Chery Tiggo 9 Review & Prices

The Chery Tiggo 9 is a large, seven-seat SUV with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, which undercuts most of its alternatives by many thousands of pounds. It's great value for such a well-equipped and practical car, but the expensive road tax and none-too-posh badge mean that cheaper alternatives that cost less to run, or more expensive ones which feel posher, might be a better way forward.

Chery positions the Tiggo 9 as its flagship car, and it’s very closely-related to the Omoda 9. But while the Omoda is more stylish and less practical, with only five seats, the Tiggo 9 has a sensible, upright look and a full seven-seat interior, making it a better choice as a family car.

With that roomy interior, long-range plug-in hybrid, and loads of standard tech, the Tiggo 9 feels a lot like the plucky newcomer who’s taking no chances in making sure they get noticed. It needs to stand out from alternatives like the Volkswagen Tayron, Peugeot 5008, Kia Sorento and Hyundai Santa Fe. It undercuts all of those drastically on price, but you’ll also note that Chery’s own Tiggo 8 also offers seven seats and PHEV power for around £10,000 less than the 9.

You might not notice the Tiggo 9 too much from its styling, but that’s not to say it’s bad-looking - just a bit anonymous. The grille at the front is rather Audi-esque, flanked by neat LED daytime running lights, and the lightbar at the back could have come off any one of a dozen large SUVs.

There are posh features like pop-out door handles, and the intricate 20-inch alloy wheels look great, but the ‘Luxury Technology’ motif written on the wheel centres is a little cringe.

Inside, it’s much of the same - smart but not particularly interesting. There’s a huge 15.6-inch touchscreen and a separate driver’s display, and underneath those sits a wireless phone charger, a small panel of shortcut buttons… and not much else. The drive selector is mounted on the steering column - great for freeing up space - and the seat controls are on the door. Both features that feel very Mercedes.

There’s loads of room in the front, and just as much in the second row of seats. The third row is more suited to kids, but it’s similarly spacious to the Peugeot 5008. You get more room in a Hyundai Santa Fe, though.

Standard equipment levels shame even most luxury cars - all versions of the Tiggo 9 get heated and ventilated seats in the first two rows, plus massaging functions on the front two. There’s a huge sunroof, adaptive cruise control, powered tailgate and a posh Sony stereo, all as standard - the Tiggo 9 only gets one trim level and the only optional extra is paintwork. That makes ordering one much easier than most European alternatives.

There’s just one engine too, the confidently named ‘Super Hybrid’. This pairs a 1.5-litre petrol engine with an electric motor that offers a remarkable 91 miles of range on a charge - and as it’s capable of topping up from public fast chargers you really can use it as a short-range electric car.

It’s a fantastic engine that even offers good economy with a depleted battery, but sadly the rest of the driving experience doesn’t really live up to expectations. It’s comfy on the motorway, but it feels a little unwieldy through town thanks to soft, wallowy suspension and over-light controls. And when you get onto a twisty road, the lack of communication about what the wheels are doing doesn’t give you the confidence to push on.

This driving experience makes it harder to justify the Tiggo 9 than it does its cheaper Tiggo 7 and 8 siblings - especially as the Tiggo 9 costs over £40,000, rendering it eligible for the expensive vehicle supplement on your yearly road tax.

But if your concern is getting a comfortable cruiser with absolutely bucketloads of equipment for much less money than you’d think, then you may well want to shortlist the Chery Tiggo 9.

Check out our best Chery Tiggo 9 deals to secure yourself a saving, or find a great Chery Tiggo 9 lease deal here. You can search used Chery cars for sale, and remember that Carwow can even help you to sell your old car when the time comes.

The Chery Tiggo 7 costs £43,105, and you can push this up as high as £43,855 with the most expensive paint option. That’s it - there are no other trim levels or optional extras, making ordering one just as simple as picking your favourite colour (out of white, silver, black, or green, granted…)

But you do get a lot for your money. LED headlights and 20-inch alloy wheels meet lashings of chrome trim on the outside, while in the cabin there’s sat-nav, dual-zone climate control, electric seat and steering wheel adjustment, heated and ventilated seats in the first two rows and even a massage function for the front two.

A panoramic sunroof, artificial leather upholstery, Sony sound system and adaptive cruise control are just a few more off the long equipment list. Suffice to say if you were to spec a Hyundai Santa Fe up to similar levels you’d have to spend in excess of £60,000, so if you like luxury at a low price then the Tiggo 9 may be right up your alley.

The Chery Tiggo 9 is a great motorway cruiser but it feels wayward and loose on a twisting back road

In town

The Chery Tiggo 9 is a pretty large car at over 4.8m in length and over 1.9m wide, so it can feel a bit cumbersome around town. The tech helps - as standard you get lots of cameras and all-round sensors, while visibility is pretty good - but it’s annoying when you’re trying to park that you have to adjust the door mirrors through the touchscreen.

The engine is great around town, with an all-electric range of more than 90 miles meaning you could drive across the whole of London without ever using any petrol. It responds just like an electric car, swiftly and smoothly. The only downsides are the steering, which is over-light and not as accurate as it could be, and the suspension, which can feel a little wobbly on poor road surfaces.

On the motorway

The suspension settles down at high speed and the very comfy seats and excellent refinement mean that the Tiggo 9 is a great mile-muncher. Motorway fuel economy from PHEVs tends to be a bit rubbish once the battery runs down, but if you operate the Tiggo 9 in ‘Smart’ mode it’ll retain 20% of its charge to assist up inclines or to take over when you’re stuck in traffic. This makes the world of difference and means even high-speed motorway runs aren’t too inefficient.

On a twisty road

Like its smaller Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8 siblings, the Chery Tiggo 9 doesn’t feel particularly at home when you get onto a twisting B-road. The soft suspension means that it leans a lot in the bends, and the steering doesn’t give you any feedback about which direction the front wheels are pointing in - meaning you tend to make a lot of mid-corner corrections, unsettling the car even further.

Grip levels are good and there’s loads of power on tap, though - over 400hp when the engine and electric motor work in tandem - but it’s just quite unpleasant to try and use it all.

Plenty of room for passengers and luggage, but not many clever extra features

Front-seat passengers in the Tiggo 9 are pretty well-treated. There’s six-way electric adjustment for both front seats, and they’re also heated, cooled and even massaging - how’s that for fancy. The steering wheel adjusts electrically too, moving out of the way when you get in the car, which is a nice touch.

Storage cubbies are a little lacking, though. The door bins and glovebox are only moderately sized, and you won’t fit a big water bottle in either of them. There’s more room in the under-armrest storage cubby, and even more underneath the centre console - but the latter is quite difficult to access when you’re on the move.

There are also two slots to hold your smartphone steady, but only one of them is actually a wireless charging pad, which is a bit of a shame.

Space in the back seats

Occupants in the middle row are treated to plenty of leg and headroom, even with the panoramic glass roof. There’s also a flat floor so centre seat passengers don’t have too rough a time. It’s a cut above even very roomy SUVs like the Skoda Kodiaq.

The third row is quite tight, though. Access is easy enough with the centre seats tilting up and forwards, but once you’re in place it’s cramped for adults. Better to save them for children or short trips. Compared to the alternatives, it’s on par with a Peugeot 5008, but the Hyundai Santa Fe has more space for grown ups.

Boot space

With all seven seats in place, there’s 143 litres of room for luggage. That’s not very spacious - it’ll fit a weekly shop for two or maybe a carry-on suitcase, but don’t expect to go away with seven passengers AND their luggage.

Fold the third row away, though, and you get a whopping 819 litres of space. That’s more than you get in a Hyundai Santa Fe, and just a couple of litres down on the cavernous Skoda Kodiaq. It makes the Tiggo 9 an immensely practical five-seater car with the occasional extra capacity for seven.

The Tiggo 9 is neatly styled and feels well screwed-together, but the materials don’t feel as nice as in cheaper Cherys

The Chery Tiggo 9’s interior ticks most of the boxes for a modern SUV - big touchscreen, loads of features, minimal physical buttons. The screen itself is pretty good. At 15.6 inches across, it’s huge but doesn’t feel too obtrusive on the Tiggo 9’s wide dashboard, and it’s bright, clear and snappily responsive to your touch.

Some of the menu layouts are a bit too confusing, though, and the total lack of physical shortcut buttons means you’re reliant on knowing some tricks - like swiping down from the top of the screen for quick functions - or just pressing numerous buttons.

The latter is particularly annoying if you’re using Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, both of which work wirelessly - you need several presses of the screen to get out into the main menu before you can do something as simple as adjusting the fan speed. You could use voice commands, but they work about as well as voice command systems in other cars - that is to say, they don’t, really.

It’s also a bit of a shame that material quality doesn’t feel quite as nice as it does in the cheaper Tiggo 7 and Tiggo 8. Most of it’s very good, with nice padded door cards, convincing artificial leather and nicely damped column stalks - but the buttons on the steering wheel feel nasty, and there’s a swathe of cheap-feeling plastic running right across the middle of the dash that spoils the illusion somewhat. If this were replaced with a soft-touch panel or maybe some fabric trim, it’d be very easy to forget that the Tiggo 9 was a budget car inside.

The Tiggo 9 has a frankly ridiculous ‘official’ fuel economy figure of nearly 500mpg, with a correspondingly low CO2 emissions figure of 14g/km. That’s due to the impressively large battery, which will propel the car for up to 91 miles between charges - one of the longest EV ranges on sale, beaten only by the closely-related Omoda 9.

You can even charge the battery at up to 70kW from a public fast charger, giving you more flexibility when out and about.

In reality, things are a bit different. If you don’t plug in and run the car in ‘Smart Mode’ you’ll see between 40 and 50mpg - we saw over 45mpg on a prolonged motorway run. With a big fuel tank, a range of well over 600 miles should be possible, which might help out if you miss having a diesel SUV but want to go hybrid for the tax benefits.

Speaking of tax, the Tiggo 9’s low CO2 and long range mean it falls into a very low BIK band for company car tax. It’s a shame that with a price tag of more than £40,000, though, the Tiggo 9 is subject to the expensive car supplement in years two to six of ownership. If Chery launched a version with less standard equipment and a price tag of £39,995, we bet it would sell like hotcakes.

The Tiggo 9 hasn’t been crash tested by Euro NCAP yet. Both the smaller Tiggo 7 and 8 scored four stars, but more comparably the Omoda 9 - which is closely-related to the Tiggo 9 - scored a full five stars with a very impressive 90% figure for adult occupant protection.

Safety kit is extensive, with ten airbags and all the active safety features you’d expect. You can turn off the more annoying of these, such as speed limit alerts and driver monitoring, through a shortcut menu, which is nice.

Chery offers a reassuring seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty on the Tiggo 9, and being one of China’s largest car producers with an extensive plan for European aftersales means you don’t need to worry that the company’s going to fizzle out and leave you with an unrepairable car.

However, anecdotal evidence from owners groups and forums suggests that Jaecoo and Omoda drivers are being left wanting when it comes to software faults, dealer service and parts availability. Time will tell if Chery is the same - and we’ll get a more official picture in 2026 when the Driver Power owner satisfaction survey includes responses from owners of all three of these brands.