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    I drove Chinese car named 'best in UK' that's £50k cheaper than Audi – one word sums it up

    5 days ago

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    The renowned car reviewing website Carwow recently named their car of the year as the Chery Tiggo 8. Chief Content Officer Mat Watson praised the Tiggo 8 for its value for money and premium feel. He said: “Chery’s debut to the UK market couldn’t have impressed me more. The Tiggo 8 is one of those cars that seems almost too good to be true. “It’s a premium-feeling SUV with loads of space for seven occupants, a cutting-edge hybrid system, all the luxury kit you could want… yet it costs about the same as a European hatchback.” With such glowing praise for the Tiggo 8, I decided to find out what the Tiggo 8 was like, by testing it for a weekend around London.   The Tiggo 8’s RRP (Regular Retail Price) is between £28,545 and £36,545. Price wise, this makes it a very competitive proposition compared to similarly-looking SUVs such as the likes of £70,000-£99,999 Audi Q7. However, as I discovered, it’s one thing to look like and be cheaper than the competition, it’s another to perform like the competition. The Tiggo 8 I had the was the Summit PHEV version with a 204bhp 1.5litre engine attached to a hybrid system. The RRP of this model is just over £36,545 and a potential MPG (Miles Per Gallon) of up to 218mpg. The Tiggo 8 is a seven-seater with a third row of seats popping up from the boot floor. With the seats, the boot is 117 litres, but with them down is 494 litres. The interior of the Tiggo 8’s interior is a tribute to modern interior car trends of the early-2020s with a gigantic touch screen in the middle, wireless charging pads, large cupholders, and a deep interior storage box. The touchscreen, apart from a few physical buttons on the steering wheel, is the means through which you adjust and do everything on the Tiggo 8. With European and Japanese manufacturers moving back to buttons, it feels a little behind the curve through which OEMS are following customers. It feels, as Car Wow say, premium. It doesn’t feel cheap, it doesn’t feel as nice to sit in as an Audi, BMW, MINI, or Honda (more on that below), but you don’t exactly feel as if you’re driving a shack. While the Tiggo 8 looks like the competition inside and out, it’s on the move that things go south faster than you can say the word Nán (Chinese for south). You know what I said about there being a difference between looking like the competition and performing like the competition? The Tiggo 8’s urban behaviour is an example of that. Before I explain I should stress that we only had the car for a couple of days and so its activities were limited to running errands around south London and not on the motorway. As a result, I will be the first to hold my hands up and admit this section therefore comes with a little asterisk. That aside the ride is quite crashy over potholes and speed bumps, the tyres can’t stand more than 15 to 20 percent of throttle before losing grip from a standing start, the steering’s feel fades in and out, the gearbox is very sluggish when going from drive to reverse and vice versa, and some features are just down right strange. For example, the activation of the indicator throws up a little screen on the big screen showing you the rear three-quarter of the car. This serves no purpose other than to be a distraction and block information on the screen it’s covering. Like many other cars the Tiggo 8 has keyless entry, which means it automatically unlocks as you approach and locks as you walk away. As you get in, it starts the power unit (there is no start button). This is a car that tries to do as much for you as possible and is lesser for it. In the Tiggo 8’s defence, the steering does have sensations, sometimes, and brakes are good with plenty of feel. What’s more, the engine isn’t too noisy and it’s easy to park. And Chery has tried to give the driver as little to do and worry about as possible. It has a large range, good mpg, is easy to drive, and has a big boot. In a word, poorly. The closest I have driven to a rival to the Chery this year is the Honda H-RV HEV. Just like the Chery, it’s a sub-£40k hybrid car that uses the petrol engine as a generator to charge the batteries. Just like the Chery, the HR-V HEV has a 1.5 litre petrol engine driving the front wheels, although this one has 130bhp, 70 shy of the Tiggo 8. Despite not being as practical or as powerful, the Honda is still the much better car. The infotainment and driver aids are less intrusive, the steering has more feel, you can adjust the regenerative braking mid corner, and it has a start button. The HR-V HEV gives you the driver more to do and more agency in the operation of the hybrid system and at the same time communicates much better to you what the platform is doing. It is a higher quality product that costs less. Asterisks aside, my main takeaway from my weekend with the Chery Tiggo 8 is that it is not a deeply flawed vehicle. It is big, cheap, easy to drive, very economical, and well made. But if I was to sum it up in one word, unfortunately, it would be "disappointing". I found it irritating to use and not as good value for money as models from other manufacturers. Rating: 5/10
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