Bought JAECOO — got on the “black list”: how Chinese car dealers deceive customers

The mass expansion of Chinese cars to Russia has already taught us not to be surprised by anything. Is it a budget car costing almost five million rubles that is being led astray? So hold on tight to the steering wheel, driver! And remember that the Chinese comrades created this wonderful chariot the size of a Mercedes GLE not as a result of a century of experience in tuning suspensions and chassis, but according to the principle of “let’s do it faster, and then we’ll figure it out.”

And these same guys from Chery Corporation made not one elongated D-class crossover, but three identical cars under different brands - JAECOO J8, Chery Tiggo 9 and Omoda C9. They coped with the design variations. But something went wrong with the chassis, if for three years in a row, JAECOO J8 buyers have been writing tearful complaints on forums:

"This is already the second J8 in three months))) The second car has a mileage of about 4,000 km. In September 2024, they exchanged my jaecoo j8 for a similar product (car) after filing a claim with the dealer based on the consumer protection law. At the time of delivery of the first car, the mileage was also around 4,200 km. Upon receipt of the new vehicle, the dealer assured that the problem with the pull to the right had been resolved. And indeed, for a week the car behaved on the road as it should have. But after a week, every day the car began to pull to the right again."

The owner of the car moving to the right not only fought for his personal rights, but also decided to find out who else had encountered the same problem by organizing a vote. As many as 872 people responded.

Needless to say, over the three years, there have been a lot of similar cases among JAECOO owners? It is logical to assume that a responsible car manufacturer will organize a recall campaign for all cars of this brand sold, or officially admit that no design problems have been found, and the cause of the failures is only lazy dealers who did not bother to check the wheel alignment before selling the cars.

However, we could not find any official release from the Chery representative office. But the Internet indexes well the verbose material of an “ordinary” J8 owner with the triumphant title — “ The problem with the sideways pull is solved… ”

The simplest content analysis shows that the material clearly has a double bottom. Firstly, the author has never written comments or letters of thanks on websites before. And then suddenly a person burst out with an enthusiastic review of 3700 characters.

The author starts from his distant childhood, when his father taught the ignorant boy to drive a Zhiguli model 4. Then the story smoothly moves to direct advertising of an unrivaled masterpiece - JAECOO J8, which "comfort, consumption, rich equipment and premium finish, lots of space in the cabin and trunk gave their own thrill." However...

"There is one thing, because of which I even had thoughts of returning it to the dealer and giving up on the Chinese as such. In general, yes, this is the same diversion - Jack was constantly striving to the right. I came across a description of this problem in the Telegram club, but I did not read the entire thread, since in the end the problem was ultimately solved, and by the dealer and under the warranty." - the author of the review laments.

You read and wonder how the guy was thrown from side to side, like a sailor in a seasick situation: during the day he was enjoying the car, but by night he was already thinking about whether to return the Chinese car back to the dealer!

Didn't give up. Endured. Went to the official dealer for maintenance. And not just like that, but also having written in advance to the Chery representative office in Russia:

"... And while the car was being checked, I thought: why not write to the dealership right away? I wrote to them in the same Telegram, they didn't even deny it, they immediately asked for the VIN to control the repair. And I don't know if it had an effect so quickly or if it was just a coincidence that the dealer turned out to be normal, but they called and offered to leave the car for a day to check all the options and get it repaired right away, without repeat visits. Free wheel alignment, zero calibration, some other manipulations with the racks and the service manager calls to check. But what to check, when the J8 already in the parking lot made it clear that he no longer needs to turn right, now only forward!"

As a result, the reader draws his own conclusions. First: the car is great! Second: the Chery representative office quickly responds to citizens' requests. Third: the dealers' skill is beyond praise.

But there is also the main conclusion, for which the text was written:

"There's been a lot written here about how not to bother and get your car back, but in my opinion, you have to bother with all these courts, if you know that everything can be resolved. This is the other side for those who don't yet know what to do, which path to take."

Understandable, yes? Despite the unexpected transition to the style of vulgarisms, the idea of positive cooperation with dealers runs through like a red thread. And it would be possible not to quote the unsuccessful epistolary experience of PR people, if everything described was not a mirror of a real situation with one of Chery's clients.

A middle-aged man with the nickname RIBLER (we will not give his real name due to the law on personal data) runs his own channel on YouTube, advertising machines for sharpening hairdressing tools. But about a year ago he switched to the car theme, having bought a new JAECOO J8.

The first video was filmed after the car started to pull to the left, trying to get into the oncoming lane. The frightened driver calls the dealer at "UServis+", where they tell him that they know about the problem, that even the Chinese flew in to see the scale of the disaster with their own eyes.

Then the Chinese mechanics did the wheel alignment themselves and went on a test drive around Moscow with the owner. But this time the car started to pull to the right. The test participants collectively agreed that the JAECOO J8 has incredible sensitivity to the road inclination angle, and therefore it tends to pull to the right on the right side, and to the left if you drive on the opposite side. Unfortunately, all our roads are built at angles to drain water from the road surface. And this objective circumstance cannot be solved by adjusting the wheel alignment, nor can it be corrected by replacing the steering rack and rearranging the springs from right to left (which they tried to do on other examples).

In this case, our hero decided to give the JAECOO J8 back and use the four million plus he earned to buy another Chinese crossover - either the GAC GS8 or the Jetour T2.

True, to get his hard-earned money back, he had to prove that the warranty product on four wheels was unusable. Therefore, our hero contacted the JAECOO J8 dealer, UServis+, four times during the year. Each time, he took a photo of the car on the car service lift and saved geotags in the alarm system’s memory. In response, he was told that there had been no requests for warranty repairs at all. Not a single one!

In December 2024, the dealer offered to exchange the car, but did not do what he promised. A month later, the client is already asking for a refund. They promise him again, but do nothing.

Meanwhile, the client goes to other dealers of the same brand, where he tries to repair the car under warranty. The result is zero.

— In the end, when they all realized that I wouldn’t leave them alone, Chery and its dealers blacklisted me! — the man exclaims. — How did I find out about the blacklist? I make an appointment for repairs at the dealer. The day before the appointed date, they call me and say: sorry, our equipment broke down, we can’t accept you. Okay. I make an appointment with another dealer. But the same story with him. In total, five dealers refused to repair me. It’s clear that they have one common customer base with a black mark next to my name.

After all the refusals to repair, the man orders an independent technical examination, where a dealer representative is also invited. He does not come. But it is possible to prove that, contrary to the manufacturer's standards (and they are on page 280 of the operating instructions), the car's drift is much more than three meters per kilometer of travel (more precisely, three meters for every 150 meters of travel, or six and a half times more than the norm). Obviously, with such a defect, the operation of the car is prohibited.

And what about the dealer? He finally invited the client to a quality control procedure. Three experts confirmed during the test drive that the car pulls to the side. But in the final report, "UServis+" writes that... no defects were found.

After some time, the client gets a call and an offer to... change the car. As if there hadn't been a similar offer six months earlier.

This time, the owner of the JAECOO J8 did not buy into the dealer's promises, believing that he was simply stalling for time. As a result, he filed a lawsuit with the help of a lawyer in the firm hope of receiving not only the full cost of the car, but also compensation for moral injuries and the time spent on repairs and tests.

A similar lawsuit from another JAECOO J8 owner was definitely won.