With the design of the Haval, somehow everything went right away, I remember a long-running conversation with a neighbor about the H6 crossover, which five years ago became the entrance ticket for a Chinese company to the Russian market. The neighbor at that time had a one-year-old UAZ Patriot, which he received either by inheritance or as a repayment of a debt. The car, as in fashion, did not go into it, and the H6 was parked in the yard by another happy owner of an almost new car, and we thought about him buying it.
“Now the Chinese have learned to make beautiful cars, why can’t we do that? Stamp bricks, roll under them instead of days off. Either the pipe will break, then the tank will leak, then it will trot, then it will stall, ”complained a disgruntled man from his car.
Then it’s good that it’s H6 and not Poer, otherwise my neighbor’s mood would definitely deteriorate. It looks like a frame SUV with all the necessary arsenal in the form of all-wheel drive and locks, as well as an American heavyweight “Supercrew” or a Japanese “Tundra”: a huge radiator grille with a huge “comma” -logo at the level of the abdomen, about 5 1.5 meters long, chrome belts on the body, stylish wheels… Yes, you wouldn’t expect this from a “Chinese”.
In terms of interior and ergonomics, the Chinese pickup also did not disappoint us: stylish eco-leather seats, clean and nice-touch plastic, lots of space for the driver and front passenger. At the same time, the rear riders are not deprived of living space, the back of the “sofa” is, of course, almost vertical, but this is the misfortune of all turntables.
The organization of the driver’s seat suffers a little due to the lack of steering column adjustment for access. But the height of the driver’s seat is adjusted with the help of electrical adjustments, so that the steering wheel still finds an acceptable position. It will take no more than an hour to get used to the large dimensions in the flow of other cars.
Parking is more difficult because the Poer has a high window sill and is itself very high, but in an expensive configuration this problem is solved by all-round cameras. They have pretty clear detail even in the dark, so it’s not difficult to park close to the curb or turn around in a tight space.
The multimedia system in Poer is generally the same as in other models of this brand. It does not differ in special functionality, providing the driver with smartphone connections via standard radio settings, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto applications. Special thanks to the creators of the car for the fact that some buttons, including the “stamps” of the climate control, are not “hidden” on the screen. To set anything on the touchscreen, to drive on a bumpy road, a spring-loaded frame car is a complete no-brainer.
On the road, the driver can balance the gearshifts of the automatic transmission using the paddle shifters. On a straight road, the Chinese frame is surprisingly very stable at speed, it does not slip in a straight line, the steering wheel keeps the chosen direction. Pickup trucks traditionally have the “heaviest” front axle until loaded, so they’re all prone to skidding on a sharp turn.
Poer is no exception in this regard, but the four pluses cope with the task of the exchange rate stabilization system – perhaps the Chinese engineers should work on the moment of breaking the rear axle into slip, in order to get ahead even more confidently.
On bad ground, a pickup truck will shake in the cabin instantly alerting the driver and passengers. In this regard, Japanese and European trucks will be softer. The reason lies in the characteristics of the Poer suspension, it uses torsion bars on the front struts, in this segment the springs are usually installed on the front axle, while it has “Chinese” springs, as it should be for a pickup truck. on the back, but there are no three pages in them, like the Volkswagen Amarok, for example, but only up to five.
The other side of this kind of rigidity is that a pickup truck can be loaded safely: in the region of a tonne of useful weight, it should unload without problems. During the certification, the cunning Chinese insured himself and drove the car according to the documents, as if it had a carrying capacity of 375 kg. This allows, for example, in Moscow to drive a pickup truck without commercial tolls with special fees to drive a car within the limits of the “cargo frame” without the risk of fines from the cameras.
Poer seems to accelerate quite cheerfully with a two-liter diesel engine (150 hp), but even up to 16 seconds acceleration is advertised as “hundred” according to the passport. But an indisputable plus is the consumption in the combined cycle in the city – only about 9 liters of diesel fuel, 2.1 tons of curb weight and not so much, given the weight of the driver. The price of this car starts from 3.5 million rubles, and if you answer the main question: “Can Haval Poer single-handedly close the pickup segment in Russia?” for cars of departing brands. There is no doubt about it – these cars have almost no “existing” dealers, they are all sold out, still on the way.