VIDEO: Chery Tiggo 7 Pro Max bids a bitter but sweet goodbye

The first modern Chery to arrive for an extended stay since the brand’s return to South Africa three years ago, the Blood Red-coloured Tiggo 7 Pro Max not only faced the usual day-to-day commute and inter-town travels, but also two road trips, the final being to the Eastern Cape and this writer’s hometown of Despatch as a means of breaking the heavy fuel consumption Chinese vehicle stereotype.

In the spate of what has been a rapid three months, The Citizen’s tenure with Chery’s flagship Tiggo 7 Pro, the all-wheel-drive Pro Max Executive, officially came to an end at the end of November after a total of 4 042 km.

Ultimately, this became secondary as during the three months, a number of other gremlins would intervene, resulting in the Tiggo 7 Pro Max being described as a careful consideration despite offering a lot for its R609 900 asking price.

The meet

First shown at the Kyalami Festival of Motoring last year as the first Chery in South Africa to offer an all-paw gripping system, the officially named Chery Tiggo 7 Pro Max 290T Executive AWD DCT spend the first few weeks doing the daily commute as a way of sorting out its various foibles.

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As mentioned, these included the typical Chinese vehicle issue of an awkwardly calibrated throttle mismatched with the engine and transmission, the driver’s seat that didn’t drop all the way down, the over-assisted electric power steering, the dizzying rear-view mirror no-one managed to get use to, and by far the biggest irritation, the detection module on the steering column for the overenthusiastic Driver Attention Alert system.

Immediate plusses though were the level of specification, comfort, no lack of interior space, and a striking design helped not only by the colour and model specific 19-inch alloy wheels but also the various blue inserts and inside, decent levels of fit-and-finish.

Road trip no 1

Just over a month after its arrival, its first real world test arrived in the shape of Deputy Sport Editor, Clinton Jones, heading off to the Dikhololo Resort outside Brits.

Aside from lamenting the mentioned annoyances, Jones was, however, impressed with the added traction and selectable drive modes receiving praise along with the array of features and comfort on-road.

Having arrived displaying 9.8 L/100 km, Jones’ stint saw this drop to 9.5 L/100 km, although no sooner at it returned to this writer’s care, it has increased to a far less impressive 10.2 L/100 km.

Keeping tabs on the overall mileage and fuel consumption no longer proved a problem though as explained in the original update about the bizarre working of the trip computer that rests automatically when switched to Trip A but not to Trip B.

Although sitting idle for a large part of October due to a large shipment of test vehicles that suddenly arrived, the pending road trip to the coast was to the ultimate test.

The bitter side

As it turned out, the trek of 2 092 km to Despatch wasn’t as plain sailing, but not from an economy standpoint.

Not long before the handover to Clinton, the dual 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and infotainment system started emitting horrible creaking and cracking noises that would emerge at random without any surface change or a pothole in sight.

This would prevail throughout the Tiggo 7 Pro Max’s stay, including a coming-and-going rattle on the passenger side and an audible shudder from the panoramic sunroof that became especially bad with the roller blind retracted.

A disappointment given the cabin’s overall fit-and-fit finish being good and the touch-sensitive buttons on the imitation alloy panel below the display easy to fathom, the floating centre console remained rattle free and proved its worth from oddment storage as per the pair of cupholders and cooled rear most cubby, whose lid doubles-up as an armrest.

Setting off from Johannesburg, the body hugging electric seats with heating and cooling functions, proved snug, supportive and comfortable despite their slimline appearance.

Unfortunately, the chairs weren’t without their quirks, which in this instance, involved the memory function for the driver.

Offering three settings activated by the M button and then selecting 1, 2 or 3, the “saved” position never lasted long-term and after a few days, would revert to a completely different configuration somehow serving as the default the moment ignition was activated.

Adding to the seat’s annoyance, whose lack of being lowered obscures a full-view of the dashboard, the breaks felt spongy and required a fair amount of more than usual input on the middle pedal to bring the Tiggo 7 Pro Max to a stop.

As annoying as the Driver Attention Alert and throttle calibration woes were, ride quality was impressive and once on-song, the 1.6 T-GDI engine pulled strong with a fair amount of urgency that made overtaking the typical irksome train of trucks easy.

Producing 145kW/290Nm, the unit smoothens out at cruising speed and once over the initial hesitation of the throttle’s mapping and hesitating seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, makes the Tiggo 7 Pro Max shrug-off its 1 437 kg mass with an impressive urge.

Sadly, it still could prevent one of the many road destroying leviathans, travelling in the opposite direction, from flicking a stone into the windscreen 40 km outside Bloemfontein.

An irritating occurrence that left a spider’s web crack on the driver’s side, the main crumb of comfort was fuel consumption.

Impressive at the pumps

Filled up in Johannesburg, the first visit to the pumps was at Colesburg. This meant a distance of 617 km on a single tank with just under 200 km of indicated range left. Even more welcoming was the 8.7 L/100 km displayed on the instrument cluster.

Ending in Despatch 448 km later after a fill-up and no mid-route top-ups, the trip computer read 8.2 L/100 km.

This would also be the figure that would remain for the rest of the trip, the return run back to Johannesburg and a large chunk of the final few weeks of its stay.

Although reading 8.5 L/100 km by the time of its return, the recorded 8.2 L/100 km can be seen as commendable given it close proximity to the 7.8 L/100 km Chery claims.

Unlike Herr Jones, once back into the care of its minder, little use was made of the Snow, Mud and Off-Road settings within the six-mode drive selector, with the same applying to Eco.

Including the trip to the coast, the Tiggo 7 Pro Max was left in Normal mode, with Sport being selected on a few occasions.

Unsurprisingly, the latter made the response a bit sharper, but because of the calibration issues and all four wheels gripping, would result in the Tiggo 7 Pro bogging down.

That being said, grip was impressive and despite the lack of steering feel, the Max would be beyond acceptable for doing exactly what it says on the label.

The sweeter side

Aside from its consumption, some initial criticisms also became easier to master as its return to Chery edged closer.

This included mastering the sensitivity of the gear lever, although the inclusion of paddle shifters to combat the ‘box’s indecisiveness would have helped a bit when the moment arose to turn the drive mode selector dial from Comfort to Sport.

At the same time, constant familiarisation with the infotainment system made it easy to operate, however, given its upright positioning, some arm stretching is required to operate it, which in turn would trigger the Driver Attention Alert with its “You have been distracted for too long” readout on the dashboard.

Acceptable if not earth scattering is the six-speaker Sony sound system, while the Hello Chery voice recognition generally proved slick and a few party pieces such as opening all four windows on the move.

Another feature constantly used was the remote engine start that also activates the air-conditioning and the 3D function of the 360-degree camera system that surprised with its resolution.

Conclusion

Billed from the start as possibly the most complete model in Chery’s product range, the three months in the company with the Tiggo 7 Pro Max 290T Executive AWD DCT proved impressive, but not entirely, pardon the pun, as sweet as expected.

While without doubt a massively spacious, value-for-money standout bristling with tech wrapped in a stylish and aggressive looking suite, it lacks in the driveability department, in a few quality areas and user-friendliness related to infotainment system’s layout.

Given some fine-tuning though and with a few updates as well as upgrades, it nonetheless still has the making of being the ideal Chery for every occasion.

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