China's Jolion is jolly good

IMPRESSIVE: QUALITY BUILD, FAMILY AND WALLET-FRIENDLY – AND IT'S A BREEZE TO DRIVE

- Brendan Seery

Two issues which have troubled prospective buyers of Chinese-made cars in South Africa are: what's the quality like — and how reliable are they? Because some of the Chinese brands haven't been around that long, it's difficult to pick up any trends yet, positive or negative.

So, if you're looking for word-of-mouth recommendations, it's not that easy.

However, assessments don't get more "straight from the horse's mouth" than they would from someone who has to make vehicles work hard and make them earn their money.

That's why I was interested to hear the thoughts of Dirk Klopper, chief revenue officer of Pace Car Rental, one of the first companies to buy large numbers of GWM/Haval models for their fleet.

"A lot of people in the business looked at us a bit strangely — as if we were mad — but we got a good bulk deal from GWM, so the price made sense."