6000 miles in a Jaecoo 7: Is it really a half-price Range Rover?

You do also get additional spec on top of the Deluxe's already very generous kit levels, though, including a larger (14.8in versus 13.2in) touchscreen, tinted rear glass, an upgraded stereo, ventilated front seats and heated rear seats. I'm struggling to think of anything more you could want - which is lucky because, bar metallic paint, there are no options available.

First impressions are that Jaecoo has made a decent fist of its promise to offer a 'premium' look and feel at a budget price point. The 7's finish is good and its looks are certainly eye-catching, while inside it feels well screwed together and luxurious, from its faux-leather electric seats to its sat-nav, full-length glass roof, automatic lights, wipers and rear-view mirror and other premium features, such as selectable multi-coloured ambient lighting.

There's a full suite of driver and safety aids, too, with a bewildering array of initialisms from MCB (er, Multiple Collision Defence System) to CSCA (Corner Speed Control Assist).

I am a little nervous about how some of the electrickery will work in practice, because there have already been a few teething problems: every other day the car insists on telling me that I'm about to enter the United Kingdom and the radio reception of the 'integrated antenna' is so terrible that I've given up trying and instead listen to the radio online via Apple CarPlay.

On the plus side, for a mid-sized SUV, the 7 is hugely roomy front and back, while the boot, although not massive, at 412 litres, is practically square in shape, and beneath the floor there's a spare wheel – an increasingly rare sight these days.

Plenty of glazing and huge mirrors afford excellent vision, ideal in the urban landscapes in which, despite its off-road promise, the 7 is most likely to be found.

All the controls are effortless, but the steering feels vague – add in plenty of body roll, and a B-road weapon this is not – and the ride around town is a bit crotchety. It smooths out noticeably at speed, however, making it a comfortable cruiser, even if the engine occasionally labours at pushing its 1795kg up to the national speed limit.

That said, dynamic perfection would be a big ask for £33k. Over the coming months, I will be answering the much more important question of whether the 7 stands up to the rigours of family life.

Handles like a boat, drinks like a fish!

My mission to discover how the Jaecoo 7 stands up to the rigours of family life got off to a good start with a trip to Somerset to visit my parents for a few days over a long weekend. That meant kids, dogs, bags, walking gear and more, which would provide a stern test for the 145bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine...

You can read about this surprisingly thirsty mission here

D'oh - user error confession time

I've got a confession. I said the Jaecoo had no auto-hold function, having scrolled through various settings in an effort to find it (following the growing scourge of dashboard design, there are very few actual buttons).

It turns out I'm wrong, but I only found out by chance when I was swiping on the main screen to get rid of one menu, when another – one I hadn't seen before – suddenly appeared. This one housed a series of shortcuts for major functions, and there, praise be, was an auto-hold option. The start/stop restarting is still frustratingly slow, but at least I'm not rolling backwards down inclines any more.

Usefully, this recently discovered menu also has a button to turn off the lane departure prevention. On the Jaecoo, this supposed driver aid is so intrusive that you can find yourself fighting with the wheel when the system picks up lines in the road and diverts you off course, so disabling it is a must. Sadly it doesn't remember that preference, like it does auto hold, but it's now only a swipe away.

Both discoveries made the journey to drop off my daughter for a new year at university less of a chore, and to be fair to the 7, this is the kind of task it's particularly good at. The boot's square shape makes it ideal for stacking in boxes of kitchen gubbins and bags of bedding and clothes: a year's worth was accommodated with ease once we'd dropped one back seat, and we could have got it all in the boot had we packed it to the ceiling.

When we got to Oxford I found myself feeling like a pariah. We were there during the city's half-marathon and it was packed, so traffic was horrendous. Inevitably, the Jaecoo's usually sensitive start/stop decided to do more starting than stopping, so to avoid churning out fumes in this notoriously car-unfriendly city I turned the engine off regularly.

That automatically unlocks the doors and pops out the exterior handles (à la JLR), so I locked them using the button on my door... which promptly set off the alarm with an extended hoot of the horn, making me look as if I was raging. By that stage I was, but at my own car rather than those in front of me.

I put it head-to-head with the PHEV

Regrets, I’ve had a few… and now there’s a new one to add to the list: opting for the four-wheel-drive 1.6T petrol version of the Jaecoo 7 rather than the 1.5 SHS plug-in hybrid model.

I had the chance to sample the PHEV for a few days and frankly now think I’ve made a mistake.

Read the full feature here

Verdict

When the Jaecoo 7 arrived with me, my aim was to discover the secrets of its success and to see if one of them is being able to stand up to the rigours of family life. 

Well, nearly 6000 miles later, the answer is a resounding yes. Although its external dimensions aren't huge, it's brilliantly spacious inside: there's a decent 500-litre boot and the back seats in particular won praise. My offspring aren't really kids any more, at 19 and 16, so it's more like having four adults, yet there were no complaints. 

My father criticised how low-set the rear bench was when I gave him a lift, but I suspect that's more a reflection of how rarely he sits in the back of a car than any fault on the 7's part. As its rough-tough Range Rover-lite looks imply, it feels rugged, aided by the pseudo-off-roader interior trim on the four-wheel-drive version. 

It certainly sparked plenty of admiration from friends, the majority of whom hadn't heard of Jaecoo before, and lived up to the 'Enjoy every moment outdoors' brand tagline. 

Wet dogs, wellies and walking gear were swallowed with ease, and the only build issues I came across were some creaking from the headlining above the driver's seat where the glue had come unstuck and a bit of loose carpet on the back of the rear seat. 

Staying on the off-road theme, in this 4WD car traction was notably better than in the FWD versions. Allied to decent ground clearance of 200mm and useful extras such as hill descent control, it would make a tempting and affordable alternative to a more serious off-roader if you live in rural area. 

Not that it got called into use much on the mean streets of south London, where the focus was more on the scarcely believable generosity of the equipment levels. 

There's too much to list here, but among the highlights were a full-length panoramic sunroof (with electric blind); heated and ventilated electric front seats (and heated rears); an excellent head-up display; a full complement of driver aids; and a huge central infotainment touchscreen, a whopping 14.8in in Luxury trim. 

Perhaps even more important if you're buying with your own money, however, is the seven-year/100,000-mile warranty. All of those electrical systems were both a blessing and a curse. Although most of them are there to make your life easier, in many cases they can frustrate in equal measure. 

The DAB radio rarely managed to hold a signal; the alarm had a mind of its own; the 'virtual assistant' regularly offered help without it being asked for; and both the collision prevention and lane departure prevention systems scared me as much as saved me by aggressively cutting in when they weren't required. 

I also found myself avoiding cruise control, because the adaptive system insists on taking on steering duties as well as maintaining speed, which isn't a very pleasant sensation. 

However, it's worth mentioning that I've had the opportunity to drive a newer 7 than my pure-petrol car (which was among the first to land on British shores) and found there have already been improvements in several of these areas (the radio worked, for one), so it's clear that Jaecoo is listening to feedback and iterating as fast as it can to fix flaws. 

One thing that can't be cured with a software update, however, is the chassis. And it's here where you start to see the savings that were made to hit the target price. 

Both the primary and secondary ride are disappointing: the lack of body control means it pitches and rolls over larger bumps, particularly when fully laden, while also feeling choppy over smaller intrusions in the road surface, accompanied by a fair amount of suspension and road noise. 

Add in steering that is unresponsive and inert and it's unlikely to be your first choice for a favourite B-road. The suspension does calm down on the motorway, when it's relaxing enough, but the engine needs to be worked fairly hard to maintain decent momentum. 

Switching to Sport mode or even Normal rather than the default Eco mode makes it livelier but doesn't do much for the already disappointing fuel thirst: with its 50-litre tank and an average not much over 30mpg, I was forced to break my cardinal rule of not filling at motorway services. 

It's no surprise to learn that the SHS plug-in hybrid takes 70.1% of 7 sales, because it's both more frugal and feels far peppier, without the lag in the stop-start system that the pure-ICE version suffers. 

But it appears that most people really don't care about dynamics: since arriving in the UK in January 2025, Jaecoo has sold more than 33,000 cars, 91% of them 7s. And it's not just in the UK that Jaecoo is growing at lightning pace: I've been to Lanzarote on holiday and Bahrain on business since the car arrived and in both spotted freshly minted Omoda-Jaecoo dealerships. 

It's not difficult to see why people are seduced by this car: it offers an awful lot for your money and not just in terms of toys. Few other cars that you can lease for less than £300 a month, or buy new for not much over £30,000, offer as much style or space for such a small outlay. 

So as long as rewards behind the wheel aren't a priority, it makes sound sense, although I would strongly advocate paying the premium for the PHEV: it will pay you back at the pumps pretty swiftly. 

If you enjoy driving, however, I would recommend shopping elsewhere.

Jaecoo 7 1.6T AWD Luxury

Price: List price new £32,850 List price now £33,945 Price as tested £32,850 

Options: None

Economy and range: Claimed economy 35.3mpg Fuel tank 50 litres Test average 30.7mpg Test best 33.1mpg Test worst 28.6mpg Real-world range 338 miles 

Tech highlights: 0-62mph 11.8sec Top speed 112mph Engine 4 cyls in line, 1598cc, turbocharged, petrol Max power 145bhp at 5500rpm Max torque 203lb ft at 1750-2750rpm Gearbox 7-spd dual-clutch auto, 4WD Boot 500 litres Wheels 19in, alloy Tyres 235/50 R19, Kumho Ecsta PS71 Kerb weight 1649kg