Is GWM a Good Car Brand? Pros, Cons and What Owners Should Know

 GWM is strong on the things you can count and weaker on the things you feel over years. You get more equipment per dollar than almost any established rival, a seven-year unlimited-kilometre warranty, five-star safety ratings on key models, and chassis tuning developed in Australia. Against that sit owner reports of software bugs and cabin material quality, inconsistent dealer service, critical reviews of specific models, and resale data that is genuinely mixed. Whether it is a good brand for you depends on which of those lists you weight more heavily.

The Verdict at a Glance

Measurement	Assessment
Value and equipment	Strong, consistently more features per dollar
Warranty	Strong, 7 years unlimited kilometres
Safety ratings	Good on tested models, with model-specific criticism
Driving dynamics	Improving, after GWM acknowledged the problem
Software and cabin quality	The most common owner complaint
Resale value	Mixed, with conflicting published data

Where This Comes From

This page draws on GWM's published warranty and servicing terms, ANCAP ratings, Australian motoring reviews, VFACTS sales reporting and owner review platforms. It is a judgement piece built on those sources rather than a specification sheet. Reliability and warranty claims specifically are covered in our GWM reliability guide. We are an independent aftermarket retailer with no affiliation with Great Wall Motor.

What GWM Genuinely Does Well

Equipment per dollar. This is the brand's core proposition and it holds up. A Haval Jolion spans roughly $26,990 to $38,990 drive-away, and the Haval H6 Lux petrol sits at $33,990 after a recent price cut. At those prices the standard equipment lists are longer than most rivals offer.

Warranty. Seven years and unlimited kilometres, with eight years on hybrid and electric high-voltage batteries, is longer than most established Japanese and Korean brands provide.

It fixed its biggest weakness in public. GWM acknowledged its chassis tuning needed work in markets like Australia, hired a former Holden lead engineer, took permanent residency at the Lang Lang proving ground and built the AT-1 program around it. Each variant now goes through roughly 24 front and 40 rear damper tunes. That is covered in our AT-1 program guide.

Momentum. GWM sits seventh in the Australian market, with 39,747 sales year to date and growth of 15.6 per cent, in a market that has been flat. Momentum matters because it funds dealers, parts stock and local engineering.

Where It Falls Short

Software and interior materials. Owner reporting consistently describes strong mechanical reliability alongside software bugs and cabin material complaints. Infotainment resets and sensor errors appear repeatedly. These are not breakdowns, but they are the things you touch every day.

Model-specific criticism can be sharp. One Australian outlet's review of the current Jolion concluded that serious safety shortfalls compromise the package, and called the problems indefensible at near $40,000. The same car holds a five-star ANCAP rating. Both things can be true, because a rating and a reviewer's experience of driver assistance behaviour measure different things.

Dealer service. This is the recurring theme in Australian owner reviews, with GWM brand ratings on ProductReview sitting broadly in the 2.5 to 3.0 star range and the dealer listing lower again.

Older cars built the reputation. Much of the brand's negative perception comes from vehicles GWM sold a decade ago. Judging the current range by those is unfair, but so is pretending the perception does not affect resale.

The Resale Picture Is Genuinely Mixed

This is where honest analysis has to admit the data disagrees.

• One Australian analysis of nine utes found the GWM ute first for retained value, holding 98.7 per cent across one model year and 72.7 per cent across four
• Another found a five-year-old Great Wall Steed had lost around 55 per cent of its value
• Broader commentary suggests Chinese SUVs including GWM can depreciate 30 to 40 per cent in the first two years

Those are not reconcilable into a single figure, and anyone quoting you one is cherry-picking. The honest position is that GWM resale varies sharply by model and era, that the brand's sharp new pricing compresses the gap between new and used, and that there is no long-run Australian dataset for the current generation yet.

What It Costs to Run

Servicing is capped for five years and the numbers are modest. On the Jolion, average annual service cost runs around $368 for petrol variants and $404 for the hybrid, totalling roughly $1840 and $2020 across the capped period. The first service falls at 12 months or 10,000 km, then intervals extend to 15,000 km.

Those are competitive figures, and they are published rather than estimated, which is worth something on its own.

Who It Suits

• Good fit: buyers who want maximum equipment and warranty for the money, who keep cars long enough for depreciation to matter less, and who have a dealer nearby they have met
• Good fit: towing and off-road buyers, where the Tank and Cannon ranges now offer hardware that costs considerably more elsewhere
• Poor fit: buyers who change cars every three years, where resale uncertainty hits hardest
• Poor fit: buyers who will be bothered daily by interface quirks, or who travel remote and need deep service coverage

Common Mistakes

• Judging the brand by one model: the range spans budget SUVs to serious off-roaders, and quality is not uniform
• Treating the warranty as the whole answer: it covers cost, not convenience
• Reading one resale figure as the truth: published data conflicts sharply
• Dismissing it on decade-old reputation: the current cars are not those cars
• Skipping the test drive of an older build: pre-AT-1 cars drive differently from current ones
• Ignoring the dealer: on current evidence it is the most variable part of ownership