Omoda 5 review

Made in China labels can be seen on clothes, electronics and furniture, but what about cars and SUVs? Well, we’re going to see a lot more Chinese models on UK roads – including the Omoda 5 we're reviewing here.

Indeed, the Omoda 5 is a new family SUV that will take on some of the best-selling cars in the UK, including the Kia Sportage, MG HS and Nissan Qashqai. It will eventually be offered with a choice of petrol, mild-hybrid petrol or electric power, but at launch you'll just get the option of a traditional 1.6-litre petrol.

Before we dive into this review and tell you everything you need to know about the Omoda 5, let's give you a quick overview of the brand behind it. Omoda is a subsidiary of Chery, which is one of the biggest Chinese automotive brands and sold almost 1.9 million cars worldwide last year.

In the UK, the Omoda 5 will be followed by the Omoda E5 electric SUV and Omoda 9 large SUV, while another Chery subsidiary – Jaecoo – will launch the J7 luxury car.

Those are some pretty ambitious plans, then, but does the Omoda 5 have what it takes to challenge the best family SUVs and would we recommend buying one? Read on to find out…

The Omoda 5 is powered by a 184bhp 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine that drives the front wheels. It’s paired with a seven-speed automatic gearbox (there’s no manual gearbox option) and is the only engine option until a mild-hybrid unit arrives later.

The 1.6-litre engine offers some healthy performance figures, with 0-62mph officially taking 7.8 seconds. That’s much quicker than the entry-level 1.3-litre mild-hybrid Nissan Qashqai (10.2 seconds) and 1.5-litre MG HS (9.6 seconds).

However, the Omoda 5 doesn’t feel as quick as those figures suggest, because the engine needs working hard to get any performance out of it – and becomes quite coarse as you do that. Thankfully, the automatic gearbox changes gears smoothly as you accelerate.

Once you get up to motorway speeds, the engine settles down and becomes quieter. Wind and road noise are kept nicely in check too. The suspension does a reasonable job of soaking up small lumps and bumps, but is unsettled by harsher imperfections and expansion joints.

Things don’t improve much at low speeds, because the firm set-up means the car tends to fidget over bumps on the road. Overall, a Kia Sportage is more comfortable, whether you're in town or motorways conditions.

As with many family SUVs, the Omoda 5’s steering is very light, which makes it easy to manoeuvre around town. Unlike the Ford Kuga and some other rivals, it doesn’t build up much weight at speed. Of course, this isn’t a sports SUV but some extra weight would make it much easier to place on the road when cornering.

Despite being quite tall and boxy, the Omoda 5 handles reasonably well and stays planted when the going gets twisty. In fact, it’s much better than a Citroën C5 Aircross in this area.

If you like a high driving position, you’ll feel right at home in the Omoda 5. The seat perches you high up, which means you get a good view forwards. The sporty, bucket-style front seats offer plenty of adjustment, so it’s very easy to get comfortable.

Once you take a look backwards, visibility isn’t so good. The roofline slopes downwards towards the rear, which means there are wide rear pillars that create a blind-spot. The rear window is tiny, although you do get a reversing camera as standard to help with parking.

The Omoda 5’s interior offers plenty of visual appeal, and as you climb in, you’re immediately greeted by two 10.25in screens that are combined to look like one giant screen. While they arguably give the interior a smart, premium look, the actual functionality is very basic.

The infotainment system is particularly simple, with the main icons on the home screen including your media, phone and vehicle settings. It does at least come with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay as standard, and the touchscreen response is quick, although the graphics are not very sharp.

It’s a similar story with the digital driver’s display, which offers an equally simple layout with two dials for your speedometer and rev counter. This system is controlled using buttons and switches on the steering wheel.

Below the central infotainment screen, you’ll find the climate controls integrated into a piano-black panel that spans the width of the dashboard. They're touch-sensitive and responsive, although physical buttons and dials would be more intuitive to use while driving, and easier to use without taking your eyes off the road.

Material quality is impressive, especially when you consider that the Omoda5 is one of the more affordable models in the family SUV class. There’s soft faux-leather for the areas you touch regularly, such as the steering wheel and gear lever, and a firm but high-quality feeling plastic on the dashboard and doors.

Interior overview

Strengths Smart design; quick touchscreen response; good material quality

Weaknesses Poor rear visibility; basic infotainment system; fiddly climate controls

There’s no shortage of head and leg room for the driver and front passenger in the front of the Omoda 5, no matter how you adjust the seat. You'll find plenty of storage areas dotted around the place, with a large central storage cubby and two cup holders on the centre console.

In the back seats, there’s enough leg room for passengers over 6ft tall, even if they're sitting behind taller front-seat occupants. A middle seat passenger gets a decent amount of knee room, and while there's a hump in the floor, it's quite small and doesn't intrude too much on foot space.

Head room, on the other hand, is poor in the back. The Omoda 5's sloping roofline means most passengers will find their heads brushing up against the ceiling, plus the high windowline, small rear windows and front bucket-style seats create a cramped feeling.

Unfortunately, matters don’t get much better in terms of the boot. With just 307 litres of space, the boot is tiny compared with the Kia Sportage (591 litres), MG HS (463 litres) and Nissan Qashqai (504 litres).

On the positive side, the boot opening is large and square, plus there is some underfloor storage. It should offer more than enough room for a big weekly supermarket shop.

The rear seatbacks fold down in a 60/40 configuration, which is the same as in the HS and Qashqai. The Sportage beats them for flexibility, because its seats split 40/20/40.

The Omoda 5 is competitively priced against the Citroën C5 Aircross, MG HS, Nissan Qashqai and Kia Sportage, making it one of the more affordable cars in the family SUV class.

While the Omoda 5 is slightly cheaper to buy outright than some of those rivals, it won’t be as affordable to run. The 1.6-litre petrol version officially averages 34.5mpg, which is less than the entry-level engine in the C5 Aircross, Qashqai and Sportage, but similar to the HS.

CO2 emissions for the 1.6-litre version are rated at 169g/km, which means you might want to look at a plug-in hybrid alternative if you’re a company car driver for their lower benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax ratings. The forthcoming mild-hybrid and fully electric versions will be cheaper for BIK tax.

Standard kit is very generous, with the entry-level Comfort trim offering adaptive cruise control, part-leather upholstery, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and heated and electrically adjustable driver's seat as standard.

Noble trim adds a heated leather steering wheel, an electrically adjustable front passenger seats, a panoramic glass sunroof, a 360-degree parking camera, a powered tailgate and red styling details for the exterior, but we don't think it's worth the extra cost.

While the Omoda 5 is too new to have featured in the What Car? Reliability Survey it has been safety tested by the experts at Euro NCAP where it achieved a full five-star rating in 2022. All versions come with plenty of safety kit as standard, including automatic emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot monitoring, a driver monitoring system, lane-departure warning and road-sign recognition.

For extra peace of mind, all Omoda 5s are offered with a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty. That’s more than MG, Nissan and Volkswagen offer, and the same as Kia's cover. 

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