At times, it can be hard to tell just how good Chinese vehicles actually are. They’re obviously better built than their fiercest opponents claim, but how well would they really compete if they were sold here? Is it just the EVs that are good, or are their gas-powered cars equally desirable? The good news is, since other countries have Chinese cars, reviewers there can compare them to each other, and thanks to the power of the internet, we can sneak a peek at what they find. Like in this Australian off-road test, where a Chinese SUV just beat a Toyota and a Lexus.
If you don’t keep close tabs on Australian automotive media, CarExpert is probably the biggest car site in the country. And unlike a lot of the most popular U.S. car blogs, their size means they actually have a budget to do cool stuff. You know, like get a bunch of SUVs together to put their off-road capabilities to the test, sometimes with unexpected results. Last year, for example, the Hyundai Tucson won their off-road comparison test of compact crossovers, something I’m not even sure the Hyundai fanboys would have predicted.
This time around, though, they tested three-row SUVs, and just based on the lineup, it would look like the deck was stacked heavily in Toyota’s favor. With the Lexus LX and GX, plus the Prado that Toyota USA now calls the Land Cruiser here and the J300 Land Cruiser that we don’t get, how could a Toyota product not win? Oh, that’s right, reliability wasn’t a factor, so the Land Rover Defender won, but several of the Toyotas also struggled more than you’d expect.
An uphill battle
Just because some of the Toyota products struggled in this off-road test, and the Defender came out on top, don’t think they all performed poorly compared to the rest of the group. The Lexus LX 600 may have had a little trouble with the rollers, but it still managed a podium finish, tied with the Nissan Patrol and behind only the Defender and Isuzu MU-X. Meanwhile, the Prado that we call a Land Cruiser scored only one point lower than the LX 600.Â
The two that didn’t do so hot were the Lexus GX and the J300 Land Cruiser. They did great in the other tests, but their four-wheel-drive systems just couldn’t handle the rollers. What’s perhaps a little more surprising is that the GWM Tank, a Chinese SUV, breezed through the same roller test that proved too much for the Toyota and the Lexus, while matching their performance in the other tests and ultimately outscoring both of them. How that test would look after 100,000 miles, I can’t say, but it’s still fascinating to see a Chinese SUV outperform two of the biggest names in off-road SUVs.
That said, there’s more to off-roading than what you can quantify with a few tests, and it’s worth noting that when you look at the host’s personal score, the GWM Tank sits at the bottom of the pack, tied with the KGM Rexton. It may have gotten the job done, but they had issues with the traction control that proved frustrating enough for Paul to mark it even lower than the Ford Everest, which rounded out the bottom of the rankings, mainly due to the problems it had getting up the slippery hill. Even if the Tank is a capable off-roader, if it were my money, I’d probably still stick with Toyota.
