New Changan Uni-S competitively priced from just R389 900

Unique styling of the Changan Uni-S will to a wider audience looking for something different. Picture: Supplied It would be wrong of me to dismiss the newChanganUni-S as just another Chinese SUV. Which, if we are being brutally honest, it is.

But it enters the market with class‑leading spec for the money. Undercutting most of its rivals while offering more power and more tech than nearly all of them. Up front, all three derivatives are powered by a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine driving down to the front wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.

This is the Chinese OEM cut-and-paste formula. And in the case of the Changan Uni-S range, it translates into 138kW of power and 300Nm of torque. In fact, I thought the ride quality was really good too.

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The seats were super comfy, and noise intrusion into the cabin was almost unnoticeable. This Changan Uni-S felt way more premium than it did budget, considering its pricing. I was taking it easy and singing the car’s praises to my passengers when things took a quirky turn for the worse.

Engine response and gearbox calibration were good when you were on the move and not expecting your Changan Uni-S to behave like a hot hatch. But regardless of whether you were in Normal mode or Sport mode. If you stomped on the accelerator, not much would happen for a second or two, and then the memo comes through, and all the boost arrives.

Unfortunately, this is something that plagues 95% of all Chinese cars in our country, and Changan has not escaped the curse. What was not expected and resulted in us resorting to Google to confirm that the Changan Uni-S does, in fact, run a dual-clutch transmission and not a CVT is that when you tried to drive the car aggressively like this, the transmission would whine like a CVT. With the rpm hunting up and down without a lot of speed being added.

Is it something that is going to affect most owners who will be buying this car as a family SUV? No, probably not. But it was something that irritated my petrol-head passengers and me.

This all said, though, and with a decent fuel consumption number of 7.5 litres being displayed on the instrument cluster after our drive. There’s nothing else I can say negatively about my first drive in Changan’s new Uni-S.

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