Not a complete enthusiast when it comes to so-called luxury vehicles manufactured in China, Jim Freeman visited the stately Nederburg wine farm in the Tiggo 9 Vanguard AWD CSH, and found the flagship SUV from Chery much more pleasing to his palate.
Let me get my major gripe about the Chery Tiggo 9 off my chest right away… and it has to do not with the vehicle as such but with the fact that it is a seven-seater sports utility vehicle. To my mind, this is the most foolishly impractical category of passenger car I’ve encountered in decades.
Think about it. The more people you put in a vehicle – especially if you are undertaking any form of road trip – the more space you need for luggage. Conversely, the more people you put in a seven-seater SUV, the less room there is for their accoutrements.
It’s all very well saying a vehicle such as the Chery has a maximum luggage space of 2065 litres, but that is only when there are only two people on board. Load the full passenger complement, and the space diminishes to only 448 litres. That is barely sufficient for a trip to the beach, let alone exploration of the Garden Route or a long weekend getaway to the Kruger National Park.
Effectively, a seven-seater is designed for urban car-pooling… and only if the three people in the back row have exceptionally short legs. In other words, if you want to maintain the semblance of long-distance practicality and comfort, five passengers are the maximum. Even then, they’ll need to pack light.
AN ENJOYABLE DRIVE
Now that I’ve had my two bob’s worth, let me tell you how much I enjoyed driving Chery’s new flagship plug-in hybrid. My experience of Chinese vehicles over the past few years has been very much a sweet-and-sour one, but, in a nutshell, the Tiggo 9 CSH (Chery Super Hybrid) PHEV is a Chinese car I’d buy even if I could afford something more expensive from Europe…
I’d like to make one other thing clear; I never ask the price of the vehicle or motorcycle I am testing until I’m ready to write my review. In other words, I try not to base my assessment on anything other than my driving or riding experience. Only afterwards do I opine on whether “the juice is worth the squeeze”.
While Chinese cars, generally speaking, offer exceptionally good value-for-money, I would not want to own one because the overall driving experience is not a good one. In my experience, what is good in Chinese vehicles is very good; what is bad is excruciating.
Some incidents include a so-called luxury SUV from a Chinese brand on which the electrically operated driver’s window automatically lowered every time it hit a bump, or another top-of-the-range model whose digital dashboard instrumentation became invisible in direct sunlight.
Mechanically sound, they might be, and stylistically, Chinese vehicles have come on in leaps and bounds in recent times. Unfortunately, they all suffer from a surfeit of gadgetry – much of it unnecessary and/or invasive – whose function and layout is completely counter-intuitive for the driver.
However, with the Chery Tiggo 9, the designers and engineers in Wuhu have got it just about spot on. Visually, it compares with big, more upmarket SUVs from Mercedes-Benz (GL range), BMW (X-series), Audi (Q7) and the Volkswagen Touareg. It does not stand back in terms of interior styling and comfort (except for the previously mentioned back row of seats), nor need it hang its head when it comes to safety and driver-assistance specs.
Instrumentation layout, with a massive central 15.6″ infotainment screen and 540° camera, is also much more user-friendly than that to which I have become accustomed from the Far East, and the interior ambience, with a 14-speaker Sony sound system, is up there with the best in class… It is safe too (as very publicly demonstrated recently) with ten airbags, and ADAS (Lane Departure Warning, Adaptive Cruise Control).
POWERFUL AND RESPONSIVE
While I cannot directly compare the Tiggo 9’s performance to that of its European counterparts, I can say with certainty that the top-of-the-range 1.5T PHEV Vanguard AWD was exhilarating to drive. With a 1.5-litre turbocharged DHE (Dedicated Hybrid Engine) petrol engine combined with three electric motors (generating 240 kW and 530 Nm of the total output), the combined output is a massive 455 kW and 920 Nm of torque.
Coupled with a dedicated 3-speed hybrid transmission (3-DHT) and intelligent AWD system, this power output makes the heavy SUV deceptively quick, and it can scoot from 0-100 km/h in just over 6 seconds. With a 34.4 kWh lithium-ion battery, it has an electric-only range of about 160 km, and its total range (on one tank) is exceptional, around 1,400 km!
On normal roads, the Tiggo 9 felt solid and responsive, but it was when Nederburg viticulturist Isabel Teubes and I took it on to the gravel byways of her “home track” just outside Paarl that we really started having fun. The dirt roads through the vineyards are in good condition, as is inevitably the case when they are traversed incessantly by a fleet of tractors, surfaces get churned up. The roads were therefore dusty and covered with gravel.
Isabel wasn’t maniacal about trying to get the Tiggo 9’s tail to drift, but she would have struggled to do so anyway. The electrical power transfer to all four wheels made for impeccable roadholding, while the three-speed direct hybrid transmission and top-notch front and rear suspension turned what could have been something of an adventure into a complete doddle.
Nederburg, as any wine-lover knows, is a label whose acclaim goes back to the early 1970s when legendary cellarmaster Günter Brözel ensured its products graced tables throughout the world. The brand lost much of its exclusivity with the subsequent proliferation of private estates in the Western Cape Wineland,s but its wines continue to sell steadily, especially abroad.
Nederburg is enjoying a renaissance now that the previous owners, Distell (initially Stellenbosch Farmers Winery), have been bought out by brewing giant Heineken. Apart from its beer, the Dutch company is turning its attention towards promoting its top wines, of which Nederburg is a jewel in the crown. (Interesting note: the steel tanks containing Baronne, Nederburg’s domestic best-seller, jointly hold more than two million litres.)
Isabel and I finished the tour of the Nederburg vineyards in supreme luxury, and our experience confirmed that the Chery flagship is a potent luxury SUV, blending great range and power with premium features and comfort.
It has its faults, given that the entire package comes in at under R1 million (R989,900, which includes a seven-year/90,000 km service plan, a seven-year/200,000 km warranty and Chery’s 10-year/1-million km engine warranty), I could easily overlook these, especially if I were spending my own money.
Report & Images © JIM FREEMAN
