When we talk about insane value for money, they don’t get much better than around $50,000 for a BRAND NEW dual-cab. LDV has just launched a supersized ute to site between something like a HiLux and a RAM 1500 in terms of size and it’s dirt cheap. But, is it any good? Paul Maric finds out.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:01
Interior: 04:52
Infotainment: 06:55
Practicality: 09:15
On-road: 12:22
Accel. & braking: 19:22
Off-road: 21:03
Verdict: 28:07
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#ldv #terron9 #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:01
Interior: 04:52
Infotainment: 06:55
Practicality: 09:15
On-road: 12:22
Accel. & braking: 19:22
Off-road: 21:03
Verdict: 28:07
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
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Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#ldv #terron9 #review
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00Okay, so what I'll do now is lock the rear diff.
00:06That does fail though. You do have a manual release, but it is hidden down here right out
00:12of the way. G'day, I'm Paul. There is a new big dual cab ute on the block. It's called the LDV
00:19Teron 9. Look at the size of that grille. It is enormous. So this is going to be bringing
00:26affordability into the range and also something that's a little bit bigger. This sits between,
00:31I guess, a Ranger and a full-size American pickup truck in terms of size. So it gives you a bit
00:35more space. Also has a little bit more meat under the bonnet here as well that I'm going to run you
00:39through a little bit later on. Pricing is pretty sharp too. So it starts at just under 51 grand
00:44drive away, but they're introducing it with pricing that is just under $50,000 drive away,
00:50which I think is incredible value for money. So today we're going to do a detailed review of this
00:54car. So if you want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes that are
00:58on the screen. If you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. Now let's talk
01:02about design and sorry about all the noise. There's a helicopter over there. We've got cars driving
01:05around over here. So it's going to be a little bit noisy while I'm talking. You cannot get past this
01:09grille. It is enormous. I think this is the biggest grille I have ever seen on a new car. So some
01:15people are going to love it. Some are going to hate it, but it is quite a standout feature on this
01:19thing. Then you've got all these 3D elements around the grille there with the big LDV logo.
01:24By the way, the T60 is still going to be sold alongside this. So that is smaller
01:28and cheaper, but that will continue being sold next to this in the range. They're also bringing
01:34an electric version of this. And then in addition to that, there's going to be a version of this
01:38with MG badge on it as well. It's basically entirely identical vehicles. So it'll be interesting
01:43to see how all of that plays out. A little bit of orange highlight down the bottom here,
01:47full LED headlights and taillights as well. And then around the side here, you've got a set of 18-inch
01:52alloy wheels. This is on a highway terrain tyre with black wheel arch cladding there. Pretty simple
01:58wheel design as well. This is the base model. There is a further spec coming that is going to
02:03sit at the top of the tree, and that comes with 20s and slightly more sort of road-oriented design,
02:09whereas this is very much the sort of trade-y off-road design spec that they've gone for,
02:14but still stacks of features for a base model. Piano black here on the wing mirrors. Camera built in
02:19on the side there with an indicator as well. Plastic side steps. Not a huge fan of these.
02:24This looks like a pretty sort of cheap and nasty plastic, similar to a lot of other dual-cab
02:28utes in this segment. So it seems to be commonplace here. Piano black there on your grab handles as
02:33well. And then you've got roof rails up there as well. Trade-y's, unfortunately, you're not going
02:37to be able to fit trays to this. This is basically a single-body setup. And the reason they've gone
02:42down this path is that a lot of the utes that have a separate tray to the vehicle have an air gap
02:47between them. So you're going to have flexibility of movement there, and that robs you of a little
02:51bit of space in the second row. By making this flush, they've basically given a little bit more
02:56room there in the second row, in addition to this being a longer vehicle as well. So it should mean
03:00that second row is actually a decent place to be seated for passengers. Disc brakes on the rear
03:05there, and leaf springs as well. So it does retain load-carrying capability, and also towing
03:10capability. I'll run you through those specs in a sec. Now around the back, I mentioned before,
03:13full LED taillights, Teron 9 badge there, big LDV logo there too. Now have a look at this. I
03:20complained previously with Navara that they removed this plastic section on top of the tray, which
03:26causes it to get all scratched up. So this has the plastic all around the tray there, which is good
03:31news. A button release over here, because this has hydraulics, spray-in bed liner, ruler up the top
03:38here. So they really have thought about a lot of the stuff that people are going to be using this for.
03:42And a spray-in bed liner straight off the back gives you that versatility to actually use this
03:46properly. There is no power, unfortunately, in the tray, so it is devoid of that. No lights either.
03:51You do have some tie-down hooks, but they do have like a roller cover coming. You will find it a
03:56little tricky to mount accessories though. If you look at Ranger, we've got pre-cut holes in here for
04:02accessories like canopies and stuff, whereas this doesn't have any of that. So you're going to be
04:05doing a little bit of manual work to make that happen. Let's talk about the actual tray dimensions.
04:09So you've got 1600mm of tub box length, 1600mm of width at its widest part, 1230mm between the wheel
04:18arches. You've also got payload of at least a ton. So it's a proper workhorse, three and a half ton
04:23brake towing capacity as well. And while this pre-production car doesn't have this, the range
04:28will actually come with a fully fitted tow bar and wiring harness as well. So if you do want to
04:33actually hook things up, you've got everything you need there to get going straight out of the box.
04:38So I think it's a pretty decent setup there in terms of what they're offering and really sharply
04:42priced too. You're not getting much in the way of 4x4 dual cab use for that 50 grand mark. So let me
04:48know what you're getting in the comments section below. What do you think about the design? Is it
04:51too much? Let me know your thoughts. So we are inside the Teron 9. We'll start off with the key.
04:57We've got lock, unlock, a button there to drop the tray, LDV logo on the back. It's a proximity sensing
05:03key. You can leave that in your pocket. You've got a push button start just over here.
05:06Have a look at this interior. Every time we test a Chinese car, I keep saying the same thing. And I
05:11just don't know why legacy car brands don't learn from this. But at $50,000, this interior looks
05:17sensational. It is just high end and premium. There's no chintzy, crappy stuff here. Soft touch
05:23materials throughout. They have just been really thoughtful in terms of the way they've delivered
05:27this without it looking like it is one of the most affordable dual cab utes in the segment. So
05:32really sort of impressed with how that looks. In terms of the touch points and the things you
05:37interact with, that is soft as well. So soft over here on the center console, soft on the doors as
05:42well. So that's all sort of really good. Now in terms of the doors themselves, it's interesting.
05:47They have electronic release here. And basically you've got a button here that you push to open
05:52the door. And this pairs with the sensors on the car to prevent the door from opening if there is
05:58approaching traffic. So you just push that door opens. And this is what the door slam sounds like.
06:05Getting nice and premium there. If that does fail though, you do have a manual release, but it is
06:10hidden down here right out of the way. It's one of the things that I really don't like about cars with
06:15this feature. You need to have a manual release right here, right next to the door. Because if you
06:19are in an accident, you don't want to go looking for this thing that you've only seen once by accident
06:23that is right down the bottom here. Thankfully they do have it on the back doors as well.
06:28But yeah, it's just one of those things that I think that it could be better presented and much
06:32easier to find. But anyway, just a small thing. Now in terms of build quality and some of the more
06:36detailed tests, we'll do those later just because we're at a launch here. They're hosting it at the
06:42proving ground that we normally film at. So we haven't actually driven this car out on the road or
06:46beyond the confines here at the launch. So I'm going to comment on the sort of build quality stuff and
06:51some of the other things that we would spend a bit more time on later on when we test the car
06:55properly. Now let's chat infotainment. So you've got two 12.3 inch displays, one for the infotainment,
07:00one for the driver. Pretty sort of straightforward setup. You've got menu items down the bottom here.
07:05And then in addition to that, you can also configure shortcut items with a swipe down from the top.
07:11It does come with inbuilt satellite navigation, which is good. You often don't see that here on base
07:16models, but that gives you satellite navigation if you don't want to have a phone paired. It keeps
07:22talking to me for some reason. Yeah, so you've got sat nav there if you do need it. In addition to
07:26that, you have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, both are wired or
07:32wireless. So you can have either option. CarPlay here, nice full screen display, slightly laggy
07:37there. Not the end of the world, but just a little bit laggy there in terms of the way that it works.
07:42Also, this is cool as well. I did notice this before. You can swipe up to get back to the home
07:47menu. Sometimes with these cars, you're going to go looking back here for the car brand to then go
07:52back to the home menu, but you can swipe up there, which is pretty cool. And this is what Android Auto
07:56looks like. So same story again, full screen integration, tiny bit laggy, and then swipe up
08:05from the bottom to get back to the home screen. In addition to all of that stuff, you have AM,
08:10FM, DAB, digital radio through a full speaker sound system. I haven't really played with it much,
08:15so I can't comment on audio quality, but full speakers, not a huge speaker count if you ask me.
08:20You do have a couple of other customizations, like you can change the background color and stuff like
08:24that. The really weird thing I've found is that your headlights are controlled through this screen.
08:30So the Stalker over here does high beam and it does your washers, like your windscreen wipers,
08:35but headlights, you have to go through this center screen, which, I don't know, it's just a weird
08:41thing. It doesn't really make sense to me. I think it should be up here, but one of those things they
08:46do to reduce the clutter because your gear stick is up here as well. Screen ahead of the driver,
08:51not a huge amount of customization for that, but it gives you all of the critical information you
08:55need to see. Now in terms of parking, front rear parking sensors and a 360 camera, I'll show you
09:00what that looks like. Look at that. Quality of that is fantastic. That is really high resolution.
09:05Very impressive. There you go. It shows you don't need to be spending millions of bucks to get a
09:10decent quality camera, so very nice. And this is what the horn sounds like.
09:15Right on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. So down here, you've got USB A and C
09:21charging along with 12 volts outlet. There is no wireless phone charger, which is a bit weird.
09:25Be a perfect spot for it just there, but it does not exist. You also don't have
09:29a connection up here for USB for a dash camera. That is definitely a useful thing to have if you
09:35do want to fit your vehicle with a dash camera. On the storage front though, there is heaps of
09:40storage. So you've got this center space here, cup holders down the front there, a really big
09:43center console. You've got a little storage nook here next to the driver's knee and the glove box
09:49front, relatively reasonably sized glove box there. No sunnies holder up the top there though, which is
09:55a little bit disappointing if you do want your sunnies. In fact, I did notice there is
09:58no sort of grab handle up the top there in any of the other seats. You do have this in the front
10:03second row, but nothing up the top there. So yeah, just a little low emission. And on the comfort
10:08front, you have dual zone automatic climate control. You have a steering adjustment for both tilt and
10:15reach. You have electric seat adjustment for the driver. So you can go forwards and backwards. Backrest
10:20can go forwards and backwards. You can lift the back of the seat. You cannot lift the front of the
10:25seat, which is a little bit annoying, but it's not the end of the world because the driving position
10:28is actually pretty good. And on our reach test, most of that stuff is easier to reach while you're
10:33driving. One thing I did notice as well is the material used on the seat here. So this being the
10:38base model doesn't get your sort of leather trim or leather-like trim. I actually really like the
10:42design here. It's minimalist, but just looks cool. I think Kia does this in Carnival from memory in the
10:49base model and it just looks neat and tidy. So whether that's going to be durable for a tradie who's
10:53getting in and out of the car all the time, I don't know, but it does sort of appear to be
10:58quite a decent looking material and is pretty comfortable in terms of sitting in here for a
11:02longer period. Now, before I hop in the back, these seats don't go up, but you do have a little bit of
11:09space behind here. Sean, if you want to help a brother out here. Yeah, look, I mean, it's not
11:17exactly a huge amount of storage, but you can pop a couple of things behind there. That's also where
11:21you're going to find your two top tether points as well. Sean, I'm going to need your help again.
11:25Thank you. Okay, so second row. Holy dooly, have a look at this. That is a heap of space. So really
11:33great amount of knee room there. Tow room, not as good. Headroom, reasonable, but I'll pop that up as
11:39well. Yeah, this is a fantastic amount of space. So this is the perfect middle ground, I reckon,
11:44between, you know, Ranger and a big American pickup truck, because the American pickups have plenty of
11:49room in the second row, but are quite large. Whereas Ranger has okay room in the second row,
11:54nothing like this. So yeah, I think this is a good sort of spot to be. You've got charging down here
11:59with USB C and A, a little bit of storage down there, air vents as well, mat pockets, those grab
12:05handles that I mentioned before. No centre armrests there, and also no cup holders, by the look of it.
12:11It's a little bit disappointing, but at the end of the day, plenty of room here to stretch out.
12:15Now, does the window go all the way down? Let's find out. So it's auto up and down.
12:20Boom. Look at that. Very impressive.
12:25Okay. So I've just hit the road in the Teron 9. Now this beeping stuff is very frustrating. It has
12:32some of like the worst driver distraction lane monitoring stuff. We were driving around here
12:37before, and it was fighting me the entire time. It's just really not a very good system. So I'm
12:41going to quickly switch all of that off. All right, there we go. That's bearable. This is one
12:46of the things I've said this countless times before in pretty much every new car review that
12:50we do. All of these things are mandated by safety authorities, and they make the driving experience
12:57far less safe. There is no two ways about it. You cannot tell me that all of those beeps
13:02and it fighting me while I'm trying to drive is adding to safety at all. So there is a responsibility
13:07on these authorities to just dial back the craziness that they want to put in these cars,
13:12or at least allow manufacturers to have a button that I can press. I can sign whatever waiver you
13:18want that just turns all this crap off so I don't need to have it on because I want one of those
13:21buttons. And so would you if you had all of this beeping at you all the time. Okey-dokey. Now, that's
13:26out of the way. Let's talk about the vehicle. So under the bonnet here, it's an interesting setup.
13:302.5 litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel makes 163 kilowatts of power and over 500 newton metres of
13:37torque. So this places this vehicle above stuff like Ford Ranger and below Hilux GR Sport at 550
13:45newton metres. So it is right up there with some of the heavy hitters in the segment. So it's a healthy
13:49amount of torque and they haven't cheaped out on it. It really just delivers the punch that it needs
13:54to deliver and see what that feels like now behind the wheel. Yeah, it's interesting. It's a big
14:00number, but it doesn't feel massively punchy behind the wheel. It sort of moves you along,
14:07but it doesn't punch you back in the seat. So I think part of the reason for that is the mass of
14:12the vehicle. It's around the 2.5 ton mark. So that's Raptor territory in terms of mass. Raptor
14:18obviously has a dirty big petrol V6. Stuff like Hilux GR Sport is less than this and it means
14:24that they can get away with that torque figure and have it feeling punchier behind the wheel.
14:28It doesn't feel underpowered by any stretch, but it doesn't feel as punchy as some of those other
14:32vehicles. That's all mated to an eight-speed torque converter automatic. The gearbox is fine. It's sort
14:37of not the last word in terms of shift speeds, but does the job and it's happy to lean on its torque
14:43band. So what I mean by that is you can lean on the throttle now. You can see it's in eighth gear
14:47and then instead of it diving back through gears, it'll hold that gear and just use its torque to
14:52pull the vehicle along, which is a much more commendable way of doing it instead of having
14:56to rely solely on revs to achieve what it needs to achieve. In terms of the drivetrain, it's an
15:01on-demand four-wheel drive system. So it is virtually always doing four-wheel drive stuff and it never
15:07really feels like a two-wheel drive. So if I just dip a set of wheels off the side of the road here,
15:12I'll show you what I mean. So basically if I just trounce the throttle there, it spins up a little
15:19bit and then it just engages the axle that it needs to and then away it goes. So get that momentary
15:26slip and then once it knows what it's up to, it moves away. I'm going to run you through all the
15:30four-wheel drive controls once we go do a bit of light off-roading, but it does come standard with a
15:34rear diff lock and a couple of other bells and whistles that I'll take you through once we head to
15:38the off-road track. In terms of the official fuel economy, it is just under eight litres per 100 Ks.
15:43We haven't been measuring it here just because this car has been driven by other people, but
15:47pretty decent fuel economy figure and it could explain why it feels like it's tapered back in
15:52terms of the torque delivery. Perhaps they've gone for a bit more fuel economy as opposed to giving you
15:58that full slab of torque constantly. Let's talk about the ride. So this has been launched here at
16:03the Proving Ground, so I haven't driven the car out on normal roads. What I can say just based on
16:08my limited sort of drive here on the Proving Ground roads is that the ride is actually really
16:12well sorted. This vehicle has no added mass in it. There is another vehicle out here that has around
16:17200 kilos of mass in its tray and that actually feels a little more planted, which tends to be the
16:22case with leaf sprung vehicles. They need to have a bit of mass in them to feel planted and this feels
16:28perfectly fine as it is. They haven't gone for something overly firm, not overly soft. It's sort of
16:33right in that middle ground and for a brand like LDV that isn't exactly the last word on
16:38dual cab use. They haven't been doing them for as long as someone like Toyota with a Hilux.
16:42It just shows you that they have that level of sophistication required for this vehicle to be
16:46comfortable outside of the confines of a perfectly smooth road. Now it's time to attack the sine waves.
16:53This is a thing that sets the boys aside from the men. We do this at 130 k's an hour and it just gives
17:00a good indication of what body control is like at the maximum speed limit in Australia. So there's 130.
17:10Look, it's got a little bit of bounce on that front end, but it actually feels quite well controlled.
17:14There are some Japanese utes that still feel incredibly unruly on that. This has that level
17:20of sophistication that you are pleasantly surprised that they've been able to dial into it.
17:25Now, rough road time. We do this at 90 k's an hour. Give us an idea of what the ride feels like
17:32on a very dodgy stretch of road here.
17:34There you go. That doesn't feel too bad. So this vehicle has no weight in the rear, so it is sort of
17:41trundling along nicely on this. Got our condensed sine wave coming up here. We'll see what this feels
17:46like as well. Yeah, nice. It's falling into all of those divots nicely. I've actually done a really
17:52good job with this ride. This is surprising how sophisticated this feels. It doesn't feel at all
17:58like something, you know, that hasn't had a great deal of thought put into it. Now, in terms of drive
18:03modes, you've got a button here that you can push. Eco, normal, sport and some off-road modes. I'm going
18:08to pop it into sport, go for a lap of the ride and handling track to see what it feels like. We
18:13test all cars back to back in the same way to see what they're like at their limits. See how this goes.
18:19Yeah, okay. So the brake pedal is strong, but it's got this issue there with the bump as you are on
18:32the brakes. It feels like the pedal goes long, but it's more just the booster working there.
18:38Once you actually bite, the brakes feel fine. It actually handles quite nicely. For such a big
18:45vehicle on, you know, road tires here, it's actually doing a really decent job.
18:50Steering feels okay, but not amazing. Like it hasn't got a huge amount of feel through it.
18:53They've added a bit of artificial weight, but it gets along okay. And it's sort of willing to get
18:58up and move mid corner there as well. There you go. For such a big vehicle, it's actually doing
19:02surprisingly well. They've done a good job with this. And that's one of the things, if you look at this
19:08segment, this segment has progressed. It's no longer just agricultural work vehicles. They've
19:13really added that lifestyle element, which means your vehicle needs to be able to handle to some
19:18degree. And this is actually doing a surprisingly good job. Okay. Time to do a little bit of
19:23performance testing. See how this goes and turn off stability control just so we can have some slip
19:30there if we need it. We're going to go 0 to 100 and all the way through to 120. So we can get our
19:3580 to 120 overtaking time. So here we go.
19:45Nice. It feels fairly strong off the line and then it just tapers off completely. Okay. There's 80,
19:5090, 90, 100, and 120. Let's see how that went. So 0 to 100, 10.82 seconds, 80 to 120, 8.91. So yeah,
20:09it kind of shows you that once it's up to speed, it really is tapering off a lot there, which is an
20:15interesting one. I wonder if that's a calibration thing. Okay. Time to stop from 100. Let's see what
20:20the brake and tyre package is like. All right, here we go.
20:29Let me lose my paper there. All right, let's have a little look. So 100 to 0, 2.91 seconds and 40.21
20:36metres. So there's a pretty decent stopping time for a dual cab ute. For a passenger car, anything
20:42between 35 and 40 is good. 40.21 is pretty much on the money there. All right, let's see how fast it
20:49goes in reverse. Here we go. All right, 37 kilometres an hour. Okay, time to do a bit of light off riding.
21:05Now, you may have noticed the colour of the car has changed. That is because this is a different car.
21:10We're using a different car just because they didn't want to get the other ones dirty. I want
21:13to run you through the four-wheel drive specs at a high level. So in terms of the hardware itself,
21:18you have four-wheel drive, low range. You've also got a rear diff lock plus some drive modes as well.
21:24Rear diff lock, it appears you can actually use that in high range as well. So that's good news.
21:29It means you don't have to be in low range for the rear diff lock to work. In terms of the actual
21:33specs themselves, you have an approach angle of 29 degrees, which is the angle of the face you can
21:38approach before you hit the front of the car. A departure angle of 25 degrees, which is the same,
21:42but in reverse. And then ground clearance of 215 mil when it's laden and 220 when it's unladen. So all
21:48pretty decent specs there. This is on a longer wheelbase, so it'll be interesting to see how it
21:53goes across our concrete mogul, because typically on that concrete mogul, the American pickup trucks on
21:59longer wheelbases just cruise over that. So we'll see what happens there. We're going to attempt that
22:03first with no diff locks or anything like that, just in high range to see how well traction control
22:08works because this is an on-demand four-wheel drive system. And then we will step our way up from there.
22:14I've left this in eco just for the moment. We'll leave our traction control on and we'll see how it
22:19goes across our first obstacle. So here the aim is for us to lift the driver's side rear wheel into the air
22:27so that we can test the traction control system. So there it is there. That rear wheel is off the
22:33ground. Let's roll onto the throttle now and we'll see how well traction control works.
22:43So it's just sitting there spinning that wheel, not getting us very far. That's in eco mode. We'll try
22:50mud mode. We'll see how that goes.
22:52There we go. So I think in eco mode, it looks like it actually just
22:58engages the rear axle only to save fuel because it didn't feel like we were getting any rotation on
23:03the front. Engaging mud mode just got that over without any dramas at all. So we'll go back over
23:08one more time, this time in normal mode, just to see what it's like on the reverse circuit.
23:16Okay, so it's around there. Roll onto that throttle.
23:22All right, nothing there. So I'll go back over here. We'll engage the mud mode again. Let's see.
23:30That makes much of a difference. Here we go.
23:37Nope. Okay, so what I'll do now is lock the rear diff. So one push of that.
23:42There we go. That has got it over. So with that rear diff locked, it's basically able to
23:51to send it over there without too many dramas. So you've got a few different options to pick from
23:56there, but it doesn't feel like the traction control is effective enough for getting it over
24:00there without having to start flicking through some of these controls. Now hill time. We do this
24:05two times. So once just with constant throttle on the way up in low range. So pop that into low range.
24:12Now it's asked me which all-terrain mode I want. So none of these really apply. Like it's rock,
24:18deep snow, deep mud, wade, rock crawl. None of those really. I guess deep mud maybe is the closest thing,
24:26even though that's all completely dried. So we'll see how that goes. I'm going to leave the rear diff lock
24:29off for the moment, just for our first run. And then if we don't have any luck, I'll try engaging it.
24:34And I'm going to come back again, come to a stop and see what it's like in terms of its hill hold.
24:39So all right, here we go.
24:48Okay, so it's getting itself stuck just there. So that's no good. So we'll come back down and I'll
24:54try engaging rear diff lock now. Okay, rear diff lock is on. Same story again, constant throttle.
25:03This is all nice and soft here. So
25:07yeah, that's made a world of difference. It's climbed up there with no drums at all.
25:13All right, here's our little mud bog. We'll drop it into here. Very nice. Just while Sean's coming
25:19around, it's interesting. They've got wade sensing here. So it senses how deep the water is that you're
25:25wading through, which is cool. Maximum is 550, but you also have a crawl control and then also hill
25:31descent control as well. So we've got hill descent control enabled and that off-road expert mode gives
25:37you, what a fitting name, a view over the front there. And then you can basically just let go of the
25:42brake and let it ride itself down the hill there with no dramas. And then you can also engage that crawl
25:48control if you do need to manage the speed on the way down. So really good setup. A lot of advanced
25:53features here that you're really going to find on much more expensive vehicles. Now, second run is
25:58all about hill holds and how this performs when you come to a stop and then go back onto the throttle.
26:04So bring it to a stop around here somewhere. Let go of the brake. So it's got hold there,
26:10which is great, and then roll onto the throttle. All right, it's stuck there a little bit. Bring that back a bit.
26:20I just don't want to kick in sideways.
26:24Get that one more shot from here.
26:29And we've got a bit of a bit of mud on the tyres there, so
26:33come back down. I'll actually try this with the crawl control just to see how well that works.
26:38We'll see whether that is actually able to figure itself out in terms of the way that it works,
26:42because coming to a stop there, yes, it helped, but it wouldn't get us back up the hill there.
26:46You needed a bit more momentum. Again, I think highway terrain tyres probably aren't going to help.
26:51We'll see what it's like now with the crawl control.
26:56Not a very sophisticated system because the crawl control is simply coming up,
27:00spinning up the wheels instead of using traction control to get itself through there. So
27:05I think that could definitely do with some work. We'll come up with a bit more pace now just to
27:10get up there. There we go.
27:19Yeah, that makes all the difference. Okay, now rock time. For this, I'm going to put it into
27:24rock crawl mode. So I'll leave the rear diff locked and I'll just ride the brake with the throttle. I find
27:29that's the best way to modulate speed. And it should be okay for clearance. 220-odd mil should be fine.
27:38We'll just see how it goes.
27:39It's actually quite nice and comfortable in here as well. Touch down there.
27:53Yeah. This all feels pretty good. Touch down there as well.
28:03Has dulled the throttle completely as well in this rock crawl mode, which is good.
28:06All right. So LDV Teron. What do we reckon? Yeah, look, I think in terms of the price,
28:14you cannot beat this in terms of value for money. Like it is really affordable. It comes with a lot
28:20of features. This interior feels great. And this is the base model. There is still one more above
28:24this that's coming. Off-road does the job fine. I mean, it's no, you know, crazy thing off-road,
28:30but I don't think that's what it's meant to be either. It actually does a really decent job there
28:33without being over the top. And you've got plenty of controls here to play with too. So
28:37from that point of view, I think it's good. In terms of the downsides,
28:40the safety stuff is so frustrating. They just need to develop a button that I can push that says
28:45no more. I mean, it just stops all the annoying stuff. I think that would make life much easier.
28:49In addition to that, I just think it feels a tiny bit sluggish there when it's on the move. That could
28:54be down to the calibration because it feels really punchy off the line. But now outside of that,
28:58it really is quite hard to fault. So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below.
29:02These things, the Chinese Utes have turned a corner here, it appears. I don't know what it'll be like
29:06in terms of long-term reliability, but let us know, do you own an LDV? What has it been like in
29:12terms of long-term reliability? Let me know in the comments section below. But if you did enjoy this
29:16video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates. But until next time, take it easy.
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