Faults:

Airbag light came on and stayed on. Dealer fixed it pronto.

General Comments:

I live in South Africa, my model is the 1100 auto-semi TXE, drive 44kms daily, we are 3 in our little pool car club.

This performs well, uphill it battles, and it traffic less than 10km/h, the computer battles to decide let go or grip the clutch. Above 10km/h no problems.

AC makes COLD, radio good, USB no issues -- yet.

Fuel consumption is good. The 35 liter tank gets me 520kms.

At 120km/h the car feels safe, and the ABS works WELL!

Interior looks nice, love it, feels solid, but a rattle from the passenger cab irritates the living daylights out of me, I never get to sit that side to have someone drive it for me...!

Seats are OK, with seat covers you may slide off a bit. Interior is spacious. Very surprised.

The boot is small, your chocolate slabs will fall through the little openings down where the spare wheel is, only for you to find them 2 weeks later melted.

Steering; soft and powerful.

Dash display - good.

Semi automatic shift close, easy to handle. Automatic switch auto on off in front of the handbrake at arm's length.

I feel a bit intimidated, because of the small Chery's looks from outside, you will get people chasing your rear because you are MUCH smaller, hence the big spacious interior, but this car (1100) can keep up with others without putting the fuel pedal down all the time, but personally, this car does as best with road rage as any other bigger car!!.

Faults:

Doors couldn't open sometimes. Very easily fixed.

Rattling sound at 2500rpm.

General Comments:

This is a utilitarian commuter car that I use for my transport everyday. Being my first car and given the nature of my job, I needed an ultra-reliable and very cheap car, and this car seemed to be the answer.

It is extremely cheap to run. I am an aggressive driver, but this car delivers between 14-16 kilometres on a litre of petrol even after being driven using its optimal powerband between 3500 to 5000rpm all the time. The powertrain is very rough, NVH is obviously not suppressed at all, but this car seems to have been built with very wide tolerances, it never seems to break down or give up, whether you like to drive with frequent gear changes, or you if love driving extremely quickly over bumpy roads, this car obliges willingly.

Objectively, it is extremely easy to do a burnout on this car, especially in the wet, with its very basic tyres, and the suspension is virtually non-existent, the ride is choppy. Gearshifts can be jerky as well, the clutch has an extremely narrow biting point where a slight movement of a toe can send you plummeting into the car in front. This car must be driven with your eyes wide awake.

However as a first car, I'd still recommend it to anyone who's willing to practice driving a manual well. It takes a very skillful driver to "tame" this raw thing, and what's more, it's so cheap, and with only 50 horsepower, who needs an airbag hahaha! The engine's well designed for areas with poor road conditions, air intake box's located very high up in the engine bay for places where flooding is frequent. Suspension is rock hard, and woolly, but I've accidentally driven this car up and down a kerb at my workplace a few times and it's still as tough as ever. The gear changes may be jerky, but it makes good practice for double clutching. The way it skids ever so easily on a wet day (which is frequent in Singapore), makes drifting it such an effortless affair.

I'm not being sarcastic, I really love this car a lot. Who says cheap things can't be fun?