Chinese carmaker Chery has started sales in South Africa. It has just launched a number of models onto the market, including the Chery QQ3.
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Local newpaper reports say the QQ3 is the first car since 2001 with a price-tag under the R60,000 barrier. Selling for just R59,900, the dimunitive 800cc hatchback is nearly seven grand cheaper than SA’s next most inexpensive car, the Chevrolet Spark (yes, there’s some irony there in that QQ3 has controversial Matiz/Spark lineage…).
Chery’s local import partner is retail giant McCarthy. Along with the QQ3, the Chery J5 medium-sized sedan and the Tiggo compact SUV were also launched in SA last week. All Chery products are supported by a 3-year/100,000km warranty.
The Daily News newspaper says that the ‘usually credible McCarthy name’ lost some lustre recently with the company’s importation of the Russian-built Gaz minibus and Chinese-made Futon and Meiya commercial vehicles, which all suffered from initial build quality problems. But those issues have now been addressed, claims McCarthy, while the Chery brand has been subjected to a more rigorous pre-launch quality programme including durability testing at Pretoria’s Gerotek test facility.
“We’ve learned our lesson, and with Chery the introduction was more quality conscious,” Brand Pretorius, chairman of McCarthy Motor Holdings, told the Daily News.
The report says the vehicles are being sold through four dedicated Chery dealers (two in Jo’burg and one each in Durban and Cape Town) as well as multi-franchise McCarthy and other independent dealers around the country.
