[logan]

Geely has / had a very bad reputation in China since older models had been used as Taxis before VW brought in the JETTA.
Geely trys to built up a new image with theri latest generaion of cars with promoting them as PEOPLES CARS FOR THE WORKING CLASS - this is the new slogan that you can find at local dealerships in the sichuan province.
The sales of Geely cars are very low in 2009 until now according to Geely Dealers in Chengdu.
LOGAN

 

[dragin]

I think you are confusing Geely with another Daihatsu Charade-based vehicle called Tianjin Xiali. The use of this sub-compact model as a taxi was widespread and competed with the larger VW Santanas.
For a long time the Santanas seemed to prevail all over China.

Did the Geely ever really find wide use as a taxi? I don't think so.

No, if Geely has a bad reputation it is because of poor quality. Of course the company is striving to improve, but a poor quality reputation is hard to overcome. Just ask Hyundai........

 

[johnchristine3751]

To increase the sale of cars Geely have to provide better quality of material.

 

[logan]

I think you are confusing Geely with another Daihatsu Charade-based vehicle called Tianjin Xiali. The use of this sub-compact model as a taxi was widespread and competed with the larger VW Santanas.
For a long time the Santanas seemed to prevail all over China.

Did the Geely ever really find wide use as a taxi? I don't think so.

No, if Geely has a bad reputation it is because of poor quality. Of course the company is striving to improve, but a poor quality reputation is hard to overcome. Just ask Hyundai........

Sry but i have to correct you with one point - Geely not tianjin Xiali was used as taxi within Chengdu and the rest of the Sichuan province before they got replaced through Changhan Suzuku Altos and later through VW Jettas.
But you are right they have a bad reputation through the very low quality of the cars - but during the time when they came to the market here in china several 100 of taxi companies used them as taxis long time before the average chinese could even think or dream about buying an own car.
The knowledge about the low quality and the following bad reputation came out of the time while Geely model where used as taxis.
Even if i do live only for about 2.5 years in Chengdu but my wife is a native Chengdu Girl and was born here.
Besides that her family is one of the few real so called Chengdunese living here for generations.
And her father was working in the Chengdu Traffic police department and owned a car during a time when that was still a dream. So i do think my information is correct.
Greetings Logan

 

[dragin]

Hi Logan:
Thank you for the correction. I wasn't aware that Geely was previoulsy so popular as a taxi in Sichuan. Was it also used in places like Kunming and Xian?
In any case I'm sure the taxi fleet owners were disappointed at the poor reliability and durability of those early Geely Haoqings.
What about the Chang'an-made Altos. Do they hold up well as taxis?

 

[logan]

Hi Logan:
Thank you for the correction. I wasn't aware that Geely was previoulsy so popular as a taxi in Sichuan. Was it also used in places like Kunming and Xian?
In any case I'm sure the taxi fleet owners were disappointed at the poor reliability and durability of those early Geely Haoqings.
What about the Chang'an-made Altos. Do they hold up well as taxis?

Hello again - since i found my new interest in chinese cars ( i love cars in general - i think thats just typical german ) i started to collect more and more informations about past present and future of chinese car brands but i do not know if Geely's where used outside of Sichuan.But i can tell you that the Chang an Altos where extremly popular as Taxis and lasted very long and this is one of the major reasons why they also became so popular as private cars.
My wife and her aunt both had such a Chang an Alto City and everone that i met until now was very happy with it. The only reason why the local goverment controlled taxi companies gave up on the Alto was the Contract Cooperation between VW and the Beijing Goverment.
After that deal went through 90 % of the Alto's where sold to new private owners in Sichuan.
You can still find these Taxi Altos till today on the street.Most of them just got a very poor new paintjob and they are very easy to recognize.Besides that most of the higehr workers and owners of the Taxi companies are still using them privatly.
According to my wife and her family the chinese where always satisfied with the Suzuki Altos as taxis.But as soon as the Jetta was interduced they realized the differences in price and quality and thats the reason why they finally disapeard into private hands.
In my own opinion the Chang an Suzuki Alto is a pure low level city car - wich was for a long time enough for the chinese. I only tried it out a few times and have to say that it reached it limits when going over 80 kmh. Then it became unstable. But because of the traffic situation and usual speadlimits of 60 kmh the Alto was and is in many cases - just enough.
I called a friend that is still driving such an former taxi alto - It s still up and running and used already by 4 different family members:thumb:
Greetings
Logan

 

[dragin]

With such reliable performance it's no wonder that Chang'an, Jiangnan, the late Tongtian Auto, and BYD's predecessor Qinchuan all chose to build the Alto under Suzuki license. And now I hear that Chang'an will build the 7th generation of that model.
By the way it's interesting to note that up until 2006, for 8 years the Beijing government banned little cars like Alto from driving on the broad Chang'an Avenue which passes by Tiananmen.

 

[RossDrivesFast]

Bad reputations are hard to overcome. They might be best folding up shop, but who knows how much money they're actually making despite their rep.

 

[jmsteiny]

Hey dragin, I actually rode in one of the old Geely taxis about 4 years ago, but not in Chengdu. Old Geelys, Xialis, etc. are still used in the smaller towns, at least in Guangxi province. ALSO, in the smaller towns you are now seeing 3 wheel motorcycles with QQ bodies over it (or Spark, Changhe Ideal, even a poor ripoff of the Toyota Prius)!! These are 150-175cc water cooled motorcycle engines, for their size they can carry 4 people at around 40-50kph top speed.......not too bad really! I rode in a couple of these in the last several weeks in a little town called Xing An in northern Guangxi - almost ALL of the taxis in the town are these QQ style 3 wheel motorcycles! They are buzzy, noisy and kind of cramped - and they are a HELL of a lot of fun to ride in! Here's a pic of one, enjoy!!

 

[KiwiGuy]

I think Geely, given about five years, will emerge out of China as a very powerful company the likes of which the world has never seen.
Howver, I agree with everyone that bad reputations are indeed hard to over come but everyone said the same things about Toyota and Hyundai when they first released cars like the Pony/Excel. I like to think companies like Geely will become immensely successful, but it needs to concentrate on product quality rather then quantity.

 

[KiwiGuy]

From China car times:

AT A time when most carmakers are struggling to cope with the worst crisis the industry has experienced in living memory, the ambitions of Geely, China’s biggest privately owned car firm, are breathtaking. The company is simultaneously developing six modern platforms—an astonishing number even for a global giant such as Toyota—and is committed to launching nine new cars in the next 18 months and up to 42 new models by 2015. Its technical director, Frank Zhao, claims that Geely will have the capacity to make 2m cars a year by then.

Whether Geely will be able to sell anything like that number of cars is another matter. The firm says its sales for the six months to the end of June reached 138,000, fuelled partly by government tax breaks aimed at boosting demand for the smaller cars made by China’s indigenous manufacturers. That implies a rise from a year ago of no less than 52%, nearly three times the rate at which the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) estimates the market grew in the same period. But the numbers are confusing: J.D. Power Asia, an automotive market-research firm, reckons Geely sold more cars than that, but from a higher base, leaving its growth slightly below that of the market as a whole. Geely itself uses different figures in different statements.
At the Shanghai motor show in April, no exhibitor had a bigger stand. On display were three new sub-brands—Gleagle (affordable saloons and small utility vehicles), Emgrand (sporty and prestige vehicles) and Shanghai Englon (“heritage” designs)—embracing more than 20 models and their variants, including six that were all new. Among them were the outrageous Shanghai Englon GE concept, a mini-me of the Rolls-Royce Phantom with a single throne-like seat in the back; the Emgrand EX825, a blingy SUV scheduled for launch next year; and the Gleagle EK2, a small battery-powered hatchback that is said to be close to production. Also on the stand was Geely’s version of the London black cab, the product of a joint venture with Manganese Bronze Holdings, the British company that owns London Taxi International.

I wonder if this what Geely meant when it wanted to refine its reputation?

 

[dragin]

Hey dragin, I actually rode in one of the old Geely taxis about 4 years ago, but not in Chengdu. Old Geelys, Xialis, etc. are still used in the smaller towns, at least in Guangxi province. ALSO, in the smaller towns you are now seeing 3 wheel motorcycles with QQ bodies over it (or Spark, Changhe Ideal, even a poor ripoff of the Toyota Prius)!! These are 150-175cc water cooled motorcycle engines, for their size they can carry 4 people at around 40-50kph top speed.......not too bad really! I rode in a couple of these in the last several weeks in a little town called Xing An in northern Guangxi - almost ALL of the taxis in the town are these QQ style 3 wheel motorcycles! They are buzzy, noisy and kind of cramped - and they are a HELL of a lot of fun to ride in! Here's a pic of one, enjoy!!

Hi JM:
Didn't know that Geely had seen such a wide use as a taxi...
As for the three wheelers, last week I saw one that had made it to Gradys motor sales in the little town of Live Oak, Florida. But the body wasn't a QQ. Quality looked horrendously bad. They also carry the Huoyun EV, a Smart Lookalike, distributed by a company called Wildfire, in Ohio.

Sorry to go off topic here fellas.

 

[jmsteiny]

You know, a couple of years ago we were talking about the same thing........but then again a couple of years ago Geely was still discovering what a "quality" car really is! Anyway, here is the deal with Geely - they have REALLY transformed themselves in the last 1-2 years. New, quality products like the 5 door King Kong (I've driven it - SURPRISINGLY good), the Vision (a friend of mine owns one - AMAZINGLY good) and the Panda (much cooler than you might think, and the upcoming crossover is even better) are signs of Geely's new design ideas AND much better quality control. BUT......things like diluting the brand (3 new sub brands?) and making HORRIBLE copies (the new baby Rolls is just hideous not to mention a insult to Rolls Royce) really holds back Geely's positive efforts. The fact is, in China Geely sales are up this year (I don't remember the stats but it's a good increase) and I think that shows that the chinese consumer is recognizing the quality of Geely's new products. Now - if Geely REALLY wants to be a international/world player, it needs to STOP producing things like the baby Rolls and focus on 1 or 2 (no more) main brand names in it's marketing push. Look at a HUGE world player like Honda - in the USA it's Honda/Acura - that's it. Do we REALLY need new names like EMGRAND or GLEAGLE or ENGLON? Geely, here's some advice - stick with the name GEELY. Keep up the great work with your new designs, keep building them better and better - and just call them GEELY!! Your reputation IS improving, and will continue to do so as long as you keep building a better product - it's as simple as that. Let ONE name (Geely) earn it's reputation fair and square......and in the long run you'll be happy you kept it simple - and effective.:thumb:

 

[KiwiGuy]

I agree with jmsteiny. Why can't Geely simply be Geely and not ridiculous names like Gleagle. I might sound good in Chinese, but not good in English.
Although, this does remind me of when Mazda went brand crazy with things like Prince, Eunos and Autozam.
A simple business glitch which in the not too distant future might be overlooked.

 

[tamernaggar]

I have bad experience with Geely car in Egypt. I am an owner ofr one of the models. Car is not reliable at all. Service centers are so bad and the technicians are the worst. Spare parts are not available.
it is really terrible experience.
i will not buy any chinese car ever.