Suzuki Baleno vs Chery Tiggo 4 PRO

What's the difference?

The fact of the Suzuki Baleno's existence is one of the more puzzling features on the automotive landscape. It's a car that pits itself against all manner of worthy competition - some of it exceedingly so - in the small hatch segment.

People still buy what the industry calls light cars (in ever-diminishing numbers) so perhaps Suzuki thought offering two would be a good idea, as its Swift occupies the same patch of sales ground in this city-sized segment.

In this part of the market, you've really, really got to want it. You need to be stylish, sophisticated and packed with tons of safety gear if you've any hope of so much as laying a fingernail on the Mazda2. Or, let's face it, be dirt cheap to counter Yaris and (the soon to depart) Accent.

It's all the more puzzling because Suzuki does interesting cars like the Jimny, Swift, Vitara and Ignis. And the oddball S-Cross (RIP).

The Baleno seems far too tame, timid and, well, blergh. But according to VFacts, Suzuki shifts at least a hundred of these per month, sometimes over 200.

Chery would likely prefer you forget its initial foray into the Australian market, but doing so would do a disservice to the brand.

We don’t need to go into the nitty gritty of what went wrong back then, but needless to say the first Chery models of around 15 years ago were not particularly good.

Since its return in 2022 Chery is unrecognisable from that first attempt at cracking this market. The Omoda 5, the first model of its relaunch, was flawed but light years ahead of the earlier models in terms of design, presentation and build quality.

It has since expanded with the larger Tiggo 7 Pro and Tiggo 8 Pro Max SUVs and then in late 2024 it added this, the Tiggo 4 Pro. This is Chery’s answer to the likes of the Hyundai Venue, Mazda CX-30, Toyota Yaris Cross, etc in what’s known as the ‘light SUV’ segment.

Chery had a very good 2024, more than doubling its sales, so there are clear signs the brand is enjoying far greater success with its second attempt in Australia.

But is the Tiggo 4 Pro worth buying, if you’re in the market for a compact SUV? Let’s answer that question as we go through all the details.