The LDV 4wds are quiet impressive in my opinion!

Sorry mate...If is isnt a $120,000 toyota it cant possibly be anygood........

Axle - The LDV utes comes with the Fiat-built 2.8L VM Motori engine, which is the engine also used in the Jeep and the Colorado.

VM Motori is an Italian company formerly owned 50% by GM and 50% by Fiat.
In 2013, Fiat bought out GM's 50% share, and VM Motori is now 100% owned by Fiat.
The VM Motori engines are reliable enough, but often a little undersized. The LDV engine is 110Kw, which is barely enough power for a ute that size - particularly when LDV rate their utes at over 6 tonne GCM.

The auto transmission in the LDV is built by Punch Powerglide, a European transmission manufacturer formerly owned by the Dutch DAF company.

DAF went bankrupt in 1993 after forming a Joint Venture with Leyland Trucks (a Rover Motors subsidiary) in 1987. The JV company produced vans in Britain, known as LDV vans (Leyland-DAF-Vans).

LDV went bankrupt in 2008, after being purchased by the Russian GAZ company in 2006. The intellectual rights of the LDV company were sold by the liquidators of LDV to a Chinese company, Eco Concept, in 2009 - which company then sold the rights to SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation), who builds the Chinese LDV utes, and who operates under the brand name Maxus.

SAIC has Joint Ventures in place with VW, GM and Iveco - so it is sourcing its technology from the worlds biggest auto manufacturers.

The Chinese utes fall down in four areas;

1. The build quality does not have the intense attention to detail that is a hallmark of the Thai/Jap built vehicles. The Chinese are gung-ho when it comes to attention to detail. A regular feature of Chinese vehicles is trim falling off and switches coming apart. They have a way to go, to match Japanese build quality.

2. The Chinese fail to appreciate the importance of building a "Brand Name" and sticking with it, and building the reputation of that "Brand Name". Classic examples of "Brand Name" value are Caterpillar and Ford. Both have spent decades defining and refining their respective brand names.

The Chinese will sell you a vehicle this week called East Wind and next week it will be a Lon Jing - and from a different factory. Their lack of understanding and appreciation in this area is abysmal.

3. Technical and parts backup for Chinese equipment is pretty appalling. Language translators in China are in short supply - and technical language translators, even more so.
I know about this area, because I have an English-Italian friend who made a very good living from translating English technical manuals into European languages - in itself, a minefield of varying descriptive terms.

Conversion of technical language back and forth between English and European languages and Chinese - and then supplying Chinese-origin technical information in English, produces "interesting results" - as we regularly see with Chinese-sourced assembly and use instructions for their products.

4. The Chinese vehicles are cheap, aimed at the "low-end" of the market, and have resale values in accordance with their cheapness.
You are struggling to sell used Chinese utes, even low-km ones.
I have seen them sell at auction for as low as $4000, for low-km vehicles, and the auction houses struggled to get bids on them.

In time, the Chinese will probably lift their game as regards ute build quality, performance, technical and parts support, and resale value.
But it won't happen in the near future, it will take many years to achieve that.

Cheers, Ron.

Plenty of standard inclusions and good safety ratings, however, productreview.com.au has a lot of complaints about dodgy electronics causing intermittent failures. We all know brands like Land Rover suffer reliability issues from the sheer number of built in electronic gizmos. If you put all of those gizmos in a cheaply built ute then the odds of failure multiply. If I go by other cheap Chinese products, every second one is great, your mate might have bought one of those.
I'm not a fan of how they look either....

I'm having trouble resolving the contrast between the OP report of a happy customer against the comments that the ute is not likely to be a good buy because it is a Chinese produced product.

Local dealer started selling a Chinese produced product some years ago and initially had problems with several vehicles being returned on a flatbed. Dealer solved nearly all forward problems by dedicating an extra two and a half hours to pre-delivery servicing. Seemingly tiny things like hose clamps needing an extra turn and a blob of silicone on the back of a sensor plug and a torque wrench on most of the suspension components, dramatically changed the number of warranty claims. Service manager also made sure that panel alignment was checked before any vehicle made it to the showroom floor.Feedback to the factories caused changes to their quality control procedures. Telling potential customers about the reason for reputation issues, and their fix, got the dealership a lot of sales.

The five year warranty period for the LDV utes being sold now will have an effect on reputation and resale values.

Iza

Having owned a Great Wall for 6 years, all I can say about quality issues is rubbish. Yes I had to get the Asbestos removed (under warranty), but other than normal wear items, it was very reliable. And cheap!. It was built from a parts bin,(ie GM Rodeo and Forenzo chasis suspension and body, Mistubishi motor, Toyota rear end). Only bits that were GW engineered were the gearbox and front diff. So I just purchased parts accordingly. I did in excess of 150,000kms and after 6 years traded it in and got $5 K trade in. For an out lay of $24K that was a great return. Try keeping any of the current models of cars and after 6 years only loosing $18K!!! Current owner loves it. Only problem with most Chinese cars is the low engine out put. That is because over there a car with more than 100Kw is then taxed to the limit. However the good side to this is that the vehicles delivered here have motors that are not over stressed with power boosters etc. And that is their main problem, they struggle to tow a 5 x 3 trailer.

The experience of my next door neighbor is that his boss decided to buy Great Wall Utes for the fleet. My neighbor’s vehicle was in the workshop having its transmission rebuilt about every 7 or 8 months. It was not just his vehicle either, of the 5 Utes in the fleet, 4 had regular transmission issues.

Macca.

Make sure you keep the VIN # handy, it’s the only way the dealer can figure out what make of engine, gearbox or diff went into it. Apparently each run have a different combination.
Talk about a bitza.

I’ll keep my 200 thanks.

I'll know the Chinese utes have reached "mainstream" acceptance, when the fleet owners start buying them, and I see them on every minesite.

Bottom line is, the only people buying them, are the people who don't have any money, or who are too cheapskate to outlay the extra money for one of the "Big Four" make.

Farmers and station owners are pretty well-known for being tight with money (I have 1st-hand experience, I spent the first 20 years of my working life, doing contract work for farmers) - and they are happy enough to put up with a degree of vehicle unreliability, because they generally have multiple vehicles.

Yes, the economics of buying cheap and selling cheap are O.K. for some, provided you don't mind some degree of poor finish, and some degree of unreliability.
The old adage still holds true in the 21st century - you get what you pay for.

Cheers, Ron.