If brand names don’t matter for you, can an affordable Chinese dual cab do the same thing as a mainstream brand? We put the JAC T9 up against the Toyota HiLux SR in the ultimate torture test to find out!
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Toyota HiLux hill road: 01:27
JAC T9 hill road: 04:56
Toyota HiLux belgian pave: 08:32
Toyota HiLux rough road: 11:15
JAC T9 belgian pave: 13:50
JAC T9 rough road: 14:45
Verdict: 18:36
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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#jac #toyota #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Toyota HiLux hill road: 01:27
JAC T9 hill road: 04:56
Toyota HiLux belgian pave: 08:32
Toyota HiLux rough road: 11:15
JAC T9 belgian pave: 13:50
JAC T9 rough road: 14:45
Verdict: 18:36
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:
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#jac #toyota #review
Category
🚗
MotorTranscript
00:00G'day, I'm Paul. So, a lot of people need a dual-cab ute for work or for pleasure,
00:03but they don't want to spend mega bucks. So, today, I'm going to see whether it is worth
00:07spending less money on a Chinese dual-cab ute like the Jack T9. It's just been launched in
00:12Australia. Pretty good spec on paper. I want to put it up against a more expensive dual-cab ute
00:17in the Hilux, which is kind of the benchmark in this segment for load hauling and just doing all
00:21your work stuff pretty straightforwardly day in, day out. I'm going to do some driving on our hill
00:27road with a lot of weight in the rear of these. Then, we're going to go do a torture test on
00:31Belgian pave and then a rough road that was specifically built to destroy cars. So, we're
00:37going to see how these two both perform and whether you are actually going to end up saving money in
00:41the long run. Now, before we start on the hill road, let me explain what I've done here. Both of
00:46these vehicles are loaded up with the same amount of weight and that amount of weight is the GVM of
00:50the Hilux because this has a bigger payload, has a little bit more headway, but we've put the same
00:55amount of weight in. And funnily enough as well, you'll see that this is a 500 kilo block sitting
01:01on a pallet. Well, we tried to do the same in the Hilux, but a pallet doesn't actually fit in the
01:05tray of a Hilux. So, we've got a pallet here and then the Hilux is loaded with a bag so that we have
01:10the same amount of weight and a similar weight distribution in each as well. Let's hop in and
01:15we'll go for a drive on our hill road and see how these perform in terms of the ride with some load
01:20in the tray. Okay. So, we are setting off in the Hilux first. Given this is kind of the benchmark
01:25in this segment, I thought we'll start off with this and see how it goes. This is at GVM, which
01:29means it is at maximum capacity. You cannot have a kilo more in this car without being over its
01:35capacity. So, it'll be interesting to see how the Jack compares to... Which is the JAC? I don't know.
01:42I'm just going to call it the Jack. It's just easier how it compares to the Hilux. So, just as a
01:46reminder as well, Hilux, they recently updated this and the SR that we're driving now comes with
01:52the optional 48-volt mild hybrid system that gives you a little bit of power boost and helps with
01:58stop-start. Throughout the hill road here, this is basically the road that we use to test SUVs,
02:03dual-cab utes, and we've used it in a number of big comparisons that we've done. Kind of just
02:08represents an Australian country road effectively and it gives us a good variety of hills, including
02:14a 15% gradient, which is really going to put these to the test when it comes to acceleration.
02:21I'll also run you through suspension feel. So, as we set off here in the Hilux, Hilux has always been
02:26a vehicle that feels significantly better when it's loaded with weight. You know, it's a typical sort of
02:32sensation with a leaf-sprung vehicle and in this instance here, it's the exact same. Once you round
02:37it up to GVM, it is actually really nice and comfortable and I'm sort of getting that vibe here.
02:42So, we've got a hairpin down the bottom here and this sort of takes us out into a pretty steady
02:47and steep climb. This will be a good indication of what torque is like out of here. So, here we go.
02:52Give this a little punch. Yeah, very good. I'm flat to the board now. Feels quite strong and confident.
03:00Now, it's not pulling your face off here, especially when it is loaded up as much as it is,
03:04but it is sort of moving along really nicely. So, very impressed with this so far. And, you know,
03:10the thing is, I don't expect the Jack to be significantly better than the Hilux. Well,
03:14it might be. I don't know. I haven't driven it yet, but I don't expect it to be significantly
03:19better, but it is significantly cheaper with more features. So, I want it to be at least as good and
03:24feel as comfortable with this kind of load in it. Okay. So, here comes our hill around this up.
03:3115% grade. It's really nice and steep and we'll stand on the throttle and see how we go here.
03:36Yeah, nice it is. Pulling along very nicely. Accelerating as you'd expect. Yeah, very good.
03:49No dramas there at all. And then as we reach the top, it sort of starts pulling away. So,
03:53yeah, look, very impressive there in terms of acceleration and the ride so far has been really
03:58good. One of the things I find really strange is just there with the tray that you can fit a pallet
04:03in the Jack and a lot of other modern utes today, but you still can't do it in the Hilux. And
04:08we now know that the next generation of Hilux appears to share the same platform as this generation,
04:14which means it will just be a little while longer that you just might be able to fit a pallet into
04:18your dual cab ute, which I reckon is just crazy. Okay. So, last bit of our test here on the hill road
04:24is the bumpy section, which we do at around 60 k's an hour. It just gives us a good sort of bumpy
04:30stretch that you could experience out in the country to see what it feels like. So,
04:35we might do it at 70. We'll just see how that goes. So, here it comes.
04:43Yeah, it's a little nice and comfortable here in the Hilux. So, all right, let's hop into the Jack
04:48and just see how that performs. Okay. We have set off in the Jack. Let's see how this goes. It's
04:56actually a fairly quiet engine compared to the Hilux. That's the first sort of thing I'm noticing.
05:01Like, you do hear it inside the cabin, but it's not as sort of intrusive. Gearbox feels pretty good
05:07as well. So, they're to pretty decent notes. Let's see how it goes. We've got a little hill coming up
05:13here. That's three-quarters throttle. Yeah, look, it's pulling along pretty recently. It doesn't
05:22have that same punch as the Hilux. It's, you know, just over 400 Newton meters compared to
05:28500 in the Hilux, but it doesn't sort of feel completely underdone. It still actually feels
05:34like it's sort of moving along quite nicely. I'm noticing here as well the ride as we sort of come
05:40down into our hairpin. The ride actually feels really good. I didn't love the ride on the way
05:44here when it was unladen. It was a bit busy, but again, like the Hilux, once you stick some weight
05:49in it, it really settles down nicely. I can feel it doing some engine braking there as it rolls back
05:54through the gears. It's obviously noticed that we are sort of on hilly terrain. Let's see what it's
05:59like out of our little gully here. Get onto the throttle. Yeah, nice. It's accelerating really
06:10nicely. Yeah, it was surprising. I was expecting it to be a lot slower than this in terms of its pickup.
06:16It does have a lower towing capacity, so I think if we did actually stick 3.2 tons on the back of this
06:22compared to 3.5 at the Hilux, you'd probably feel it doesn't sort of get along as nicely,
06:27but here at the Hilux's GVM and still with a bit of capacity, it actually moves along fairly well.
06:33Okay, here is our hill, the 15% grade. Do the same thing as the Hilux. Just roll into the throttle
06:40there and just see how it goes. All right, so it's kicked back hard on the gas.
06:49I mean, it's still pulling along really well, so there's 60 k's an hour. Let's grab the next gear.
06:55It's still pulling, and then we're going to crest the hill now as well. Yeah, I mean,
07:01I've got to be honest. The SR is kind of a basement level spec of Hilux, so you're getting cloth seats.
07:08It really doesn't have a great deal of features. You have to step up to SR5 to really get it
07:13close to what this offers, and that's a big price difference, and to me, I don't feel that price
07:19difference when it comes to doing this type of thing, which is load hauling and working the vehicle.
07:24You just do not notice that level of difference, so it is one of those things. You're going to pay
07:28extra for the brand name, but do you necessarily need to? If you're not too fussed about the brand
07:32name, this is feeling like it does kind of the same thing when it comes to hauling.
07:38Okay, we're coming into the bumpy section. I think it is worth pointing out, no paddle shifters. I would
07:43like to see paddle shifters. It's not a sports car, but when it comes to towing, being able to row back
07:49through the gears without having to, you know, faff around with gear levers and stuff, I think
07:53would just be a much easier thing to have, so probably something they can address in a future
07:58update. Alrighty, here comes the bumpy section. We'll do this at $70 as well and just see what
08:03this feels like, and it's surprisingly good. It's got a little bit of bounce on the front end there,
08:09but it feels quite settled and just inoffensive. So, yeah, look, from a comparative standpoint,
08:15I don't see the big price difference between these two when it comes to doing this type of work. This
08:19actually just feels pretty capable and just as comfortable, if not more comfortable than the
08:25Hilux. Okie dokie, now it's time for a little bit of torture testing, and we're going to use some of
08:31the durability sections here on the proving ground, and we're going to use Belgian Pave plus a custom
08:37constructed road that is designed to genuinely destroy cars. So, Belgian Pave is basically
08:44a paved road from Belgium, effectively, but it's just designed to accelerate wear on suspension
08:51components, and this one has been built to a global standard for the previous manufacturer that used
08:55to own this proving ground. It was a general motoring company, if you get what I mean. So,
09:00basically, we're going to do two laps on Belgian Pave of 40 k's an hour, then we're going to head over
09:05to the torture test road. So, this is a two kilometre stretch of road that was designed to exceed the
09:11stress that the Belgian Pave puts on a car, and this is where you have to hold on. Another
09:16manufacturer that was here doing vehicles, and basically, this road is one that was used since,
09:22to start with. But also, we're going to be measuring how many g's are put through the seat of the car
09:28using the accelerometer on the iPhone. Then, later on, we're going to sit down and have a look at the
09:32numbers and see which vehicle was more comfortable from an actual scientific numbers point of view.
09:38We're going to do two laps of the Belgian Pave, and also of the torture test road in both vehicles,
09:43and then we'll see how it all goes. But let's kick off with the Hilux.
09:4740 k's an hour on Belgian Pave. All right, so, nice and quiet and comfortable now,
09:53and then the rough stuff begins. So, what I'll be listening out for here is just any weird noises
09:59inside the cabin, outside of, you know, keys and all that sort of stuff that's in here.
10:04We want to make sure that after doing just this basic session that the cars are still holding up
10:09okay and no weird rattles or squeaks have presented themselves. Last time we did this with the Mahindra
10:14pickup and the 70 Series Land Cruiser, the passenger seat of the 70 Series looked like it was about to
10:20eject itself out of the roof of the vehicle. So, we're keeping an eye on things here just to see
10:24how it all performs. But, so far, so good. And this actually feels really quite nice and comfortable
10:29here, even without a load in the back. Now, the whole purpose of this is later on when we sit
10:34down to look at the results, I want to see, based on the peaks and troughs of our accelerometer graph,
10:42which one was actually less intensive on the body. Because this is a good simulation of what
10:47you'll experience if you head up northern part of Australia and you hit some of the corrugations
10:51after the wet season. Now, if you decide to do Simpson Desert Crossing, it is really just going to put a
10:56lot of stress on you as you sort of barrel over those dunes and corrugations at speed.
11:01Alrighty, that is lap one done. We're going to go through for lap two and then head over to the
11:05torture road.
11:09Okay, now, this is where the fun begins. Yeah, this two-kilometer stretch of road,
11:14you're going to see a lot of man boobs bouncing around here as well, by the way.
11:17This two-kilometer stretch of road was designed to go above and beyond what they built for Belgian
11:23paved because they really wanted to exacerbate Australian conditions here because they were
11:28taking effectively European platforms, changing engines and then creating sedans, station wagons
11:35and dual, well, it's very single cab utilities for the Australian market. And I mean, this thing
11:41is a horror show. And typically what they would have done is put people in these cars and they
11:46were given time limits as well because it puts so much stress on your body, so much stress on
11:51your mind. Oh, like especially this section here, it's exposed rock and it is just relentless
11:57in terms of constant, just hits that you get to your body that they would limit how much
12:02time you would actually spend in the vehicle. And as a result of that, even though these
12:07cars were effectively running 24 hours a day across all of this terrain, it would be with
12:12different drivers that they would contract to do this type of work. And then the suspension
12:17would get so hot that they would basically have to run these through a water bath at the
12:22end of a set number of laps to cool the dampers down. Otherwise they would effectively just
12:27explode and leak and you would lose that damper. So it is, it is crazy stuff. And look, to be
12:35honest, this actually doesn't feel too bad. Even without a load in it, it actually feels fairly
12:40comfortable. So I'll be curious to see how the jack compares to this. Certainly compared
12:46to the 70 series that we tested here last time, it feels far more comfortable. So 70 series
12:54though has a bigger payload, so they've got to have a media suspension set up. All right.
12:58Now this bumpy section here, it's like a, it's another paved road, but this is, comes with
13:05a couple of little whoops through here as well to really wrap the vehicle around. Oh man,
13:14this is tiring. I know it makes absolutely no sense, but this is genuinely tiring.
13:20And I've only done one lap of it so far. All right, let's line up for the second lap now.
13:25All right. Lap two is almost done. Let's hop into the jack.
13:44Okay. Let's see how the jack holds up with this torture session. All right. Belgian pay first,
13:52two laps, 40 k's an hour. Here we go. I can see the tray moving around a fair bit there.
14:04But like I said before, it's designed to move independent of the body to have that flexibility
14:09of movement. As you can hear in my voice, it is getting a proper hammering here.
14:14All right. But overall, it actually feels pretty good on this stuff. I'll be keen to see how it
14:20goes on that rougher section, but let's wrap up our two laps here and then go hit the harder stuff.
14:28And done with the second lap. All right. Genuinely takes a lot out of you. All right,
14:33let's head over to the actual torture road and see how it goes over there.
14:39It is really cool to think that, you know, 50 years plus of vehicle engineering was done here.
14:46Some of the sort of hardest testing you'll see on a new car. And back then that was before they had
14:51all the technology they have today to simulate everything that they do. So it would have been
14:57a lot more real world testing to figure out how stuff works as opposed to today where it's all just
15:03basically computers and CAD stuff. And everything is just done to be validated later on over a
15:12shorter period. So it is just remarkable to see that this is how hard cars had it before they were
15:19released on the Australian and international markets. This is genuinely bone shattering stuff.
15:26Even on this rougher section, it's, it's still feeling quite composed. It does not feel, you know,
15:33it's really strange on the open road. It feels a bit busy at times, uh, on minor imperfections,
15:39but here where you have some serious, just serious holes in the road and rocks sticking out of the road,
15:47just moving over this stuff really nicely. It's not getting thrown around too much,
15:51which means that if you do find yourself on a corrugated stretch of road, you're not going to
15:55be constantly correcting the vehicle and trying to manage its direction. So from that point of view,
16:00it's going to cope really well with those rougher Australian conditions. Right, here come the
16:05cobblestones and we've got our bump here on the cobblestones as well. We'll see what it feels like
16:12through there. Yeah, it's interesting, even with that softer suspension, it is actually holding up quite,
16:19quite well over this. Here's our bump through here.
16:26Yeah, look, it's, it's actually, it's not too bad. The softness of the suspension isn't affecting
16:31it too much in terms of how it feels over this. I can hear Igor's seatbelt in the back there
16:37as he holds on for dear life. Oh my God, it's almost over. All right, here we go. And that is
16:45done with our first lap. All right, let's go back for a second lap. So yeah, look, I mean,
16:50car manufacturers would be doing this day in, day out to ensure their vehicles are durable. But
16:56this is always the thing that's in the back of my mind. If you are saving a lot of money on a new
17:01vehicle compared to a more established brand like the Hilux V-Jack comparison here, will it actually hold
17:08up to the type of torture that you're going to put it through? And while this is only a very small
17:14selective test, obviously, we don't have, you know, six months of accelerated durability to test.
17:20I mean, this really will unearth a lot of problems in a vehicle very quickly, stuff like rattles,
17:26things like squeaks, those annoying things that you're not going to notice until you've actually
17:33driven over roads like this, which takes quite a bit of time to do. But yeah, on first glance,
17:38this all feels, this all feels perfectly fine. What you'll notice as well with a lot of the Chinese
17:42companies is they're willing to put longer warranties on their vehicles. And, you know,
17:48you look at Toyota, you look at Porsche, three-year warranty on a Porsche. That is a car that can cost
17:53you, you know, half a million bucks. Whereas some of the Chinese manufacturers will do warranties
17:58up to 10 years. And that is showing you dedication and an understanding that it's going to last at
18:04least 10 years, which to me is a good sign. This is really, really hard work on your body.
18:15All right. And that is lap two, finally done. All right. We're going to finish this video back
18:22at the office when we go over results. So I will see you there, hopefully well rested.
18:28Okay. So we are back in the studio. Let me explain the results because to be honest,
18:33they're quite surprising. I'll run you through how we calculated everything first. So basically,
18:38we had the accelerometer on the iPhone. It's a hundred hertz. So it's really quite accurate
18:43in terms of data logging. We had that attached to the seat of each vehicle as we drove over the
18:48Belgian pave and also the rough track to give us a data log across both laps.
18:54Then what we did is we took the root mean squared of the numbers. And just to give you an idea of what
19:00that means, because, you know, this is mathematical talk here. The root mean square is a statistical
19:06measure that represents the average magnitude of a set of values. In the context of acceleration,
19:12it provides a way to quantify the overall intensity of vibrations or movements.
19:17The reason we attach the phone to the seat this time is because that's where your bum is going
19:22to be sitting. And that is where you're going to feel basically everything that's going on. So
19:26start off with the Hilux. So this is our first set of results on Belgian pave. And what you can see
19:30here is that across two laps of the Belgian pave, you had peaks here that were between sort of 10 and
19:3720. This is all done at 40 kilometers an hour. So you can see here, lap one and, oh, actually this is
19:43lap one there and there. This section in the middle here is when we do the U-turn at the
19:47end of the Belgian pave to then go back down the other side. The other side is ever so slightly
19:52smoother, it seems. Well, it was in the Hilux in that run. But what you can see there is that both
19:58results are fairly similar, which means speed was fairly consistent. All sort of pretty straightforward
20:03there. Now let's jump over to the other side, which is the jack. Have a look at this. If you look at the
20:09two root mean squared values of 4.84 in the Hilux and 4.39 in the jack, it actually shows you that
20:16the jack was more comfortable. And I did feel, you know, I mean, it's hard to sort of quantify the
20:21difference because it's a difference of around 10%. What you can see there with those averages is the
20:26peaks are slightly lower and it's a difference of around 10% between the two vehicles. And that's
20:33probably something that isn't going to be overly significant at the seat of the pants. You will feel
20:39slightly more comfortable in the jack and slightly less fatigued as well, but you're not going to
20:43really notice it as a night and day difference. And to me, that's probably good. It shows you that even
20:47though the jack T9 is a much cheaper vehicle, it's not going to feel significantly worse. And in this
20:53case, it actually feels better, but it's not going to feel any worse than a Hilux does on a rough road.
21:00Now let's get to the other side. So Belgian pave, very good. The other side was the rough road. And this is,
21:06this is really a section that shakes the living daylights out of these cars. And this is where we
21:11saw the biggest difference. And I'll show you what I mean. If you have a look here at some of the
21:16intensity that we felt in the Hilux, sort of went between the 50 and the 100 range there. So fairly
21:22sort of decent hits into the car and it sort of got progressively harder on that exposed rock. And then
21:28when we got to the, to the paved area at the end, that's where we felt some really big hits
21:32when we had those big changes through the whoops there. So put a lot of work onto the body and it
21:38gave us an average RMS of 10.05. Now lower is better here. Remember that, watch this. We go over
21:44to the jack. The average was 50% less than the Hilux. That is over the same stretch of road at the same
21:52speed on the same day. It is incredible how much of a difference there is there. So you can see there
21:57that the peaks are completely different in terms of the actual numbers you can see there and the Y
22:02axis, like it is, you know, 50% of it. So look, to be honest, when I was driving it, it felt comfortable,
22:09but you know, you're driving them back to back. It's both sort of quite rough regardless of which
22:14vehicle you're in. But it does show here that there was, I guess, a 50% comfort difference in the
22:19jack versus the Hilux. And look, I don't know whether 50% difference in the RMS is actually a
22:2650% comfort difference. I don't know if they're directly translatable. What this does show you,
22:31though, is the phone, which was attached to the seat, was experiencing less acceleration due to
22:37those bumps as we went over the same stretch of road, which in theory means that your body is going
22:42to be feeling less of that acceleration, that up and down motion as the vehicle is traveling. So
22:48look, to me, I think it's a pretty conclusive result here that the jack, both on the Belgian
22:54pave and the rough road, is the more comfortable vehicle. Both of the vehicles held up perfectly
23:00fine over two laps. Obviously, two laps isn't going to show you accelerated wear over, you know,
23:05an estimated 20 years or something like that. But it does show you that from a comfort point of
23:10view, you really aren't gaining anything by spending more on a Hilux. Same story when it came to load
23:16lugging. I mean, yes, the Hilux did feel slightly better in terms of the acceleration, given that
23:22it has more torque and more power. But when it came to actually pulling that load, it didn't feel like
23:28there was that much of a difference. So I guess the conclusion is, is it worth spending significantly
23:33more on a proven Japanese brand like Toyota when it comes to a work vehicle like the Jack T9? Look,
23:40when it comes to load hauling and comfort, the answer is no. I just don't see that you can justify
23:46the big price difference. Like I said in the video, you'd have to step up to an SR5 to match the Jack in
23:51terms of features. And that is, that is a big step up, 10, 20, 25 grand. That is a lot of money that you
23:57can save. And if you are buying a fleet of these spread across a fleet of vehicles, it means you can
24:02eventually get a number of extra Jack T9s over Hiluxes that, you know, end up doing the same job.
24:09So that was interesting. Let me know in the comments section below. Do you have any comments
24:13on this testing? Do you want us to do something different next time? I'm keen for your feedback.
24:17Would you spend extra on the Hilux? I'm keen for your feedback there as well. If you did enjoy this
24:23video, please make sure you like it and share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so,
24:26subscribe to our channel, but until next time, take it easy.
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