Omoda 5 driven: Qashqai size for a Juke price, but is it any good?

The Omoda 5 might be something of a mystery car to most — it looks a bit like loads of other compact SUVs already on the market — but it’s bigger news than you might think, as it was one of the first cars in the UK to come from the huge Chinese car-making group Chery. That makes it something of a big deal.

Which you’ll guess precisely none of from the styling. The Omoda 5 isn’t a bad looking car, but that’s possibly because it looks like so many other cars. It’s kind of a cross between a Nissan Juke and Qashqai and a Hyundai Tucson. Prepare to regularly lose it in a supermarket car park.

The Omoda 5’s cabin looks good at first, what with its big twin screens and the neat row of touch-sensitive climate control buttons on the centre of the dashboard, a bit like you get in a Nissan Ariya. But once you start digging, there are issues. Most of what you touch — the likes of the steering wheel and so on — feel good and even quite expensive, but wander away from those parts and the Omoda’s quality rating kind of falls apart, and you’ll notice lots and lots of cheap bits.

It’s also surprisingly cramped. There’s tight legroom in the back, and even tighter headroom to the point where carrying four full-sized adults (or even a couple of tall teenagers) is going to present quite the challenge. Does that compromised rear seat space mean you get a massive boot? Surprise! No, it doesn’t and the 380 litres on offer is only about what you’d get from a VW Golf hatchback.

Of course the whole point here is the Omoda’s price tag. At under £25,000 it’s a mid-sized SUV for the same price most car makers will charge you for something way more compact, although that lack of rear seat and boot space does level the playing field somewhat.

You do get plenty of power, with the Omoda 5 coming as standard with a 190hp 1.6-litre turbo petrol engine, for the kind of money most others would ask for something much slower. However, that’s not necessarily an advantage, as the Omoda 5’s engine is high on emissions (it starts at 159g/km) and low on fuel economy (just 37mpg on the official claim, and worse than that in real world driving). You do at least get a standard automatic gearbox.

There’s also very good equipment with even the basic ‘Knight’ model getting those twin, curved, 12.25-inch screens, wireless phone charging (and fast 50-watt charging at that, with cooling so your phone doesn’t overheat), a rear-view parking camera, and a proper Sony audio system, as standard. You can trade-up to a ‘Noble’ (apologies for the naff trim names…) and get a 360-degree camera, powered driver’s and passenger’s seat, sunroof, and a powered tailgate.

All that equipment doesn’t make the Omoda 5 good to drive, though. It’s fairly comfortable to drive around town, but the soft suspension means that it wallows on a twisty road, and bobs around like a small boat on a rough sea over bumps. The engine is powerful for motorway work, and the Omoda 5 is surprisingly refined, but remote-feeling steering makes it unpleasant to drive at times.

Is it worth taking a punt on the Omoda 5? Unless you particularly love the way it looks – and we’re struggling to imagine you might – then it’s better to sacrifice a little bit of engine power and standard equipment for a car such as the Volkswagen T-Cross which is better to drive, more sturdily built and more economical to run.

However, a mildly updated version of the Omoda 5 will hit the streets soon, with steering and suspension tweaks which promise to fix these complaints with comfort and handling. It also has a revised engine which should be cleaner and more fuel efficient, as well as some improvements to interior quality. We’ll report back once we’ve driven this car to see if the changes make it a more appealing proposition.

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*Prices correct at the time of writing