What made you buy an affordable Chinese SUVs ? (< 100k AED)
In H1 2025 I have test driven Chery Tiggo 7, Haval H6, GAC Emkoo, Exceed LX and TX, Jetour Dashing, Kaiyi and many others.
I spent a lot of time watching and reading all the reviews of affordable 5 seat Chinese SUVs from market like Russia, Australia and South Africa.
What I understood from a sales person is that most people come to this choice:
- because they are replacing something like a 10 year old Altima or CRV and become fascinated by the technology, possibility to have an 360 parking camera or radar cruise control at this price point.
- or is just the fact that used car market is zero trust here, and you just wanted something of a no brainer cheap, new that was easy to finance ?
Was your case one of these two ? Or there were other reason ?
Based on my research, the common worries were:
- constant model innovation / model rename / face lifts, means you get no residuals recognition and hard to find body parts in case you get into an accident, unless you wait a custom order of a new part from the dealer
- as a result insurance premiums are very high
- fuel consumptions and gearbox didn't look optimised to our load conditions (constant a/c and crawling traffic) which means even small engine ones routinely do 10L/100km
- dealer network immature and for smaller companies you don't know if they will be there in 7 years time, and already now struggle with the occasional complex sensor malfunction cases...
- small direct injection engines performance after the first 130-150k km (carbon build up, gearbox, etc) - as evidenced by many stories of gearbox replacements, etc.
Now I understand for example a Tank 300 - it offer a distinct value that you can't find anywhere else in the market without literally doubling price.
Or the EV where they are genuine leaders with proven volumes and track records.
But couldn't bring myself to buy something like a Kaiyi X7 for example, vs a used more established brand. Personally I found a used Tank 300 from someone who was leaving and got that one, cause it seemed better value due to the resale value.
This is a honest question about what you see that I didn't see: if I come across as provocative, please just ignore me, it's not my intention to fan any fire 🙏