Australian suspension tuning will be the backbone of Chery’s local expansion

The Omoda 5 signalled Chery’s return to Australia in March 2023 after a nine-year hiatus.

The small SUV arrived sporting technology and stylish looks at an affordable price and Chery’s larger Tiggo 7 Pro now offers a similar promise in the popular medium SUV segment.

But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the Omoda 5. In our initial road test, we noted multiple problems with driver-assistance systems, including the lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, and driver monitoring.

Chery says it’s been hard at work ironing out kinks in the Omoda 5’s systems – though we’re yet to verify those claims – and will continue with incremental software updates to improve the driver-assistance systems for Australian roads.

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There’s more in the pipeline, though, as Chery looks to Australia as an in-market proving ground that’ll aid in increasing global success. That means Aussie suspension tuning – as Hyundai, Kia, and now Mitsubishi carry out – is in the works.

Chery aftersales and product director Lucas Harris – previously the national service operations manager at Subaru Australia – told Wheels that we’ll have to wait for Omoda 5 and Tiggo 7 Pro facelifts to see these changes implemented.

“It's unlikely that any of our first MYs of the models we launch will have that dynamic handling tuning applied to them, really just because of the rate that we'll be launching those cars”, said Mr Harris.

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In the short term, Chery will continue to work on niggles that are present in its current models using software updates.

“Some of the obvious [work] is around the local adaptability and verification that we've been doing… we've put a renewed focus and effort into that to try and step it up another level and we'll keep doing that and taking feedback that we get from external sources and see what we can do with it”, Mr Harris told Wheels.

He also described the almost alarming rate at which the engineers from China will address these issues. If there's an urgent fix needed, two teams of engineers split time into day and night shifts to work around the clock identifying and implementing solutions, says Lucas.

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In the medium-term (think mid-life facelifts), Lucas confirmed we could see changes to tyre specs, damper and spring settings, and steering calibration to make the vehicles safer and more rewarding to drive on Australia’s give-and-take roads.

“Fortunately, our friends at headquarters in R&D are incredibly open-minded. So it's really going to be based on feedback from local experts as to what is needed”, said Lucas. “Some things might come out of the box pretty close to the mark or, exactly what we need, so we'll focus on the areas that could do with some improvement to suit our conditions.”

Since March, Chery has shifted 4335 Omoda 5s, with its October sales just nine short of the Kia Seltos. While Chery didn’t name a sales target for the Tiggo 7, brand and marketing director Mark Vujoka indicated that the brand will be in full swing when it increases its dealer count from the current 60 to the target 100 across Australia.

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“We could have sold more cars had we had the number of dealers. But obviously also brand equity; we’re new back in this market a lot of people haven’t heard about [Chery] so it’s about creating a promise and then delivering on that promise – and getting people to try our products as well”, said Mr Vujoka.

Mark added that Chery dealers have noted a test drive-to-sale conversion rate of around 50 per cent, with current owners trading in more European vehicles than expected.

Following the Tiggo 7 Pro’s local launch – our review will go live on 1 December – the brand will launch a larger Tiggo 8 SUV followed by an electric version of the Omoda 5.