I recall a story I read on the internet about a young woman’s thrifty mother. She had found a packet of cheese at the store for 25 cents and bought it, bragging to her daughter about how much money she was going to save switching to this new brand. Only, when she tried to make a grilled cheese sandwich, she found this “dairy” product wouldn’t melt—heat just sort of discoloured it and it got negligibly softer. The X240 and X200, like other Great Walls, were the automotive equivalent of that dime-store cheese. A temptingly low price betrayed some glaring flaws.
On paper, the X looked great. Despite a price $2k lower than even the cheapest Korean crossovers, the X came with a good amount of standard kit: leather trim, power accessories and rear parking sensors. Ah, but there were some conspicuous omissions—no cruise control or automatic transmission and, much more importantly, no side airbags, traction control or stability control. Fortunately, the X achieved a 4-star ANCAP crash test rating, which was more than could be said for Great Wall’s pickup trucks. Or the infamous Jiangling Landwind.
In the metal, the X looked good too. Oh, sure, the styling was mostly cribbed from the Isuzu Axiom but that was an excellent design to rip off and one unfamiliar to Aussies. The front was a bit overwrought with all its chrome trim, but the 2011 facelift (pictured) brought a more modern, Mazda-esque front end.
Like its pickup stablemates but unlike most of its rivals, the X employed body-on-frame construction and shift-on-the-fly 4WD. However, it used coil springs and disc brakes at the rear instead of the pickups’ leaf springs and drums. The engine was an old Mitsubishi 2.4 four-cylinder, producing 134 hp and 147 ft-lbs and mated to a five-speed manual. The X could reach 60 mph in approximately 20 seconds, an abysmally slow time for a new car in 2009.
Blame that – and poor fuel economy – on a curb weight of 4000 pounds. A much more competitive 2.0 turbo diesel model arrived in 2011 – badged as the X200 – and produced 140 hp and 228 ft-lbs; a six-speed manual was standard, but a five-speed automatic finally arrived in 2012. With the diesel, the Great Wall more significantly undercut rivals’ prices.
In just under two years, Great Wall managed to make its way into the top 20 best-selling brands in a very saturated and competitive market. Then the recall happened.
It wasn’t the first recall of Great Wall vehicles but it involved something Aussies had come to fear: asbestos. While asbestos had historically been used in various car parts, importation of the substance had been banned in Australia since 2004. It came to light that the X200 and X240 – among 25,000 Great Wall, Chery and Geely vehicles – contained asbestos in their exhaust systems. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was satisfied there was no health risk to Great Wall owners, however they advised against doing any DIY maintenance. There was no mandatory recall, however owners could take their vehicles to a dealership for replacement gaskets.
Despite the all-clear from the ACCC, new car buyers were reluctant to purchase a car that had asbestos in it. By 2014, sales had halved despite heftier incentives. Plans for a model range expansion were put on hold, with executives citing concerns about the exchange rate. Great Wall was also impacted by a change in legislation mandating electronic stability control.
Some people have claimed to have good experiences with their Great Walls. It’s unclear whether quality control was hugely inconsistent or if those Great Wall champions are pleasantly surprised as a result of low expectations. The market, however, sees these cars as worthless. Remember how I mentioned a base Kia Sportage was only $2k more than an X240? Well, that $AUD25k Kia is worth about $14k now. The Great Wall? It’s worth about $6k. Yikes.
Quite simply, these were slow and soggy to drive thanks to their dated mechanicals. They also lacked the build quality and safety features of their rivals. Like Great Walls’ pickups, they tempted with their prices but ultimately ended up being a worse deal than simply going to a Mitsubishi or Nissan dealer and getting a dealer demonstrator or run-out model.
But did Great Wall give up? No. They’ve re-launched the Great Wall name here with the new Steed pickup, although they are selling their latest-generation SUVs under the Haval name. Early exports from Japan and South Korea were pretty rubbish too but look at where they are today. With time, the Chinese brands that export will continue to purchase or partner with established brands from other countries – like Geely has with Volvo, and Brilliance with BMW – and their cars will get better and better and consumer acceptance will follow. Then, the Chinese automakers will eventually be able to step upmarket, leaving another developing country to supply the world with bargain-basement cars.
Everything else is Made in China and we buy it, so why not cars?
Related Reading:
0-60 in 20 seconds?!? That’s 40hp VW territory. Are you sure? I might expect it to be about 15-16 seconds, but 20 is from a whole different era.
But it does tie in well with your headline.
A VW would be slower than 20 seconds if I’m not mistaken. I found one road test that timed it in the 20-sec range with a hand-held stop watch.
Motor Trend’s 1961 test resulted in a 0-60 time of 22.0 seconds. Others that I’ve read were give or take a second. I did say “territory”, not “exactly the same”. Although one or two seconds is pretty close, eh?
I still remember an early Toyota Corona ad: “Zero to sixty in sixteen seconds!”
If they put the R&D money into their products id be willing to try, once the quality gets there. I could do a Qoros or a Luxgen (which is Taiwanese which I guess doesnt 100% count) , but those are cars that have more private investment than state involvement…if the comm government keeps propping up most of the auto companies im probably not gonna buy anyway to avoid financing the Chinese govt.
Just my 2¢
I do R&D for a Chinese manufacture of portable generators. The quality control is all across the board, due mainly to the fact they will change outside vendors more often then we change our underwear, if it will save them half a Red cent.They do no testing of products, if it looks the same then it is the same to them. And never believe any published specifications, ever!
That’s an interesting observation. We use Chinese-made rechargeable radio batteries, and they also seem maddeningly inconsistent. Some work fine, others are worthless out of the box. I wonder if that goes back to the cost-cutting issues you mention.
And that crash-test video? OW!
‘And never believe any published specifications, ever!’
Like a story I heard from a mate yesterday. He does a lot of outback touring, and bought a portable generator for his caravan. Rather than pay big bucks for the nice quiet Honda, he bought a Chinese one that claimed 69dB on the box. Got it home, and on the unit itself it said 96dB! Just two numerals out of sequence to the Chinese, I guess, but that’s a world of difference there…
Nopenopenopenope… not gonna do it. Nope. No Chinese vehicles for me, ever.
“the styling was mostly cribbed from the Isuzu Axiom”
My understanding is that this Great Wall is basically a reverse-engineered Isuzu Axiom (shared underpinnings with the Rodeo), with a facelift and a Mitsubishi motor. Simple enough hardware that I’d imagine makes this thing fairly easy to keep running. Longitudinally mounted Mitsubishi motor should likewise be fairly reliable and easy to wrench on and get common parts for. These are sold in Russia as the “Hover.” They have a fairly decent reputation on the whole. The low prices and simple and rugged BOF underpinnings made them appealing.
The side profile is so strongly AXIOM I almost didn’t look twice at this article. At first glance I thought: “That’s the nicest Axiom I’ve seen in a long time.”
If Great Wall was going to copy an Isuzu, at least they picked a pretty good-looking one. I’m hoping they bring back the first-generation Impulse next.
I like your idea there. If they can ever actually built an attractive, sporty and fun-to-drive vehicle that has an acceptable build and decent reliability, they will be on their way.
I think everyone has had experiences with Chinese made products that were fake. A fake isn’t just the knock-off Rolex, but it includes products so poorly made they won’t do the job as intended.
A friend of mine bought hundreds of Chinese made snowblowers to sell through his business. The Honda-esque engines were fine. But the drive system for the auger/paddle system broke on every snowblower in the first 2 minutes of use. Every snowblower he sold all came back, he refunded all sales and sued the importer.
However, I have a no-name Chinese-made 1200 watt generator that functions well, and has run flawlessly at full-output for days on end.
Chinese industry will improve and it looks as if we’ll live in a world where China will dominate manufacturing, industry, and probably international relations, the way the US did in the 20th century and Britain did in the 19th.
Here’s a great book on manufacturing in China:
https://www.amazon.com/Poorly-Made-China-Insiders-Production/dp/0470928077
I think it will be at least 20 years before the Chinese make any serious inroads into the U.S. or European markets. The problem of inconsistent quality control is one that will be very hard to root out, stemming from a cultural propensity to try to make a profit any way that you can, while you can. Thus we got the scandal with milk where a plastic which fooled the test was substituted for protein and the Japanese were sold gyoza where cardboard was substituted for beef, and the Americans received pet treats that poisoned their dogs. (https://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/07/27/japanese-website-lists-cases-of-china-that-will-break-your-heart/).
The ‘cheating’ problem is an old one -it’s why many Chinese meat shoppers prefer to buy their chickens et al live.
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/should-american-consumers-worry-about-chicken-imported-from-china/280123/
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2062536/leftovers-industrial-salt-used-make-fake-branded-food
The problem isn’t limited to food, of course. The vehicle industry is rife with it.
http://news.wyotech.edu/post/2014/02/in-asia-beware-of-japanese-motorcycle-knock-offs/#.Wgs0qrhMGhA
https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/04/chinas-elevated-bus-was-a-scam-after-all/
http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/china-fights-fraud-in-the-auto-sector-02212017104853.html
http://www.heraldnet.com/business/mechanics-warn-about-poor-quality-parts/
Certainly the Chinese have the ability to produce quality products, and do so when they are incentivized enough, whether it be by strict quality controls from the company or from marke competition. However, right now there is more motivation found in profit for today than in quality to sustain a business in the long term.
It is apparently going to take a generation or two more before the Chinese consumer wearies of bad quality underneath fancy labels and starts demanding consistent quality.
The capitalist culture is very young in the new China and (according to the article below) the illusion owning high status goods is far more important than having the real thing.
“Fake goods are rife. Researchers once stopped every fifth person in a Shanghai mall and asked them about their buying habits. Of the 202 who completed the survey, almost three-quarters admitted to buying knock-off luxury goods.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21557317
Right now the Chinese still have enough domestic market growth that changing their products (emphazing quality ) isn’t a priority. There’s still plenty of money to be made the easy way.
For what my opinion is worth….
I drove these fresh off the boat in Australia and my mind was blown at how terrible they were. The “chrome” on the mirrors was like some confectionary wrapper pasted on by a 5 yr old. Some had a terrible gearshift action, and those were the good ones. Some of them had to be double-clutched and you felt lucky to find a gear at all. The batteries didn’t hold charge etc etc.
I did wonder why anyone would buy one in rustless WA, and I remember thinking a ten year old Hilux was a better bet than the utes. The resale values quoted by William kinda reinforce that.
The local farm supply bought one of the early pickups for light delivery duties. Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen it for a while…..
Probably the biggest problem was the issues leading to the factory taking the distributorship back from Ateco. I can’t remember what it was all about but there was a dispute for a long time so getting parts and support was a big problem.
That looks like a Toyota steering wheel; it was the corporate four-spoke design used in many of their mid-late aughts products, including the Camry, 4Runner, Sienna, Sequoia, Land Cruiser, Highlander, LX470 and GX470. I feel like the dashboard came from a donor model, too.
Ha! Right you are; that’s a Toyota wheel if I ever saw one. The dashboard does look familiar too, but I can’t quite place it.
The dashboard is very reminiscent of 2007-2012 Mercedes ML/GL. It’s the vents.
Eh. China builds the iPhone too, and while some will argue about this or that, the iPhone is a convincingly assembled upscale product.
I am quite certain that in time, the Chinese will figure it out; state supported or not it is in their best interest to figure out how to export competitive automotive designs. I remember years ago Car and Driver said “If Hyundai keeps this up, people will buy their cars because they are built by Hyundai, not in spite of it.”
This has been true for years. The Chinese aren’t stupid. Maybe they’ll never build a perfect copy of a German car (the Japanese couldn’t) but just like the Lexus is a fine product in its own right, so likely will be the best China builds.
The iPhone is a fashionable upscale product with very good assembly quality driven by a third-party manufacturer (FoxConn) that completely understands how to continue being profitable and is playing the long game. However, like almost every cellphone it is built to become obsolete very quickly with batteries that lose functionality fairly quickly and maddeningly are NOT user changeable. Rare is the iPhone that is in use past the 3-year mark. That doesn’t make it a quality good, that makes it a triumph of marketing over user friendliness.
Not that I don’t succumb to it, there’s an iPhone 8Plus in my pocket as I type…
I also have plenty of other Chinese products in my home but do tend to look at labels and if there is an option not made in China at a reasonable upcharge, I will often buy it. Cars? Forget it, I have no interest in their products and that includes Made In China Volvos, Hondas, and Buicks. I don’t have that same issue with Japan and Korea for some reason, I think they earned their current success, I’m not seeing that with China (so far). Then again, I’m also realizing that I have better things to do than worry about my German cars when there are other options out there with a better record, both in historical reliability, durability and retained value. Priorities can change, I suppose.
I do think the trade imbalance is a problem for the US. Sure, many jobs will never come back and if they did would be replaced by automation anyway, but also see no reason to buy a CrewCab Chevy Silverado that is built in Mexico over a competitor that is built in the US. Or if I bought a RAM, I’d prefer to buy one built in Warren, MI over the one built south of the border. I never thought something like that would be important to me but as I age it is becoming so.
Copying others just doesn’t work. One has to have the engineering and/or cultural chops to actually improve it in some tangible way. The same way that a Cadillac is not a BMW, the Lexus is not a Mercedes (but neither is bad in its own right), so the (any) Chinese Brand definitely isn’t a mainstream generic SUV competitor in the Western World at this point in time. Price and Value are two very different things as Will clearly noted. Unfortunately I’m not seeing a lot of original thinking either, except perhaps in the BEV arena, which while a lot of their ideas are seemingly mired in financial issues, that may be more of an issue of just trying to start out bigger than necessary instead of growing, learning, and improving.
I’ve had my iPhone 6 Plus for exactly three years this month, and it has been solid. I expect to keep it as long as possible. Besides, three years is more than the overwhelming majority of people ask out of their phones, from the looks of it.
I’m not asserting it won’t last, just that the battery doesn’t last anywhere near as long as it used to. Maybe yours does, none of the previous three I’ve had have, all with a noticeable decline around the 18month mark.
The question is why is three years all that people ask? For a consumer good that costs somewhere between $600-900, three years is not very long.
From a van article of yours (Transit?) I always thought you were an HTC user. Guess I was wrong.
I did have an HTC back then. Before that an iPhone then two more since.
My iPhone 6 is 3 years and 2 months old; it’s battery is fahrkakt but I get along with a an external battery case; I was quoted $69 to replace the battery by Apple, $45 by a Mall kiosk. I’m planning on getting an 8 in July when my wife’s SE is paid off, and as such I am not changing the battery, but my choice to upgrade is based on obselesence, not some belief the phone won’t last several more years.
I don’t think the battery is evidence of low quality; I think it is a factor of increasingly powerful phones needing increasingly more powerful batteries and generating increasing amounts of heat. I think it is a marvel that an iPhone can produce all the things it does all day long without needing a mid day charge for half of its life; and I am using iPhone in the generic on that one.
My whole family uses old iphone 5S’s that I bought on the internet. Three of them I bought (used) three years ago for about $95-130, and they’re all just hunky dory. I recently bought another for MIL and one for myself ($75) because I though mine had a problem that I was going to have to order parts for and fix, so I wanted a backup. It turned out to be nothing (lint in the socket). But I watched videos that show how to fix or replace almost anything on these. They’re like VWs of yore: all parts are available dirt cheap, and once it’s opened up, with a bit of care, t’s easy t replace parts.
Can’t replace the battery?? They’re $24.95, complete with the tools needed for the job. I’m planning to keep buying old iphones and learn how to keep them running. I absolutely refuse to spend anymore than $100 on an iphone.
The batteries on ours are original (4+ years old) and all in good health still. We try not to run them down constantly, which helps with lifespan.
Oh, and we use Ting for cell service, which charges purely a la carte based on usage. Our bill for 4 phones runs about $85-$95 month. That’s why we buy our phones; they don’t do contracts or such.
Interesting, thanks, consider me more educated now!
I’ve had an iPod Touch for almost five years now, and its the one based on the iPhone 4. I bought it straight from Apple as a certified refurbished unit, and its given me excellent service. I think I can count the number of times I’ve turned it off with my hands. Battery life is excellent, and it doesn’t seem like connecting it via USB in my car, where its constantly being charged, has affected it at all.
From what my friends tell me, iPhones tend to age quickly because Apple is constantly updating their operating system, and their focus on speed tends to sacrifice battery life as the hardware ages. Paul probably doesn’t use a lot of apps on his phone, which means he’s not seeing the performance and battery degradation that heavy users will notice after software changes.
I have a 5 year old iPhone 5. It’s already got a new screen and housing, but the internals (battery included) are good as new!
The iphones quality has not been exactly perfect.
iphone X issues
https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/iphone/iphone-x-problems-3639808/
Bendgate:
https://gizmodo.com/and-heres-a-guy-bending-his-iphone-6-plus-with-his-bare-1638267139
Antenna issue
https://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/some-iphone-4-models-see-signals-drop-to-0-when-held-left-handed/
Antenna issue fix
https://www.engadget.com/2010/06/24/apple-responds-over-iphone-4-reception-issues-youre-holding-th/
Factory working conditions:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside-Apples-Chinese-sweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html
YMMV.. Mine has been excellent, so far. What phone is perfect?
Price and cost are not the same thing. Those who don’t understand this sooner are bound to learn it later.
Not very long ago I was a product development manager for an American company. Whenever I was ordered to source a product in a “low-cost country” (India or China), every single job shop I sent a spec to would come back saying “Yes, yes, no problem, sign here and send money”. Most of them had absolutely zero capability to make anything but useless trinkets. It got so bad that to cut down on wasted time and money I developed a physically unbuildable spec and started sending that around. Over 99% of the job shops still said “Yes yes, no problem, sign here and send money”.
The <1% that said "We see problems with your spec" were the ones maybe worth talking to, but even with those it was still a messy, slow expensive, uphill slog to get anything even remotely approaching a consistently acceptable product out of them. Materials and build specifications weren’t even regarded as suggestions, they were treated more like background muzak to be tuned out with a smile. I can’t tell you how many prototypes we had to reject because e.g. the factory manager’s brother-in-law gave him a screamin’ deal on a material that looks like the specified one (in that they’re both black and shiny). Similarly infantile shenanigans were pulled on just about every aspect of the product.
And quality requirements were regarded as quaint little Western affectations to be laughed at and disregarded. Oh, sure, they talked a good game; they used all the right buzzwords and threw around (probably fraudulent) QA/QC certifications, but in reality they were cheating like a second-grader writing an absence note “signed, his mom”: we had a load of products come in that were all obviously and severely defective. And yet, the QA/QC documentation assured us that these were all carefully-checked, fine-quality products built to conform with the specifications, etc. Turns out their “quality manager” was pulling the “test results” out of his butt: if the spec said 2.00 ± 0.25mm, he’d just fill in the column with 2.01, 1.93, 2.14, and other numbers in the right range. Where calibration was required before every test, he was just copying the calibration readings from old tests, maybe adjusting the numbers a little to make them look new.
Oh, and let’s talk about product markings: “Safety approval no problem, we have the logos and fonts, you can have any safety approval, whatever you want. Hologram sticker no problem. Country of origin you specify, can say made wherever you want.”
And all this was from the “reputable” job shops; we weren’t bottom-feeding.
This is a cultural thing, and it is pervasive. If you ever find a copy of a 1972 booklet called “China Tames Her Rivers, it’s quite enlightening (in that it’ll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck). The part that sticks with me: Decadent Western notions like ‘put experts in charge’ and ‘pay attention to quality’ were not allowed to interfere. Fine, that was in 1972 and this is 2017, but deep-rooted philosophy like that doesn’t just get abandoned, and it’s a major difference between China’s developmental path and progress and that of other Asian countries in the past—which bears mentioning whenever someone says “Oh, pish tosh, people used to think everything from Japan was junk, too, and Korea”.
Back to the present: it’s not just one or two factory managers reciprocally rubbing brother-in-law’s back; there are whole districts whose economy is nothing but counterfeits and illegitimate products; take a look at this and this for just two examples of too many to count.
You can get good quality products made in China—with constant and severely strict babysitting at each and every level and step of the process. Occasionally there’s an exposé on Foxconn (the Chinese outfit that makes many Apple products), about how they treat their employees more like slaves, etc. Wel, that’s how to get consistent quality out of China. It’s ugly and nasty and very uncomfortable for those whose professed politics don’t include vicious slavedriving, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for Chinese cars: I’m going to disobey the headline on this post and go ahead and laugh—mostly at people gullible and shortsighted enough to buy them. Go see this for a parade of recalls mandated by the Australian government: lack of structural integrity in a crash. Fire hazard. Asbestos. Even the Chinese prefer non-Chinese-brand vehicles; they think their homegrown cars are junk. And for the time being, they’re right about that.
Interesting response, Daniel. I have a cousin who is a VP at a machine tool firm with operations in China, and he related to me about a decade ago that while there were some things that made sense to build in China, they had brought production of others back.
Very few years ago, one of the Big-2 American automakers decided they could save money by getting their headlamps made in China. They got their butts served to them in a multi-course meal: the lamps were shoddy and late. Eventually they stopped throwing good money after bad and took a big bath undoing their boneheaded move.
Daniel: I have no experience with China but with other, ex-Communist countries (and presumably in a different field from yours) and I am familiar with what you described, in particular the tendency to promise everything they think you want to hear. As the deal progresses, it becomes clear that things are not quite as simple as they seem at first sight. I therefore agree with your assessment.
But wait, there’s more!
Wow. Up the street from me is a spark plugs factory that went from being an an exclusive supplier to an OEM to an aftermarket under the same circumstances. Hard lesson to learn, especially to those laid off when it happens.
Yeah, the people who make the greedy, foolish decisions like this never seem to be the ones who lose any skin off their nose when it predictably blows up—those messy details are left to the people who actually, y’know, work. 🙁
Your response, Daniel, is an eye-opener. The Chinese people I know in Aus (embarassingly few given the numbers) love their birthplace but are so glad to be here away from such madness, and such corruption.
I have to ask, what IS that symbol you use, because it’s beyond my level of cool to understand? (It’s a pretty low bar for awareness of “cool” in relation to me, I should add).
I’ve heard exactly that same sentiment expressed by Chinese people here in Canada.
Er-ruh…which symbol are we talking about?
The one at the end of the second last para of your comment?
It’s a little man shrugging.
Oh! Now I see! (says an older man, shrinking).
Ah! I just copied it from someone else and created a macro to plop it in wherever I wish. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There seem to be plenty of Greatwall pickups in use in NZ yes they are cheap especially used but Australians dont seem to have depreciation on their vehicles at all, Chinese cars dont depreciate much worse than any other countries cars here, as for quality I cant comment other than the PSA/ Dong Feng brakes I fitted to my Citroen are still working fine after five years use worn sure but they are made on French made tooling and fitted perfectly at less than half the genuine part price.
You’re good to go…til you’re not. Tires and brakes are on my “never from China” list.
No idea what you’re getting at, Bryce. Cars USED to have slow depreciation here 20+ years back, but absolutely no longer. As for the used Great Walls, they literally and actually cannot be sold. William said maybe $6K for this one here: experience says $450, the scrap-metal value. Many, many people just walked away.
CC Effect, adjusted for the global marketplace: I actually saw an Isuzu Axiom here (California) just a few days ago. And right behind it was an old Toyota van. Would have made a good Cohort shot, but despite having a reasonably strong battery, my iPhone just isn’t a good camera for grabbing quick shots on the fly. By the way, Foxconn, the company that manufactures most iPhones, is not Chinese … it’s Taiwanese, though most of the manufacturing is in China.
Yes, it’s a cultural thing. When I visited China a few years ago, I was shocked by their approach to their own history. In the West, an important historic building would get preserved and restored with painstaking effort to keep as much of the original structure as possible. In China, the IDEA of a historic building is just as venerated and attracts just as many respectful and awed Chinese tourists, but the building itself would sooner get torn down and replaced by a not-very-accurate modern copy if that is cheaper or more practical to do. They simply don’t see the difference, to them it’s the same historic building that they have heard about.
When I needed a memory card for my camera, I was offered 500MB, 1GB and 2GB cards – all at the same price, my choice. The markings on the cards meant nothing to the seller, they were just decoration on a widget of unknown actual capacity and functionality. They’d print 100GB on it if that helps the thing sell, they’d also print a Chinese dragon or a Gucci emblem on it – anything the customer chooses, it’s all the same.
It will be at least a couple of generations until Chinese cars are good enough for the US market, but they will get there eventually. The Chinese take a long view of history.
Culturally, a western society thinks that someone “pulling a fast one” and cheating someone in a deal is dishonorable. To the Chinese view, the person getting away with cheating is the clever person who outsmarted his opponent. While this is not always the way it is, one does see that in dealing with Chinese businesses, they don’t get mad when you call them on their cheating, they fess up and try another way. It is expected that business transactions are adversarial, not mutually beneficial, so they want to be the winner. Our western minds don’t usually think that way, but it is our cultural view versus theirs. Neither is right or wrong, just different. Once you understand the parameters are different, you can approach any deal with knowledge and hopefully come out ahead.
⬆︎Exactly that.⬆︎
The responses to this post are gasp-inducing, particularly the ones reflecting actual experience. A huge amount to ponder.
William, the early Japanese cars were not rubbish; they were simply ill-suited to market. The early Korean cars were not rubbish either, though they were a long way from being Japanese quality items. In truth, they were only slightly worse than Aussie cars of the mid-80’s. (And Hyundai had paid Guigiaro for the design!). This stuff is a different ballgame; stolen designs, invented safety and quality. In any Western definition, it is fraud. And Daniel Stern, you shouldn’t laugh at those who purchased. They’re people like me if I was buying a computer, simply no idea! “Oh, look, same thing, longer warranty, hell, half the price.” (That said, a friend who bought a disastrous Great Wall ute is never allowed to complain to his son, a mechanic, because the son just starts laughing and eventually gets hysterical. But I digress).
It seems that this is deep-seated cultural, and not about to change quickly, so I agree the future will not necessarily take the same trajectory as the Asian Tigers (I use that term deliberately because, for eg, ALL the “Japanese” utes in Aus are built to high quality in Thailand). My question, asked from absolute genuine curiosity and free of intended racism, is this: are these extraordinary attitudes to business, QC, etc, a product of the Communist era and now the nepostistic/dynastic “capitalist” era or is it an historical Chinese phenomenon? The answer will help shape what the future holds for, amid much else, Chinese cars, because the culture will shift or not accordingly. Fascinated to hear an opinion on this.
Then the smart thing to do when you’re buying a computer or they’re buying a car is to obtain the needed knowledge or borrow/hire the needed expertise. There is so much evidence, so readily available, that Chinese vehicles are shoddy and unsafe and unfixable and unworthy, that it probably takes more effort to ignore it than to heed it.
I’m sure the people who sell these car-shaped trinkets are well practised at talking up the imaginary merits of the product, pooh-poohing quality concerns, and otherwise like that, but whoever takes a car salesman’s word for it without even a cursory check in a consumer-orientated test magazine, or a car magazine, or any of numerous websites, or ask a mechanic, etc, isn’t in much of a position to object to being mocked for it.
I find the whole phone analogy interesting.
Where I live (the Yukon Teritory, Canada) they offer you a new phone for free with a two year contract. Not a cheesey one either. I rock a Sony X performance, but could have gone I phone instead. The Sony has a better camera, and is truly water proof.
It makes the obsolescence and battery degradation a non issue.
I really thought it was the same everywhere!
As for cars, I keep them until I can’t repair them, or get bored/ disillusioned. Often over a decade. Even then, I keep them around just in case…
For me it is not a fair comparison.
I have repaired a phone to get nesseacary data off of it, but found no joy.
Removing and replacing the transmission in my Fury at 38 below C was a challenge. One I enjoyed!
It is amazing how fast you work when you are in danger of frostbite! And the end result is true satisfaction.
As for Chinese manufacturing, it is a gamble. In my field (brewing) Chinese equipment is viewed as disposable, unless you get lucky…
German gear will last forever, but the parts are brutal. It is all a trade off.
I would be happy to do destructive testing on one of these 4x4s!
If it could hang with my RamCharger for a day, they must have got something right!
Seems unlikely though…
Around 2008 one of our local dealers began importing Great Wall’s then crew cab pick up, which had the rather silly name “Wingle” – I understand it had underpinnings from Nissan and Isuzu, and it looked like the then D-Max. It didn’t sell very well, probably owing to skepticism about a Chinese pickup, and the fact that Nissan, Isuzu, Toyota, Ford, Mazda and Mitsubishi have dominated this market for years. There aren’t many left now, and the bulk of the Chinese vehicles sold here are pickups based on the Suzuki van (with a BMW knockoff grille) and some Isuzu and Nissan based light to medium duty trucks.