SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8
This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.
Pics by author, except for the interior photo supplied by the importer
NB: The chromed bars shown, are optional extras
"Don't look at ze qvality, feel ze vidth!" ran the old Yiddish joke. Most Western buyers feel much the same about motor vehicles from the burgeoning industrial complex behind the Great Wall. A couple of years ago, quality was highly suspect and the technology quaint, to say the least. "Feels like a ten year-old Isuzu," wags used to say, followed by: "Oops, it is."
Things are changing. There are still some early engine designs out there but Chinese manufacturers are catching up fast. Take the 1500 cc motor in the little cars with the rather flushed-sounding name of "Florid" - it's all GWM's own work. Take the new 2.0-litre turbodiesel fitted to the recently launched H5 SUV - designed, developed and manufactured by GWM. As for build quality, all I can suggest is that you take a critical look. You won't find much to fault.
This brings us to the subject of this review, Great Wall Motors' Steed3 lux double-cab pickup. The jaundiced view is that the technology is old. That 2.2-litre petrol motor has lugged millions of South Africans hundreds of millions of kilometres in thousands of minibus taxis, for a generation at least. It refused to burst, so is that a bad thing? Those who know old Japanese pickups will still be able to recognise a detail here and there, but modern features render such nitpicking irrelevant.
What you do get is power steering, air conditioning, leather seats, electrically wound windows front and rear, remote central locking, CD-MP3 player, front and rear fog lamps, rev counter, load-sensing proportioning valve, variable-rate springs front and rear, bucket seats in front, Bosch fuel injection and a double insulated load bin. The cheaper single cab workhorse model goes without air conditioning, leather, the music system, remote central locking and fog lamps. It's also available in any colour you like, as long as it's white. Henry Fong lives!
Missing from all Steed3s are air bags and ABS, but you won't find them in entry-level versions of some highly regarded Japanese pickups either. Finally, the "feel the vidth!" kicker: the Steed3 double-cab is yours for R148 000 - well below the price of any serious competitor.
Getting down to practicalities, the load bin is nicely shaped and solid, double-skinned and opens with a modern central catch. The rear step bumper looks attractive and incorporates the rear fog lights. A cab protector is included. Aluminium alloy wheels are shod with 215/75 R15 tyres - a practical and not too pricey choice for long term use. Being a load vehicle, it isn't particularly happy over speed humps although it was comfortable enough on dirt and tracked well.
In the back half of the cab, there is plenty of knee room and foot space although headroom is somewhat restricted for taller passengers. Exiting is easy thanks to the flat floor, but the doorway is a little narrow. Up front, windows and mirrors are powered, central locking operates with a master switch and there is a fair amount of storage space thanks to door bins, a central box, oddment trays and a fair-sized glove box. Steering adjusts for height, but the driver's seat doesn't.
This isn't a truckie for princesses; so don't look for makeup mirrors or soft plastics on the dash. Fit and finish is good, though. The single channel air conditioner uses simple slide and rotary controls. Equally unpretentious is a radio and CD unit without auxiliary minijack but with a really small USB input. A special cable is supplied and the local dealer assures us that replacements are available inexpensively from your local HiFi supermarket.
The Steed is easy to drive and manoeuvre, with good all-round vision. Being a "legacy' design, the engine shows its age somewhat with a limited rev range. The limiter kicks in at about 4 800 rpm and one needs to use the five-speed gearbox quite regularly.
Some of its technology might be quaint but it’s well proven. Toys and execution are up to date and the pricing can’t be argued with. As a bonus, the importer’s nephew has lived in China for twenty years, speaks Mandarin fluently and is married to a local. His job is to pass on requests and comments and to iron out problems. And the folk at GWM are amazingly receptive, being ready to make fairly major production changes within weeks rather than years. Sounds like win-win to us.
The numbers
Price: R147 970
Engine: 2 237 cc, inline four cylinder, petrol
Power: 78 kW at 4 600 rpm
Torque: 190 Nm between 2 400 and 2 800 rpm
Performance and fuel figures: Not given
Tank: 70 litres
Ground clearance: 180 mm
Approach and departure angles: 24/21 degrees
Tare mass: 1 565 kg
GVM: 2 390 kg
GCM: 3 430 kg
Warranty: 3 years/100 000 km, with 2 years' roadside assistance.
This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.
What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.
My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.
I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!
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SA Roadtests
South Africa
ctjag8