Chery Tiggo 8 review

A 4.7-metre long, seven-seat SUV for under 30 grand looks a tempting deal. The base price is £28,545, which gets you a pure petrol Tiggo 8 – the more underwhelming one, in other words – with entry ‘Aspire’ trim. The kit list reads well: 19in alloys, synthetic leather across all seven seats, an eight-speaker Sony sound system, adaptive cruise control and that fancy 540-degree parking gadget are all standard equipment.

‘Summit’ spec commands another £3,000 and adds a powered tailgate, heated wheel, heated seats in the first two rows (plus ventilation and massage functions for the front row), a head-up display and four more speakers for the stereo.  

Add in its £5,000 premium and that makes the plug-in hybrid car £33,545 in Aspire trim or £36,545 in Summit, at which point it’s knocking firmly on the door of Nissan X-Trail, Skoda Kodiaq and Peugeot 5008 pricing, albeit with more power and equipment. Do you want value, or a century of heritage from a badge you know and love? Jaecoo and Omoda sales so far suggest plenty of buyers are happy with just the former. 

But well-established names and dealer networks often breed better used values. And sure enough, lease comparison websites currently peg a Tiggo 8 hybrid at around £400 per month over three years, whereas the 5008 and Kodiaq both sit around £300 on a comparative deal. Perhaps your Chery dealer will have something to say about that – there are currently 26 in the UK, with over 100 planned, and they’re gonna want your custom to ensure that growth plays out.

The combo of seven seats with plug-in hybrid power is relatively rare, at least, only really pitting the Tiggo 8 against the 5008 as we type these words (at Skoda and VW, those assets are mutually exclusive). Its low, 31g/km CO2 emissions ensure business users are likely to get a much better deal than private buyers.

The Tiggo 8 comes with a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty (with mileage unlimited in the first three years of cover) while the hybrid’s battery is covered for eight years or 100,000 miles.