Chery J1 News

But it's been a year of highlights for me. Monday, June 27 is my best working day of 2011.In fact, it hardly qualifies as work, since I am cracking around the Top Gear test track in Britain with a wicked black McLaren MP4-12C providing me with miles and miles of high-speed smiles.The mighty Mac is a bonzer beastie that provides the ideal antidote for too many motor show treks, too many middle-of-the-road cars that only qualify as transport modules, and far too many days away from home. It almost manages to erase memories of the massively underwhelming Nissan Micra we have as a Car of the Year contender. Almost . . .But the 12C is not the most memorable car of my year, even though it's one I would most happy park in the driveaway any time alongside a Benz E63 AMG wagon. No, my hero car of 2011 is the Ferrari 458 Italia.It does not have the pace or grace of the McLaren, or its overall refinement and liveability, but there is nothing in Carsguide land to match the raw emotional pull of the howling Italian supercar. A single day of driving in Sydney, including a fun run with a close mate who cannot stop himself giggling - is it excitement or fear? - is seared into my memory.But, so too, is time with the Chery J1. Everyone says Chinese cars will get much better quickly, and Chery does update the gearbox within a fortnight of my whingeing first drive, but there is lots and lots and lots of room for improvement.Some people say there are no bad cars these days, and it's mostly true. But they should also get behind the wheel or a J1, or the Mitsubishi iMiEV that promises future motoring but really illustrates the current shortcomings of plug-in electric cars, for a little calibration.My diary for 2011 opens in predictable style as Toyota claims sales champion status for 2010 and predicts a repeat for the coming year. Despite natural disasters in Japan and Thailand, Toyota is delivering and will do the same again - trust me - in 2012.The numbers game for 2011 reflects everything from the failures of the Ford Falcon and the blue brand's sales team to the popularity of small cars - now one sale in four in Australia - the incredible pull of the Mazda3, and little things like Volkswagen's growth to a top-10 brand and the ongoing drive that has Hyundai and Kia doing big things downunder.But those numbers only reflect the cars and crews at each company, as it takes people to create something special and get it onto the road and into new homes. My personal heroes include Mark Reuss, who wrote the current game plan for Holden, including the local Cruze, before returning to clean up the spilt milk at GM in the USA; Graeme Gambold, who takes Hyundai suspension and makes it so much better for Kia; August Achleitner, who heads development of the all-new Porsche 911 before leaving to weave some magic at Bentley; Murray Dietsch, the brilliant Ford Australia-trained engineer who is responsible for the Range Rover Evoque and everything else coming out of Land Rover; and Ian Callum, who does great work for Jaguar and has so much yet to come.Driving cars is fun, but it's also work and that means the BMW M5 gets marked down for flaws and too much focus on fuel economy; the updated Nissan GT-R is brilliant at Phillip Island but plain awful on regular roads; the Ferrari California sounds great but is a girlie car; the new Toyota Yaris is not as good as the old one; and the new Camry is surprisingly unbad, but saddled with history that includes the chicken sales campaign.There are plenty of cars I drive and like in 2011, from that Camry back to the Kia Optima, but very few I want to keep in the driveway and not just return with a polite 'thank you'. The Benz E63 makes the cut, so does the battery-powered Nissan Leaf. I also really like the Evoque, despite its expensive failure at COTY time, and the BMW 1 M. And the 458 is a definite.On the motorsport front, it's hard to go past the excellence of the Triple Eight team run by Roland Dane and fronted by Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes, or to understand why Mark Webber makes such lousy starts for most of 2011. And then Jason Richards dies and nothing else on the racing front seems to matter.In so many ways, 2011 is another landmark year. Cars have never been better, or better value buying in Australia. And, whoops, I almost forget the Toyota 86 that completes my new-car crew for the year. It's a ripper drive, even if Toyota and Subaru are fighting for bragging rights over ownership, and a car that shows what Brand T can do when it shifts out of conservative Corolla mode and gets serious.Right now, as the curtains come down and dealerships race to crunch the final deals, it is still a little tough to get the retrospectacles into sharp focus. But there is no time anyway, as it's less than three weeks until Toyota opens 2012 with a celebration of its 2011 sales successes, and then another week before the Detroit Motor Show shifts the new year into top gear. 

The Chery J1 only managed three stars and was criticised for a "considerable injury risk" in the latest test, which follows a previous two-star effort by the Great Wall ute at the end of 2009. The good news for consumers is that Chery has launched a recall program on the seats in the J1 in a follow-up program similar to the one by Great Wall, which eventually earned a four-start ANCAP tick with its X240 SUV after the problem with the V240 pickup. The seats in the J1 were criticised for their design and integrity, but ANCAP testing also revealed a structural weakness in the passenger compartment. Both Chinese brands are imported by Ateco Automotive, which is also the Australian agent for a range of makes including Ferrari and - following an appointment last week from Britain - Lotus. Chinese engineers were present for the ANCAP testing of the Chery and work on the J1 has produced an updated seat back which is being fitted to more than 700 cars already delivered in Australia in a national recall program. "We're replacing the backrests on both sides. 702 cars are involved," says Chery spokesman, Daniel Cotterill. "We have started the work. We have the parts and we're doing the change." He says Chery's quick reaction is typical of the company, which had previously changed the final-drive ratio in the J1 after complaints about the hill-start ability and general performance of the car. "It was a case of looking to find out why the car performed the way it did in the NCAP testing. We were impressed with the speed that Chery produced a solution. They have moved very quickly." Cotterill believes a re-test of the J1 would give a better ANCAP result, although he stops short of predicting a four-star rating to Carsguide after being slammed by ANCAP after an earlier suggestion of a one-star improvement. "These comments are clearly incorrect, as the modifications would not impact the overall crash test result, and the ATECO engineering staff should be aware of this," says Lachlan McIntosh, chair of ANCAP. "The Chery J1 performed poorly in the crash tests - the passenger compartment lost structural integrity in the frontal impact test, providing limited protection from serious chest injury for the driver." Still, Cotterill is confident Chery has learned from the ANCAP result. "I think Cherys will get better over time. I'm confident the J1 is significantly improved. That confidence is based on independently- conducted crash tests. Whether it gets another star is up to ANCAP." There is no confirmation from ANCAP yet on a test date for the other Chery model sold in Australia, the J11 SUV, or the Geely car from China that is currently only available in Western Australia.

A POOR crash test result for the Chery J1 in Australia has quickly prompted a recall to fix a defect in the front seats – and raised the prospect of the little Chinese car earning a fourth star in the future. ANCAP gave the J1 three stars after testing in May, citing among the reasons a loss of structural integrity that would “result in considerable injury risk”. Engineers from Chery visited Australia to attend the testing and discussed with ANCAP technical staff how to improve the cars. As a result, Chery distributor Ateco Automotive today recalled the 702 cars in Australia to replace the front seat backrests, which can collapse in a crash. “After the ANCAP crash treating there was an amount of dissatisfaction with the three star result,” Chery spokesman Daniel Cotterill says. “Chery has looked at the design of seat components, and we’re bringing in complete backrests that incorporate an enhanced design.” Cotterill says that the J1 could now earn a better crash rating. “Yes. We actually do think that it would now get another star,” Cotterill says. “But there is no further testing planned at the moment. ANCAP is an independent body and has their own schedule for testing.” Ateco is contacting all customers and advising them to return their cars to dealerships for the backrest assemblies to be replaced and the seats refitted using new mounting bolts.

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) crash test of the $10,990 driveaway Chery J1 resulted in a three-star rating for the Chinese-built hatchback. It reports the car "lost structural integrity in the frontal offset crash test at 64km/h, which would result in considerable injury risk for the occupants". There was also "poor protection from serious chest injuries for the driver in both the frontal offset and side impact crash tests". Chery spokesman Daniel Cotterill says the high point for importer Ateco Automotive was that Chery sent engineers from China to watch the tests. "They sent senior crash-test people here from China for the testing. They had a good dialogue with the ANCAP people," he says. Cotterill says the J1 is sold with more safety gear in Australia than in any other market. "It's never been the case with any of our Chinese offerings that there has been a box to tick for extra safety gear that we've left off," he says. "If they can do it we take it. I reckon that we'll see some improvements via running changes to current cars, now they've seen it first hand that will have an effect on the way they go about designing future models." ANCAP chairman Lauchlan McIntosh says there were concerns over the lack of side airbags and stability control, which are featured in key competitors, including the Holden Barina Spark, the Mazda2 and some Hyundai Getz models. "These life-saving features are available on competing models from other manufacturers many of which have a five-star ANCAP rating. ANCAP was pleased that engineers from Chery travelled to Australia to attend the crash tests and discuss how to improve their products with ANCAP technical staff," he says. Toyota got an upgrade from four to five stars without smashing a car into any obstacle. The Camry range has been upgraded to five stars (a rating already applied to the locally built Aurion) with the introduction of a seat belt reminder and improved knee protection for front passengers, standard in cars produced from this month. McIntosh says Toyota's upgrades were worthwhile safety features and would meet new government fleet regulations. Such purchases account for a large percentage of Camry sales. "A seat belt reminder device for the front passenger seat and more crash protection for the driver's knees have been made just weeks before the Australian government introduces a mandatory five-star safety standard for all federal fleet passenger car purchases from July 1." He says about one in five road crash fatalities in Australia are caused by failure to wear seat belts. "Under ANCAP's recently released Roadmap, seat belt reminders will become mandatory for front seats for a five-star rating from 2013." He says the new rule which affected around half of the new vehicle market also would lead to improved safety standards and features in private vehicles. "Commonwealth fleet vehicles are commonly sold into the private vehicle market within two or three years," he says. "The sales of these vehicles will allow Australian families another avenue via which they can purchase five-star vehicles."

One Carsguide reader attacks it as a "s-box" and says China's first passenger car should never have been cleared for take-off in Australia. Another, with experience importing Chinese goods and dealing with Chinese companies, says there will be rapid improvements to the J1 and these will be passed down to the cars that follow. Some people are surprised that Carsguide does not launch an all-out attack on the car's failings, while others are shocked at the depth of the complaints about the car's quality and performance. So the J1 has definitely made an early impact. We've also seen the first improvement, although it's only been made on paper. Ateco Automotive says during our exclusive first drive of the J1 that Chery's baby makes 245 grams of CO2 for every kilometre it travels. This is not good, either for a 1.3-litre engine, or at a time when carbon and carbon pollution is becoming a major topic of discussion and argument in Australia. Ateco went back to Chery and now has an updated, and correct, CO2 emission of 159 grams-per-kilometre. It's better but still not a breakthrough to rival the work being done by European brands, including Benz and BMW, on the CO2 emissions from their engines. There was a time when the most important numbers at any press preview of a new model were the top speed and 0-100km/h sprint time. These days the focus is on the fuel economy and the CO2 number. This week BMW has the all-new X3 and trumpets a CO2 number of 147 grams/kilometre for the 2-litre turbodiesel model. Yes, that trumps the Chery J1 and the X3 is a five-seater prestige SUV with all the bells and whistles. The X3 result is the sort of thing we can expect in coming years, and is reflected in the latest official CO2 numbers from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries. The lobby body for the motor industry says the average CO2 number for the new-car fleet in Australia during 2010 is 212.6grams/kilometre, a 2.7 reduction from the 2009 figure of 218.6. The figure includes all passenger cars, SUVs, and light-commercial utes, vans and buses up to 3.5 tonnes. "The result is a combination of improvements in vehicle technology and a change in consumer buying preferences," says FCAI chief executive, Andrew McKellar. The number is proof that carmakers are taking pollution seriously, at a time when debate of a carbon tax in Australia is heating up fast. But there is more to CO2, as the FCAI is also lobbying the Federal government strongly on other uses for the pollution numbers. It wants to see taxation and support based on CO2, perhaps even with the hated Luxury Car Tax - something that's incredibly unpopular with people shopping in the $60,000-plus price bracket, particularly as Australia has no luxury tax on planes, helicopters or boats - being based on the grams-per-kilometre CO2 emissions of the upmarket cars in Australian showrooms.

The Chery J1 hatch hits the road this week, priced from $11,990 driveaway at 50 dealerships across Australia, and is already being tweaked and improved. The gearbox is being updated and the Chery importer, Ateco Automotive, promises improvements to quality and final finishing in the cabin.The J1 is being sold alongside the J11 SUV as Chery joins Great Wall on local roads, with Geely to follow soon in Western Australia and the Foton brand also looking for a foothold. Ateco chief, Ric Hull, says his company is mounting a major push with Chery to answer complaints already raised about the J1 - including a test drive report by Carsguide - following the arrival of the first cars in Australia.The biggest change is to the gearing, to give the J1 more pep from a standing start. "They are going to fit a different final drive ratio that will give it better hill climbing ability. We might sacrifice a bit of fuel economy but we felt it was a necessary change," Hull says."The cars will go up hills, and they are probably not dramatically worse than some other vehicles, but we were not satisifed it was as good as it needed to be." Hull also says trim improvements in the cabin - also identified as a shortcoming by Carsguide - are also being reported back to China for changes."We've had factory people here. We have shown them. Our technical people have gone back to their technical people with everything that's been raised," Hull says. "If our experience with our other Chinese suppliers is any guide, they will react and react very quickly."Hull says Ateco and Chery are keen to update the cars as quickly as possible. "We weren't aware there was a problem until we got them here," he says. Ateco is also the Great Wall importer and has been successful in driving improvements to the brand, particularly to quality after a poor initial result during impartial NCAP crash testing.Hull says the first shipment of around 700 Chery vehicles is being delivered to dealers, with around 600 J11s in the pack and only about 100 J1s. He is not concerned by any problems with the SUV. "I am sure there are one or two things that the guys have unearthed now that we have stock. But it's nothing of any particular consequence.They have built a lot of J11s and I think they have got most things right." Chery has been established as a stand-alone brand for Australia, and not just twinned with Great Wall. "So far it has worked well for both brands to keep them separate. There are one or two exceptions, but the rule is that Chery dealers are separate to Great Wall dealers. When we get into the small rural areas there might not be a choice."Hull says Ateco is not intending to add any other Chinese brands to its lineup, which runs from Ferrari and Maserati to Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Citroen. It is also expected to be confirmed this year as Australia's agent for Lotus sports cars."Not actively. We've talked to a lot of people over the years and I guess will continue to talk, but nothing is about to break," he says. Apart from Great Wall and Chery, Foton - a bus specialist in China - has appointed the Western Star truck company as its local agent and Geely is being handled by the John Hughes group in Perth.There is also Lifan, Chinese biggest motorcycle manufacturer, although it has yet to finalise its plans. "We're not sure what they are doing. A gentleman from South Africa had the import rights ... but nothing has been heard for quite some time," says Hull.