Chery Tiggo 8 Pro heavy on features and light on the pocket

This writer is going to die poor. In a life full of doubt and unpredictability, that fact will not be denied.

Barring winning the PowerBall, I will forever remain in the bottom half of the middle class – we who sponsor the government with our taxes, in return for empty promises and open contempt.

My pauper status is nobody’s fault but my own. Falling in love with my job, and staying on as a motoring scribe with the same newspaper for 43 years, was not financially wise.

Neither was a propensity to get married and divorced – three times, at the last count. Naturally I have attempted to change the status quo, but without success.

I wrote to Marcus Jooste, demanding my share of White Monopoly Capital, but he never came back to me. Apparently he is a bit preoccupied at the moment.

Reasonably priced

I tried to sell my soul to the Devil, but he said he was up to his armpits in souls, and mine was too boring to purchase, anyway.

I also tried to dodge my burial costs by offering to donate my entire body to the medical profession, but they declined. Said they could not, in good faith, give my parts to people who already suffer illness.

All of which means I will never be able to purchase an expensive vehicle, being forced to forever shop in the lower end of the used car market. My perception of “reasonably priced” differs massively from that of reasonably paid middle class citizens.

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But, being a motoring scribe, I occasionally get to lay my hands on vehicles that better remunerated people label “reasonably priced”. Like the Chery Tiggo 8 Pro Distinction.

The seven-seater SUV, that recently spent a week at The Citizen Motoring, comes at just under half a million rand, which is a lot less than most other vehicles with similar attributes.

Powering the Chery TIggo 8 Pro

The basics – it is a five-door passenger car, powered by a turbocharged, four-cylinder 1 598 cc petrol engine that produces 145 kW of power at 5 500 rpm, and 290 Nm of torque between 2 000 and 4 400rpm. This goes to the front wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.

Standing on 18-inch spoked alloy wheels in 235/55 R18 rubber, the Tiggo is 4 722 mm long, 1 860 mm wide and 1 705 mm high. We think it looks imposing, but appearance is a subjective thing.

The vehicle scores high in safety stakes, starting with a massively strong Benteler AG steel body. Active safety features include ABS brakes with EBD, electronic traction and stability control, hill descent control, park distance control with surround view cameras and a tyre deflation warning device.

In case of a collision, there are six airbags, front, side and curtain, covering all the occupants.

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Space and spec fest

The interior will, at a pinch, accommodate seven adults on lumbar-supporting, artificial leather covered seats. The third row seats can fold flat in a variety of ways to create massive 892-litre luggage space.

The multi-function steering wheel and controls interface screen puts Bluetooth, cruise control, a Sony sound system and changeable ambient lighting at the driver’s fingertips.

There are USB ports front and rear, a 12V power socket front, keyless entry, electric windows all round, a heated rear screen and rain sensor windscreen wipers.

Despite its size, the Tiggo 8 Pro felt sprightly, with virtually no hint of turbo lag under acceleration. The manufacturer claims a 0 to 100 km/h time of under nine seconds plus a top speed of 190 km/h and we believe them.

Chery Tiggo 8 Pro a smooth operator

The gearbox is brilliant, changing slickly and smoothly up or down, and the vehicle always seemed to be in the correct cog, in traffic, after braking for a corner or while overtaking. It is huge, but the longer we drove it, the more compact it felt on the road – always a mark of a well-handling car.

The wheelbase of 2 710 mm and turning circle of 11.2 metres, plus all the electronic accessories made the Chery easy to park or manoeuvre in tight spaces.

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The test vehicle returned an average fuel consumption figure of 9.6 L/100 km – not bad considering we did not try to drive it economically.

Finally – a personal point with us – it boasts a proper, full sized spare wheel, instead of the pathetic space saver Marie biscuit offerings of far too many similar vehicles.

The R496 900 price tag of the Chery Tiggo Pro 8 Distinctive comes with a five-year vehicle warranty – or 10 years on the engine for the first owner.

More impressively, the warranty distance is 150 000 km, and Chery’s headline-grabbing million kilometres on the engine for the first owner. A five-year/60 000 km service plan is standard.