Niggles in H6 all help to build character

GWM last week added “a powerful, yet frugal” 1,5 turbo petrol engine to its H6 line-up in South Africa.
The H6 1,5 T 4x2 manual costs a rand shy of R310 000, but this price will be negotiable at the 78 GWM dealers in southern Africa.
To my mind, the little petrol drivetrain will be the better buy for people who mostly commute in the city than GWM’s 2,0 TCI diesel burner, which costs R60 000 more than the petrol and R9 000 more than an entry-level diesel Fortuner.

Power on paper

Both the H6 petrol and diesel are equally nice to look at outside and spacious inside, both have from full
leather seats to automatic wipers, and both come with GWM’ new, longer warrantees of five years/100 000 km and a five years/60 000 km service plan.
But in the little petrol unit, which delivers 105 kW at 5 600 rpm and 210 Nm of torque from 2 200 to 4 500 rpm, the driver will get a lot closer to GWM’s promised combined cycle fuel consumption figure of only 8,5 litres/100 km than what I could get in the H6 turbo diesel, which was neither powerful nor frugal.
The GMW 2,0 TCI has a compression ratio on the low side (16:7,1) and while on paper the 1 996 cc diesel makes 105 kW at 4 000 rpm and 310 Nm between 1 800 and 2 800 rpm, I found myself rowing between third and fourth to get up the KZN’s hills, using the sixth gear only downhill.

The consuming question

The 58 litre fuel tank showed close to empty in under 500 km, giving an questimated consumption that is closer to 8 km/litre than the claimed 14 km/litre on a combined cycle.
I cannot tell you the precise average fuel consumption in the H6 2,0 TCI, for no matter how many buttons I pressed on the trip meter, it only displays the current tyre pressures and consumption for trips A, B or A and B.
The GWM also has one of those fuel needles that hovers for ever over the half mark and then plummets almost straight to reserve, which is one of several tiny niggles I remembered after I had handed the keys back after driving it for over 600 km between Durban harbour and Underberg

It all builds character

But here’s the thing — I did and do remember the H6 clearly, unlike the … whatsitsname … some supremely ergonomic but supremely forgettable Japanese sedan I drove during the same week.
For as the many Land Rover Defender fanatics prove, just because a car’s design pummels, pokes and otherwise twists your spine, does not mean you can’t love it. Quite the contrary.
Of course the tiny niggles I noted in the H6 are not nearly as bad as the Stockholm-Syndrome inducing design of the Defender. One could even argue the niggles add character.

Phone pairing 

One of the character-building niggles in the H6 is to pair a cellphone — the centre console has unusual icons, which almost requires thinking in Mandarin.
We did the standard Witness Wheels phone pairing test and our techno writer Kyle Venktess stopped the clock on 2:09 to get his IOS linked.
But once he understood the symbols, his pairing times came back to an acceptable 19 seconds for his Android phone.

A touch of class

Nothing beats space to add a touch of class in a cabin and inside the H6 the cabin feels almost echoingly big.
Because it is front wheel driven, the H6 has no shaft to the rear, which enables a flat floor, which helps to make the cabin very roomy in the rear.
The rear wheels ride on a multi-link suspension set-up, which apart from making for a soft ride, enables a larger hatch area to load.
The hatch area comes with a shelve and a cover that links to the reclining rear bench, no matter in which position it is; and the leather seats are sumptuous all round.

Planted and pliant

But back to that soft ride. Compared to the Toyota Fortuner, at legal speeds, the heavy H6 feels planted in the corners and pliant on the straights, with none of the bounced expected from the Fortuner.
The only two issues I could not get past in the H6 2,0 were the turbo lag and really narrow power band generated by the over-stroked TCI engine.
But because I know how fast the Chinese can move, I am willing to bet the next H6 will come with variable vanes in the turbo to solve the turbo lag and cellphone pairing will become fast due to “normal” icons on the interface.