Reliability stakes
GWM made waves locally, stamping their authority on the workhorse market with their well-priced and rock-solid range of Steed bakkies. They also branched out into the passenger car market with the Florid and C range of small sedans. The H range of crossovers and small SUVs followed but were soon taken over by the advent of the Haval brand.
Related: GWM Steed 5E Xscape - Rolling with the big guns
GWM is the holding brand for Haval, and as Haval has made a name for themselves in the reliability stakes with the H1, H2 H6 and H9 SUVs. It's fair to say that the brand has done well here. The question of reliability is a strained one as any vehicle is only as good as it gets maintained.
GWM still exists as a separate brand in SA, selling the Steed and P-Series bakkies with the small hatches and sedans being discontinued. These bakkies have proven to be incredibly well-built and solid machines that can take a lot of abuse.
GWM has a well-stocked parts warehouse - in fact, you can buy all the components necessary to build a complete Steed bakkie with off-the-shelf parts - so aftermarket support won't be much of an issue. Obscure and rare parts will need to be ordered from overseas if unable to be sourced locally. If need be you can actually use aftermarket parts suitable for the Toyota 3Y or 4Y engines, so that won't be a problem, and body / chassis parts are very similar to Isuzu items, so that shouldn't prove too much of a hassle either.
The P-Series bakkie has been a hot seller and GWM SA claims to have the same type of stock holding as the Steed range but we have heard of supply shortages causing parts availability issues.
Verdict
As for durability and reliability, the mechanical bits are well-proven, so it should run for a long time. In short, the GWM bakkie range is generally robust, and with reasonable care, will last you a long time.
