Great Wall X240 2013 News

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. 

... with a facelift and more gear for the X240 and a facelift plus price slice for the V240 ute. And importers Ateco promise there's more to come with diesel engines and automatic transmission options on the way.For now the X240 wagon scores new front panels and grille, Bluetooth, steering wheel controls, DVD player, reversing camera, follow-me-home headlights, rain sensitive wipers and a touch-screen for the audio system. The on-road price remains at $23,990.The Great Wall V240 dual cab also gets new front panels and grille plus the steering wheel controls but here the on-road price has been cut $1000 to $22,990 for the two-wheel drive; the four-wheel drive is a $3000 option.Ateco spokesman Daniel Cotterill says the facelift and equipment changes are part of a refresh across the range."The V240 ute's price has dropped for a couple of reasons, the currency's quite good at the moment and, with China being a left-hand drive market, it cost them money to develop and homologate right-hand drive vehicles," Cotterill said. "They're now starting to recoup some of those costs (Australia's already sold 10,000 Great Walls) and we can pass on these savings to the customer."And Ateco's push to broaden the range is paying dividends."The main things we've been chasing are diesel engines and automatic transmissions, we'd dearly love to be operating in those segments," he said. "And we should see those (diesel and auto options) later in the year, most likely in the third quarter, starting with manual diesel utes first."The first diesel option is likely to be Great Wall's 2 litre, 110kW turbocharged engine and the automatic transmission, for the wagon at least, should be a five-speed. For now Ateco managing director Ric Hull is upbeat about this month's upgraded machines following Great Wall's promising start on the Australian market with 10,000 sold in the 18 months since launch. "These upgrades and the extra value they add, along with the price decrease on the utility, will help us sell another 10,000 Great Wall vehicles in 2011," according to Hull.