Jaecoo J8 review and buyer's guide
Buying a new large SUV just got more complicated, because the Jaecoo J8 promises to make you reconsider your loyalty to Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota and Kia. If you need a fully equipped, luxurious family-focus 7-seater, the J8 is value taken to the extreme… But there is a catch.
The Jaecoo J8 is a compelling five-seat medium-large SUV that is one of the newest on the market among roughly 45 medium and large SUVs that all want you to spend around $60,000.
The J8 competes with a bunch of established models you’ll likely be shopping against, such as the Subaru Outback, Toyota Kluger, Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento, as well as Mazda’s CX-60 and CX-70. But you could also include midsize options like the Mitsubishi Outlander and Kia Sportage.
Of course, it also competes with other Chinese newcomer brands like Chery’s Tiggo 8 Pro, the MG QS, Haval H6, the Leapmotor C10, Deepal S07, BYD Sealion 6 and 7, and the Geely EX5.
So what exactly does the Jaecoo J8 offer that the 14 other primary competitors don’t? Well, it’s hard to say exactly, because especially for the Chinese brands, they are exceedingly competitive on price - and very well executed, generally speaking.
But if you dig deeper, there are underlying factors that might help you make a rational, informed decision in this even more heavily diluted Australian new car market.
Make no mistake, what you’re seeing here is the absolute busiest the Australian car market has ever been in terms of over-saturation of brands in a globally tiny market that only sells 1.2 million new cars every year among a population of less than 27 million people.
Jaecoo has set up shop in Australia and focused its attention on the most popular segment: medium and large SUVs. They’re popular because they took over from the medium-large sedan over 15 years ago and haven’t slowed down (sales wise) since, bar COVID.
But that means you need to be aware of the new-brand catch-22. That is, there is an inherent risk they might not survive commercial long-term, but more on that below.
If you want to know more about Jaecoo, watch this video.
Jaecoo sales, for the brand itself, are off to a modest start. Given they’ve only just taken off, 310 sales in May, 2025 doesn’t sound like much, because it isn’t. But that’s only because it’s effectively their first month on sale, and they’re sandwiched together with Omoda, a sub-brand that is part of the Chery umbrella brand mentioned earlier.
Chery has a couple of years under their belt, returned to Australia after some of the most dreadful ANCAP safety scores ever recorded back in the early 2010s with their J11 SUV that crushed like a soda can in frontal offset testing that earned it 2 stars in 2011. The J1 hatchback also managed just 3 stars back then. The results of which saw virtually zero sales and the brand disappeared.
But today, back in the sales ring, Chery is a bold, exciting and compelling proposition - just like their Jaecoo luxury sub-brand is, in the same way you might not want a Hyundai or Toyota, but a Genesis or Lexus might tickle your fancy.
The problem with an equivalent Lexus or Genesis medium SUV is an additional $20,000. But even among the notionally mainstream brands, where they’ve occupied that ‘affordable luxury’ consumer appeal (pulling sales away from the old prestige giants like Mercedes, BMW and Audi for a decade), the Jaecoo J8 offers the same luxury appeal. It’s just cheaper again than the Korean and Japanese brands.
At this point, you’re quite justified in presuming there is a massive question about what the compromise is. How can a fledgling brand, with absolutely no commercial runs on the board while offering a similar vehicle, possibly offer a same-sized vehicle just as well equipped, for just $55,000?
That’s the conundrum. Nobody knows yet how the brand will support its products in a technical sense, we don’t know if the J8 will be reliable, and nor can we anticipate the popularity of its vehicles.
What we do know about the J8 is how it compares to its main rivals such as Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe and Toyota Kluger, which are some of the most popular SUVs in Australia. If the J8 is going to be a success, it needs to draw buyer interest away from these over-qualified vehicles which are all legitimately good 7-seat vehicles in their own right.
Having that third row is a distinct value advantage to these vehicles, which the J8 doesn’t have (for now at least). But if 7 seats are only a complimentary feature you’re happy to have, but don’t strictly need, then the additional price charged to have them becomes a price hurdle to the J8’s advantage.
This means you might also compare it to some medium SUVs like Kia Sportage, Hyundai Tucson, Subaru Forester, Mitsubishi Outlander or the outgoing Mazda CX-50. But they are all about 200mm shorter in length, about 100mm shorter in height, and about 1200mm narrower.
The J8 is only 10mm shorter in length than the boxy Hyundai Santa Fe, it’s 30mm narrower than a Kia Sorento, and 45mm shorter in height than a Toyota Kluger.
So think of the J8 as a five-seat large SUV as you look at the pricing and features to see what it offers for that too-good-to-be-true price.
TO DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL JAECOO J8 SPEC SHEET click here >>
FEATURES & PRICING
J8 TRACK | $50,000 approx. driveaway | FWD, 2L turbo-petrol 4-cyl
Features include:
Dual 12.3-inch LCD displays
14-speaker sound system
Satnav
Apple CarPlay & Android Auto (wired & wireless)
Intelligent voice command
Leather seats
Heated & ventilated front seats
LED Interior lighting (front & rear)
Surround view camera
Drive modes: Eco, Normal, Sport
20-inch alloy wheels (full-size spare wheel)
LED daytime running lights (DRLs)
LED headlights (projector type)
Tyre pressure monitoring system with display
8 airbags
Massaging seats
Power tailgate
Row 2 A/C vents & controls
J8 RIDGE | $55,000 approx. driveaway | AWD (on-demand), 2L turbo-petrol 4-cyl
Adds:
Additional Drive Modes (Snow/Mud/Sand/Off-road)
Torque vectoring AWD system
Continuous Damping Control
Automatic parking function
Heated and ventilated row 2 seats
Colour selectable ambient lighting
Row 2 side airbags
Rear privacy glass
Cabin fragrance system
Auto dimming rearview mirror
Black suede headliner
INTERIOR
Inside the J8 it’s very easy to see why people are immediately impressed with this new-age Chinese automotive renaissaince.
You could cover up the badge and swear you were inside a Mercedes or a dressed-down Hyundai Kona EV, because the aesthetics are quite appealing without going overboard to the extreme minimalism of a Tesla, and also because of the good fit-n-finish. Nothing rattles, nothing vibrates, and despite some quirks regarding the location of various things, it’s not overtly alien.
But it is a little weird seeing what are clearly Tesla transmission stalks on the right-hand side of the steering column.
There are classy touches everywhere, such as the brushed woodgrain-like facia around the dash that wraps with robotic, laser-cut precision around the five (count them, five) oblong air vents which themselves are both easy to reach and light to use, but also accurate, and cleverly designed to orient in multiple planes at once.
It’s all very impressive on first impressions. While there isn’t a conventional “design language” which we have become complacent about in European, American, Japanese and Korean brands - a theme, if you will - it’s at least consistent. There aren’t any weird additional little trims or unexpected lines that jar with the rest of the cabin. They’ve stuck to consistent materials on the doors, the dash, the seats and that’s good.
You will probably notice that the dominant interior facia style line that wraps around from the dashboard to the front passenger doors doesn’t quite align at the corners like it’s supposed to, but at least the screen is bright. Far too bright if you happen to have the screen setting set to ‘Day’. You’ll either have to switch it manually to ‘Night’, or leave it on ‘Auto’ and presume it’ll know what to do.
The so-called buttons on the steering wheel are in fact two whole pieces of glossy black plastic, which have icons that are backlit for the respective functions. But if you live in Australia where the sun is statistically always shining, if any of it spills onto the steering wheel you cannot see the icons. There might be a brightness setting in the menu somewhere - fortunately the menu is relatively easy to navigate.
But that means you also have to try not to notice the inevitable dust build-up on said 12-inch touchscreens. And there’s not binnacle or shroud around the driver’s display screen, so again, that afternoon, morning to broad daylight is going to interfere.
The centre console has an AC ducting vent which can be used to keep drinks cool, and beside your left knee is an below-deck storage cubby for bits and bobs, just like the Hyundai Palisade.
The sunroof, dual-pane and extending right to the back of row 2 for proper UV ingress, functions like the finest piece of NASA Mars rover technology, and is a reminder of China’s very successful space program. (The one that found water on the moon’s south pole.)
The seats are comfy, the heated seats work a treat and the headrests have speakers in them making it feel like your dearly beloved, your boss or your accountant are right there in the car with you.
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ENGINE
The engine is a pretty conventional 2-litre turbocharged petrol 4-cylinder, making a pretty heady 183kW at 5500 RPM, which a highly strung little engine. It’s making 18 per cent more power than the 2-litre bi-turbo diesel in a Ford Ranger, only it’s not making that grunt at 2750 revs, it’s revving twice as hard.
So the big question circling around this engine is reliability. Being such a new model from such a new brand, with an entirely unknown reliability record, we have to ask the question here about how long this rowdy little motor is going to last, considering the Ranger’s 2-litre diesel has had issues. The J8 is petrol, too - it’s not even the most energy dense fuel.
What this means is out there on the roads, you’re going to be pushing the accelerator just that little bit harder every time you want to get going from the lights to keep up with the turbo-diesel Sorento which makes more torque at much lower revs, and therefore gets up to speed much more economically and smoothly than the Jaecoo J8.
With a claimed fuel consumption figure of 8.6 litres per 100km on the combined test cycle, it’s sucking 43 per cent more fuel than the Kia Sorento GT-Line diesel. Now, if it wasn’t such a substantial difference, you’d argue the price advantage to the Jaecoo would win because the savings would pay for the fuel in the same way a Nissan Patrol is better value than the LandCruiser 300 by being about $30K cheaper. Also, by picking a Sorento you get a much better-known product with stronger brand clout.
But with such a glaring fuel saving to the Sorento, it wouldn’t be long before you break even and the Sorento starts becoming the more frugal vehicle - and with 7 seats, a towing capacity to speak of and just as much equipment.
The engine is probably the weakest point of the J8, but only because everything else is so well put together, generally speaking. It needs a diesel, or a serious hybrid to move what is already a 1930kg vehicle (in Ridge trim). Sorento GT-Line diesel is about the same weight, but offers better low-down performance.
This is in spite of the J8’s better power to weight ratio of 96 kW per tonne versus 78 in the Sorento diesel. But We don’t drive around suburban streets, pull out of T-intersections and cruise on the freeway at 5500 RPM. We drive at about 2000, and that’s where Sorento’s torquey little 2.2L diesel is much better suited, offering 13 per cent more torque - at 1750 RPM - than the J8.
Overall, the powertrain should be diesel or hybrid for such a big, heavy family SUV - but it’s not strictly a bad engine. It’s even quite fun to punch along on a twisty backroad, especially if you got it for just $55K.
It just needs better tyres and it’ll be a hoot to drive if you like cars and engines and having a squirt.
TRANSMISSION
There are times where you just need to know the J8 is going to get up and go when you tell it to, such as pulling out of busy T-intersections.
But this 8-speed epicyclic auto transmission can often get confused because you’re typically doing a smidge above 2000 revs at maybe 40-60km/h, and suddenly need a burst of torque to perform an overtake. Problem is that torque requires more revs, which is not the case in the Kia Sorento diesel or something hybrid with that low RPM torque from a battery-motor combination.
The way it takes off feels like it’s just throwing revs and more gear changes at your demands because it isn’t quite sure what to do. It’s not bad, it’s just unrefined when it’s constantly revving higher than 3000 RPM with each upshift, and then when you ease back on the throttle it tends to drone as it winds back the revs. This is a calibration thing, which many Chinese brands have tended to demonstrate a proactive response to fixing, unlike some conventional carmakers who will wait until the next round of model updates.
As for the J8’s alleged all-wheel drive system, you need to be aware that this is an on-demand AWD drivetrain, meaning it is primarily driving the front wheels in 2WD, until the onboard computer detects wheelspin, at which point it redirects drive to the rear.
What this means in practice is if you come to a fairly steep hill on a sealed road in the wet, and you gently squeeze the throttle, some minor front-wheel slippage occurs (worsened by the choice of tyres) in order to be detected, then it kicks into spreading the torque to the rear wheels, reducing slip and improving grip.
But in slower conditions this can be an issue if you don’t already have plenty of momentum keeping you moving forward. So slow steep driveways in heavy rain, for example, you can experience some wheelspin and overall it’s more nerve wracking than a Subaru, Sorento, Santa Fe or anything that can run in constant 4-wheel drive, or at least active all-wheel drive in the case of Sorento/Santa Fe.
Having said that, generally speaking, the J8 is not going to slide off the road at the first sign of trouble. There are plenty of coutner-measures to prevent that. It’s just something to be aware of if you have a severely steep driveway in, say, Lane Cove, Sydney, or you live in the Dandenong Ranges, or just anywhere in the north side of Hobart where it’s always raining, the roads are narrow and quite vertical in parts.
TOWING
There is no official towing capacity for the J8.
FUNCTIONALITY
The J8’s advantage with not having seven seats, but being a very similar size as one is that the boot is effectively one big storage receptacle.
Aside from having less payload than a Mazda CX-60 Touring, Kia Sorento GT-Line, Hyundai Santa Fe (non-hybrid), Toyota Kluger or even a Mitsubishi Outlander Exceed, it is a very square, open, unimpeded space.
There are no big clunky wheelarches that take up space yet are sloped and therefore can’t be stack on top of. There is no third row causing a humped boot floor or which eat into the cargo space when tumbled forward.
The spare wheel is a full-sizer you can reach easily, and remove easily, without having to disconnect a subwoofer, or temporarily relocate some polystyrene jack mount for the factory tools. They’re stored to the side of the spare.
Said boot floor is reasonably high off the ground, meaning you don’t have to bend over and down to reach heavy items.
Unfortunately, there are no levers or buttons to drop the second row of seats from the boot. You have to go around and do that manually. But at least the tailgate actually opens to a proper height for tall people to not smash their scalps on when they return to the boot having dropped the rear seats.
Fitting child restraints is easy thanks to top tether points mounted high on the seatback putting them well within reach of even the shortest mum or dad. The ISOFix points are also covered by a spring-loaded cover and plastic guide allowing you to simply point the latch at the flap and push it in until you here that resounding ‘click’.
DRIVING
If you could drive the J8 blindfolded at freeway speeds, you would have no audible suggestions that this wasn’t a Lexus. How is it possible such a well-mannered suburban, family SUV came out of a country that only 40 years ago barely had an automotive manufacturing base the West even regarded.
It’s remarkably quiet. Too quiet for a $55,000 vehicle. There’s minimal tyre roar, even running on the never-heard-of-them Giti tyres, which are based in Singapore. But those tyres are terrible in the wet. You can feel them slipping under moderately hard acceleration, particularly in colder weather.
As for the ride and handling, it’s clearly not had any local tuning which is evident from the first corner. Instead of keeping its bulk in check as the loads shift with the direction change, you can feel the body rolling. Is it terrible? That’s the key thing here: No. It isn’t terrible. Noticeable, yeah, if you’re paying attention. But it’s quite tolerable. Most ordinary drivers may not even notice it.
The steering has a very Lexus-esque lightness to the ratio with not a great deal of feedback or weight. But again, it’s not terrible. It’s quite bearable, just not if you’re used to sports cars or 4X4s. Does it feel pretty close to most other medium-to-large SUVs? Yeah, it does.
In the corners, the J8 is very well balanced with reasonable steering feedback; on freeways however, you have to jerk the wheel far too hard when trying to Drive-It-Yourself with cruise control on…and good luck trying to disable autosteer
Reversing, parking and various low-seed manoeuvres are reasonably easy to perform, with no glaring blindspots or awkward, cumbersome traits apart from the centre row 2 headrest taking up a significant portion of the rearview mirror. Door mirrors are generously sized as well.
But you do get a surprisingly useful reversing camera and 360-degree camera system which, unlike lots of rivals, actually fills the entire central screen. You can adjust which sole camera you use, but the standard rearview is quite clear, if not necessarily the best graphics or resolution. It’s not bad though; actually, it’s pretty good.
Putting your foot down does chirp those Giti tyres, as mentioned, but it does also reaffirm the dim-wittedness of the transmission to be in the right gear when you need it. If you’re not already carrying momentum as you make a turn from, say, a give-way intersection or roundabout, having to get going quickly from a standstill can be a little unnerving waiting for the power.
This wouldn’t be an issue in a turbo-diesel thanks to the nature of those engines offering good low- and mid-RPM power and torque. But the J8 has to rev up to 5500 RPM to make that peak 183kW. And the peak torque isn’t coming in until 4000 RPM, which can feel like an eternity if something big and scary is barrelling down behind you.
The best option here is to wait for longer, safer gaps, try to carry speed when you can, and just be patient.
Once it does come on song, the engine actually has some good characterful, grunty notes and it does hustle if you tell it to. Overtaking is kind of fun in the regard, giving it a good dollop of right pedal to pile on some speed to get around whatever. But like any overtaking manoeuvre, you have to plan for it.
The worst aspect of driving the J8 has to be the autosteering, because it absolutely dominates the cruise control and ruins what is otherwise a sublime SUV at 100-110km/h.
The steering wheel button/icon/function arrangement is confusing and lacks intuition when you’re trying to deactivate or reactivate the cruise. The light spilling through the side-glass creates glare that makes it hard to see what you’re pushing, and then the driver stalking camera politely bongs at you because “You have been distracted for a long time”.
If you want to change lanes, the autosteer needs an unnerving jerk to fight the rack’s servo motors trying to keep you in the lane - and it doesn’t matter if you’ve got the indicator on, it still fights you. And if there is a way to disable the autosteer, you won’t get any help from the voice command system - she’s absolutely useless.
This means, if there is a way to disable it, you’ll have to use the screen, but that’s far too dangerous to be doing on Melbourne’s M80 Ring Road with B-double trucks beside you, an overloaded van and trailer in front, and bogan tradies in their ute coming up from behind.
This is undoubtedly the most disappointing aspect of the J8, which does such an excellent job of virtually everything else. And actually the driver ‘distraction’ camera system (which is an emphatically terrible piece of so-called ‘“tech” that has invaded every single new model on sale today, in some form) it’s not even that bad in and of itself. It does go off occasionally, but it’s a long way from being the joke in some other Chinese brands or the deplorable system in Mitsubishi Triton.
Nor does the speed sign warning alert system ‘bing’ and ‘bong’ at you incessantly like it does in the latest Kia Sorento or Hyundai Santa Fe - so there’s that to consider.
Despite these significant cracks in the J8’s driving experience, when you’re on normal suburban roads, going to the shops, pootling around the streets, it’s quiet, comfortable, the HVAC system is powerful and efficient at pushing back last night’s foggy windscreen and the ride is good on our broken roads.
The seats offer decent support, the heating function within them is wonderful between the months of May and August, and even the visibility is quite good with a pleasantly wide windscreen with door mirrors mounted on the doors (not in the corner of the window).
Let’s also be very clear that these images (above) which appear on the Jaecoo website for the J8 are wholly irresponsible to be used to advertising the J8’s capabilities. It absolutely cannot be doing aggressive rocky slopes and powersliding around gravel roads with no Armco.
Not only does this encourage dangerous driving, but it also suggests it’s okay to use your Jaecoo J8 in ways that are fundamentally unrealistic, and would cause significant damage to the vehicle.
There is also the problem that the J8’s all-wheel drive system simply cannot perform the kinds of aggressive off-road driving they are trying to depict. Do not think you can attack rugged goat tracks and potentially dangerous gravel roads in this way in this vehicle. It doesn’t have any form of low-range gearset like some Ford Everest or Mitsubishi Pajero Sport. Wrong kind of vehicle.
This is a soft-roading, light-duty family SUV with a modest all-wheel drive system. Keep it conservative on the bitumen, and if you’re on easy gravel roads out in the countryside, keep it straight, reduce your speed and proceed with caution. This way, your J8 will not only last longer (than as depicted on Jaecoo’s website) but you’ll also live to tell the tale - and so will other road users.
SAFETY
Safety has come a long way in the 14 years since a Chery was crash tested by ANCAP, and in 2025, Jaecoo certainly seems to have turned a corner as well as its parent brand.
But as yet, the J8 has not been rated by ANCAP, EuroNCAP and certainly won’t be anytime soon by the IIHS in the United States owing to the ban on Chinese cars being imported and sold there.
It’s not hard to imagine the J8 getting a five-star rating at this point if its smaller sister, the J7, passed with very decent scores all around, generally.
DRAWBACKS
Good luck finding the ‘button’ or screen icon to deactivate the auto-hold function, which is reasonably aggressive in this vehicle, but not awful.
There’s plenty of glossy piano black in the centre console area, all of which are literal touch points, especially the cupholders. although you’ll probably just leave the lid open for the rest of eternity because there’s not a whole lot of open storage.
Having a transmission stalk on the steering wheel is a trend these days, and on the J8 it’s literally the same part as used on a Tesla, and it’s clunky to operate in any kind of hurry, such as a U-turn or simply trying to snag reverse to parallel park.
Speaking of transmissions, the 8-speed auto gets wrong-footed when trying to snag reverse as discussed, but then when simply trying to take off it can sometimes off little or no response, which then makes you apply a little more throttle. So it kicks down a gear and launches the car with higher revs than you ever wanted at a school intersection.
This could be either not having the right calibration to throttle inputs to determine which gear it needs to be in, or it could be that the transmission has too many gears to split between the sub-400 Newton-metres without having to kick down to a higher gear. It just needs a bit of refinement to make it smoother and less dim-witted.
ERGONOMICS
On the left side you’ll find a potentially confusing and poorly fleshed-out idea for an indicator stalk. See, because they’re aiming to adhere to the minimalist styling cues trend, what they’ve actually done is reduce the number of stalks or hard interaction points.
This means you’ve got the wipers, the headlights and the indicator functions all crammed together onto a single stalk, which can lead to cognitive overload if you aren’t used to it.
Unfortunately, this can take a long time to figure out, and it’s usually while driving, meaning you end up flashing your high beams at other drivers, getting distracted by the scrolling wheel to activate the wipers (driving in the wet, mind you) and then there’s the indicators.
Chinese brands love the self-centring indicators in their cars, but happily, they’re relatively normal here with notched engagement, meaning they stay in the position you nudge them to, and self-cancel with steering lock.
The issue, from an ergonomics perspective, is that you can easily forget how to do the wipers or headlights because until you’ve thoroughly learned what to do, it’s not intuitive. It doesn’t come naturally to scroll to engage wipers, and nor is it normal to engage low beam using the pull-backwards action.
The other quirk about the wipers being on a roller wheel on the stalk is you have to take your left hand off the wheel in order to turn on the wipers or adjust them, or to squirt the washers. You don’t have to take your hand off the wheel with conventional notched indicator stalks that self-cancel and self-centre after turning the steering wheel a set distance.
TOWING
Not having any towing potential makes the J8 seriously limited in what else you can do with it outside of just moving people around.
It can’t tow your boat, can’t pull a trailer load of rubbish to the top, you can’t even have a towball on their to protect the rear bumper from errant shopping trolleys, other drivers who like the old touch-park method, can even put a bike rack on the back.
This is something you can absolutely do with every single one of the Jaecoo J8’s competitors - even if you’re not planning on doing any of these things, you at least know it can potentially do it someday if things change.
MAIN COMPETITORS
Kia Sorento is the last of Kia’s SUV range to offer the 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine with 140kW and decent moderately heavy towing capability, making it very good value if you have any aspirations of light family adventuring, aided by its active and robust all-wheel drive system. The J8 gets all-wheel drive, but it’s a reactionary system that preferences front-wheel drive. More on that below.
Click here for more on Kia Sorento >>
Santa Fe is a hybrid that offers 53 per cent better fuel economy, a massive boot and an equally solid, dependable all-wheel drive system that makes it sure-footed in the wet, on gravel roads or conquering steep driveways. But it’s a $72,000 vehicle to driveaway in Elite trim - that’s $17,000 more. But it is $17,000 better than a J8 because Santa Fe has seven seats, a payload capacity 11 per cent higher, an actual towing capacity to speak of and better ground clearance. But 17K buys a whole lot of stuff doesn’t it?
Click here for more on Hyundai Santa Fe >> or, for something slightly bigger, click here for more on Hyundai Palisade >>
The J8 doesn’t have anything like the drivetrains of a Subaru Outback with its proven symmetrical all-wheel drive (soon to become a proper fully-size SUV). But the J8 does have that same price advantage over an Outback, it’s just not as capable, especially if you visit regional areas or trip to the snow, perhaps visit a relative on a rural property etc.
Click here for more on Subaru Outback >>
Not having a hybrid system in a large family SUV these days is a bit topsy-turvy. A few years ago it was the Japanese and Korean brands were going full-charge into hybrids and this new brand has dropped a new, medium-large SUV with a highly strung, slightly thirsty petrol engine with no battery/motor side to its power plant.
If you want a hybrid, start here with Toyota Kluger >> or check out the Hyundai Santa Fe, or Kia Sorento hybrids.
CONCLUSION
The Jaecoo J8 is a seriously impressive, high value-for-money family SUV that ticks so many boxes right out of the gate - on its first attempt in Australia’s highly competitive market - it’s disappointing that it gets a few important items wrong.
The petrol engine instead of a diesel is fixable. The transmission’s dim-wittedness just requires finer tuning. And the next update they can fix the misaligning dashboard styling trim. There’s also, obviously, a lot of work to do with changing the terrible steering wheel user interface and the corelating disgrace that is the autosteer cruise control system that is downright dangerous from a human factors perspective.
But all of these things are completely fixable with time, engineers and money.
The biggest problem with the Jaecoo J8 is what we don’t know. We simply don’t know if this new model from a completely new and previously unheard of brand is going to be here for the long-haul, commercially.
Granted, it seems like they probably are. The generous 8-year warranty is significant, but so is the 10-year warranty on MGs, 7-year warranty over at fellow Chinese brand Haval on its SUVs, and the 7-year warranty that got Kia off to a flying start in Australia as the warranty leader 15-20 years ago.
The signs suggest Jaecoo is here to offer technical support and commercial dealer viability for the next decade… But in 2025, we’re only at year one. We simply don’t have any substantial sales data (a 10,000 annual sales benchmark needs to be reached first), there’s no sales history and nor any brand reputation to go off. You probably haven’t even seen any Jaecoos out on the road.
So while AutoExpert won’t outwardly recommend the Jaecoo J8 for now, there are promising signs that that could change in the future.
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