Haval Jolion Review - Is the new Haval as good as it looks

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Hello , welcome to Cars dot Coz this is another car review with myself , Chira Deena .

Before I get started .

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Here we go .

The review that everyone has been asking for .

Literally , I've received hundreds of requests for this .

We've been waiting a while for a test car .

We've got one now in Cape Town .

Here we go , a review of the new Val Joyon .

So the Javal Joan has arrived on the market with the same subtlety as the Rock Dwayne Johnson putting on a Springbok Jersey and just running around tackling our own players .

In fact , we just got the latest figures for the month of June .

The sales figures for South Africa .

This is the fifth best selling passenger car in the country , the fifth best selling car and Naval has overtaken Nissan in the passenger car sales .

It's just the most incredible success story .

And I think if you had said that a Chinese brand was gonna be in this position 10 years ago .

I think people would have laughed at you .

This is a real monumental shift in the market dynamics in South Africa .

Make no mistake .

And let me illustrate that for you with a few points .

So you can get into Herve Joon for 299,000 rand , but you can get the second from the top , the normal luxury version .

This is the super luxury .

You can get it for the same price as a top spec Mazda two .

Now , there's nothing wrong with a Mazda two .

I just spent a week with one .

In fact , I really liked it .

It's a great little car but you can't get away from the fact that a Mazda Two could pretty much fit inside here .

This is , this is a lot of car for your money and it's kind of destroyed every notion of segments and pricing that we have and that we as car journalists use to make sense of the market .

You know , you , we're talking Polo money here .

This is pretty much the same price as a Polo and you're getting a top spec S U V .

It , it's blowing my mind .

It's scrambling my brain .

There's nothing in my sort of motoring journalist head which can help me make sense of what's going on here .

Well , what you're getting is an S U V which is about the size of , say , a Hyundai Tucson or a Kia Portage , but for significantly less money .

And while it is about the same price as say , something like a Renault duster and about the same size , the amount of tech and the level of luxury you're getting in here is just incomparable to something like a Renault duster .

Another car which I like very much .

And to illustrate that I went on to BMW S config and I started with the X one which is a slightly smaller car than this and maybe it's not fair to compare it to an X one .

But I mean , just , you know , just for a cost exercise , I went through the config I put in every single option which this car comes with some of which actually you can't get on a BMW like lane center keepers .

And that X one came to 774,000 rand almost double what this jolly on super luxury costs .

It literally , I , I don't know really how to put it into words , how good value this car is , at least on the surface , at least at phase value , but let's get stuck into the nitty gritty .

So as I mentioned , pricing starts at 2 99 I'm in the top spec which is 3 98 .

The second from the top is 24,000 rand cheaper .

But I would like to make a strong case for going for the super luxury over the luxury .

And that's because that 24,000 rand for that money , they strip out all of the extra uh active safety features .

So you do get the passive safety , you do get the six air bags and the , and the electronic stability control and the A V S .

But for that extra money , you get an incredible suite of active safety systems under the Bonnet , you're getting a 1.5 liter turbocharged four cylinder which is largely carried over from the H two .

It's got 100 and five kilowatts , 210 Newton meters .

Now that to figure is quite low .

It's actually a little bit less than what you'd get from a one liter Turbo Volkswagen Polo .

But there are Toyota Rav fours on the market with the same talk figure as well .

So it's not necessarily out of whack with the rest of the market .

Now , the engine represents one of the downsides for me , for this car .

One of the very few downsides in that it is quite thirsty .

The claimed figure is 7.5 liters to the 100 but we can't really get it below 12 and that is definitely above average for a car in this segment .

Other than that , I have almost no problems with this car .

The one thing that annoys me is there's no reach adjustment for the steering wheel .

You can only adjust for rake .

So I'm finding it a bit difficult to find my perfect driving position , but of course , everyone's body is a different shape and everyone has , you know , different arm lengths and all the rest of it .

So that might not bother you .

But other than that , there's nothing really wrong with this car .

It's like nothing .

I mean , if I'm being very picky , the engine is maybe not as refined as some of the other engines out there in the market .

It is maybe a little bit noisy when you really need the revs and all the talk say if you're going for an overtake , I wouldn't , I would not describe this car is underpowered or slow , but maybe the engine refinements are a little bit lagging behind .

Maybe some of the German cars for instance , but maybe that's not even a fair comparison .

But what is refined is the ride quality .

There's very little road noise , there's almost no wind noise .

The cabin is well insulated .

In fact , when I was driving this car the other day , I kind of forgot I was driving and that's , that's a pretty good sign because it means that nothing is bothering me while I'm going around .

There's nothing about what the car is doing , which is making me think .

Hm , that , you know , that's not great or that could be a little bit better .

It's just a pretty much a seamless experience .

And I must say at normal cruising speed when you're not pushing the engine too hard , it's really , really quiet .

I mean , I , I can't even you wouldn't really be able to tell that it's on , but I can just see the rev counter .

You know .

Now , when I started filming cars for cars , coz about 67 years ago , one of the first films we made was on the Mercedes S 65 coupe AM G , which was a multi multi-million rand car .

But it was the first time that I experienced the technology of the car steering between the lines and keeping the car in the center of the lane .

And this car has that technology .

I I it's just , it blows my mind that you can now get that tech in a 400,000 RAND S U V from China and I'll put it on for you .

We're on a mountain road and keep in mind that these systems are designed for highway use .

They're designed to assist in keeping the car in the center of the lane and make it more relaxing to drive .

So you don't have to constantly put in steering inputs to keep the car in the center of the lane .

There is no car out there which can handle a twisty mountain road very well .

But I'd like to illustrate how well this does work even in that scenario .

So let's put it on to about 65 Ks an hour here and I'm not staring and I'm not breaking and I'm not accelerating .

The car is doing everything .

Now , you have to keep your hands on the wheel .

Well , you see it will disengage if it thinks that you're not concentrating .

And if you've taken your hands off the wheel for too long .

But I mean , look at that , it's steering , it's breaking .

If you just lightly keep your hands on the wheel , the car is driving itself in a 400,000 rand Chinese SUV .

That is a spooky feeling .

Right .

Welcome to the interior of the Val Joyon .

Now , for the purposes of this scene , I am going to keep my cell phone in my hand because I've made a list of everything I need to tell you about and it is , it's a very long list and I don't want to miss anything .

So I'm just gonna keep this here .

And for the purposes of this scene , we're going to look at this , the super luxury model , which is the top of the range .

It's the one that have supplied to us .

And I'm kind of glad they did because I can show you all the features that you can get in your hall .

Now , it's important to remember that everything that was my Android Auto , everything I'm about to tell you is standard on the super luxury .

You don't have to pay anything extra over and above the 398,000 for all of these features .

So let's start with the basics , uh dual zone climate control trick windows , all round electrically adjustable and folding mirrors , keyless entry and push button start , you get all of that .

Now , cheaper models get a slightly smaller 10 inch display .

This one has the massive 12.5 inch tablet and the controls are super minimal .

I mean to give you an example , the only place you can control the volume is on the steering wheel , there's no volume knob anywhere .

In fact , this is a , this is a very knob free environment .

It , it's , it's very knob less in here .

Um very minimal design on the dash .

One of the things that annoys me a little bit is that your air con controls are touch sensitive and if you just lean your hand on it , so say you want to change your radio , you lean your hand on the air con and boom , the air con controls come down .

So you need to swipe those out of the way .

That's a little bit frustrating .

I mean , you'd get used to it up here on the infotainment is where a lot of your settings and everything are changed .

There's also Android Auto and Apple Car play , which you can switch between by going to the home and just hitting the Android Auto sign .

And then if you want to go back to all the options , you simply click on the val logo and there you are back into the vals infotainment screen right .

Then let's get on to passive safety .

Now there's curtain airbags as well as dual front and side airbags there's a BS , there's electronic stability control , there's also tire pressure monitoring and there's a very impressive full 3 60 degree camera that's very cool , very , very nice camera system .

Nice and clear .

Very big , easy for you to see what is around the car .

It also includes park distance control , front and rear .

The hand brake is automatic , which is quite nice , also fully electric .

And because you've got this drive by wire system with this little gear knob over here , there's nothing underneath there in the way .

So you've got this big storage area , two USB ports over there and one up here , which is a nice touch for your dash cam .

Then when it gets to active safety systems , that's where the super luxury model gets very , very interesting .

I mean , this car features safety systems which I've only seen on much more expensive vehicles and sometimes , which are not even available on much more expensive vehicles .

Now , to start off with it has adaptive cruise control .

So that's right .

Are guided cruise control .

It will keep a safe distance to the car in front , but it also has traffic jam assist .

So it will crawl on its own in bumper to bumper traffic .

That's very , very nice .

Now , it has lane keep assist , which is quite common these days , but not only that , it has L C K or lane center keeping which steers the car on its own .

As long as it can see the visible road markings clearly .

And that is tech which you , you would just pay a huge amount for on any other car .

It has auto emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection as well .

The blind spot monitoring is really great .

It even picks up cars which are coming at speed from quite far behind you into your blind spot and gives you an audible warning .

I mean , it , it really is a technological tour de force in this car .

All very expensive options on other cars .

But all the lower spec models get really decent options as standard .

I really like these little touches , this little slot here for your cell phone is great .

All the luxury models get leather upholstery with a leather wrapped steering wheel .

The touch and feel of the car is really impressive .

It's all soft touch .

I like the stitching up here as well .

And the panoramic sunroof .

That's great with the electric blind and it just makes the whole cabin feel light and airy .

Have I forgotten anything ?

Oh , the heads up display with traffic sign recognition .

It shows the speed of the area right in front of you .

Oh , wireless charging .

Although we can't actually get that to work , but it should have it .

Yeah , I could be here all day .

Right .

The back seats .

This is very important .

Look at how much space there is .

I mean , that's the seat in my driving position .

I'm about 1.75 m .

Tall and that is just acres of knee room and your back seats are really well provisioned .

You've got this nice little reading light up here for both air con vents and two USB ports .

So your kids don't argue about who gets to charge their devices .

And then in here , two drinks holders , that's very nice .

But overall , I mean , the seat comfort is just great .

Like I could happily happily do long distance in here .

So there are five trim levels that you can choose from .

There's only one engine , there's two gearboxes , there's a six speed manual or this a seven speed automated dual clutch transmission .

Now , something that Chinese cars in my opinion suffered from quite badly was the gearbox mapping and the sort of power delivery and the sort of smartness of the gearbox to know when to be in the best gear and that has been sorted for this car .

It is a really seamless driving experience , you never think .

Oh my gosh , that gearbox could have done that a bit better , you know .

So that's , that's improved a lot .

The gear is actually drive by wire .

There's a knob down here which was sort of pioneered by Jaguar a couple of years ago .

But it looks pretty good .

I would say though that the only thing you need to watch out for is that you don't accidentally put it in manual , which is quite easy to do .

And you also need to remember when you're going from park and you turn , once it puts it in neutral first before it puts it in reverse .

So that's something to remember .

But you'll get used to that , no doubt .

And it's really , really easy to use .

Feels very good as well .

Now I put this car out on Twitter and said we'll be filming it .

And I asked people what they'd like to know about the car and someone said that they'd heard that the safety systems were very intrusive and that they were very , very loud as well .

And that is true if you have the car in default mode .

Goodness me , this thing just beeps constantly .

It's like you're too close to the guy in front .

There's someone in your blind spot , ah , just beeping at you .

So , yes , you can turn it all down , you can turn the beeps off , you can turn the volume of the beeps down and that makes it a lot more pleasant to drive in here .

It really , really does .

So that's not a concern at all .

Another thing I was asked to address was a campaign called Hal Must Fall .

Now , there is a very disgruntled customer who's been running a Facebook page and people have been complaining about their issues with their , I don't think that there is a drastic problem with the brand and I've been doing a live Q and A session on Cape Talk Radio where people phone in and tell me about the problems they're having with their cars and I've never had a call about val never , not once .

So at least anecdotally speaking , there doesn't seem to be any major reliability issues with this car .

Another thing to consider is that her is offering one of the better warranties on the market .

It's five years when cars like V W s and Toyotas only come with three year warranty .

So they're putting their money where their mouth is .

You know , they're backing up the cars with decent warranties .

And for instance , groups like Thorpe who are selling vals will even add an extra two year warranty on for free when you buy the car .

So that shows that they have real confidence in the product .

So should you buy a val jolly ?

Honestly , I can't see why you would it .

I I I can't tell you what's wrong with this car there just isn't , it's a nice car to drive .

It's absolutely full of tech .

The price is incredible .

I just can't see a reason to tell you not to buy this car .

I really can't .

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