to the Middle East to join him. This reporter is on Twitter @paulwardgover  

Chinese car maker Chery has been forced to drop the price of its J1 hatchback by $2000 to $9990 driveaway because of heavy discounting from well known mainstream brands such as Suzuki and Nissan, which had limboed to $11,990. The last time a new car was sold for less than $10,000 was in the Polish-built, Fiat-derived Niki of the early 1990s. It initially had an RRP of $7990 in 1989 and dropped to $6990 between 1991 and 1993. But buyers looking for a bargain be warned: the Chery J1 comes with only two airbags and a “marginal” three-star safety rating – and it is not eligible for sale in Victoria because it does not have stability control, a life-saving technology that became compulsory two years ago. “This is not a special offer, this is a repositioning of the brand,” said Chery spokesman in Australia, Daniel Cotterill.  “We are trying to get a foothold here and we’re not meeting the sales projections we made when we introduced Chery in Australia,” he said. “The market has come back to meet the Chinese brands and we’re responding accordingly. This is not a one-time offer, this is the new starting price.” Twitter: @JoshuaDowling

Some have something simple, like squeaky brakes or weird tyre wear, but there are others with major dramas.Just this week I've had a Volkswagen owner who needed a new engine and a Range-Rover tragic, owner of close to a dozen of the top-end SUVs, who is heading for an all-new replacement off the back of more than 20 fruitless trips to the repair shop with his $100,000-plus pick.Every one of these problems reminds me that cars are complex. And even the best ones can go wrong. But the cars of today are so much better than the cars of just 20 years ago that it's almost beyond belief.The only truly bad car I've test driven this year is the Chery J1. The Chinese toddler has quality that's worse than the original Korean arrivals in Australia and, if I can pick the difference on day one, then it's going to be bad news once it's got a few years and some serious kilometres under its wheels.Flick the calendar back and things were much worse. I still have nightmares about the press preview of the original Holden Camira.The first 'global' car to land in Australia seemed like a good idea, but that was before the gearstick feel out in my hand. And the bonnet flew up for no reason. And the dashboard squeaked and groaned and flexed and wobbled.Every motoring journalist has some sort of Jaguar horror story, and I recall the luxury XJ that dumped all its oil on the brand-new floor of my garage. Then there was the Range Rover that dropped both of its external rear-view mirrors - for now apparent reason - as I overtook through the shock blast of a B-double truck.In recent year, though, the failures have been few and far between. Yes, I've had complaints about the operation of a variety of DSG gearboxes in a variety of Volkswagens, but every car has come through its Carsguide test program without failing.Which brings me to the HSV Commodore I was once driving down the Hume Highway to Melbourne. Everything was fine through the performance runs and cornering trials, so I was dribbling home at a steady 100km/h when the engine failed. No bang, no crash, just a complete absence of power that was eventually traced to a fault on the crankshaft.The real kicker to the story is that I was forced to take a tow to the nearest town from a motoring journalist friend who was making the same trip. And he was driving a  … Jaguar.