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What's the difference?
Nissan Australia and Melbourne-based vehicle engineering company, Premcar, have very successfully combined forces to create finessed versions of the Navara and Patrol as part of their on-going Warrior program.
Premcar has proven it can be entrusted with crucial conversion work, engineering upgrades and the fitment of adventure-ready accessories to add real value to Nissan’s 4WDs.
That’s all well and good but we had a burning question: How will a Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior perform if the weather turns bad, the roads are flooded, tracks are washed out… and your two teenaged kids are in the back seat ready to punch the living daylights out of each other?
Well, with that in mind we embarked on a 3500km trip from Sydney to South-East Queensland and back to put this ute through a series of difficult challenges, some planned, some not.
We dodged around the wild edge of Tropical Cyclone Jasper, we fought our way through extreme electrical storms, and we drove in knee-deep river sand to avoid rapidly rising floodwaters.
So, how did this adventure-ready ute go?
Read on.
Some people just want to save money.
They might know they could spend a little extra to get a brand that has a different reputation, or something that has been reviewed more favourably. Just think about the last time you thought about going to a restaurant for the first time - did you check its reviews? See what people thought? Roll the dice and head there anyway?
That’s the sort of equation you might be considering if you’re thinking about a Great Wall Steed. There are better utes from bigger brands that are available, but none come as cheap as this one if you just want something brand new and with lots of features.
The question is - should you consider it? Should you roll the dice? We’ll have to leave that call to you.
The Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior is a purpose-built adventure vehicle and it’s ready for action as is.
It drives nicely on-road – making those long necessary road-trip days on bitumen less of a chore – and is impressively capable off-road.
Buyers benefit when companies such as Premcar complete top-quality conversion work on vehicles with their design, development and testing undertaken in Australia and all of that work and the fitment of accessories are then covered by a comprehensive warranty.
There will always be 4WD enthusiasts who prefer to cherry-pick their own aftermarket accessories for their off-roader – because researching and hunting is a lot of fun. But there will also be just as much demand for the convenience of adventure-ready 4WDs that are capable of being driven straight out of a car dealership and into the Simpson Desert.
And the Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior is one of those vehicles.
If you simply want a new ute at a low price, the Great Wall Steed could offer a bit of appeal - it’s not terrible, but it’s also far from great…
My advice would be to see what sort of second-hand HiLux or Triton you could get for similar money.
This is the coolest and toughest Navara on the mainstream market.
The Warrior is 1895mm high, 1920mm wide, 5350mm long (with a 3150mm-long wheelbase) and has a listed kerb weight of 2298kg.
It is taller than a standard Navara, with 40mm more ground clearance than its Pro-4X stablemate and the wheel track has been extended by 30mm (from 1570mm to 1600mm) giving it an aggressive posture.
The bullbar, eye-catching red steel bash plates, wheel arch flares, chunky Cooper Discoverer All Terrain AT3s and black stainless-steel double tube sports bar with sail panel all add to that tough appearance.
The Great Wall’s exterior styling is reasonably contemporary, even if the proportions are somewhat ungainly. Consider this - the Steed is one of the longest, lowest utes out there.
The dimensions are 5345mm long on a huge 3200mm wheelbase, with a width of 1800mm and a height of 1760mm. There’s just 171mm of ground clearance for this one, which is the 4x2 model.
The wheelbase looks enormous, and the back doors are quite small considering the length of the vehicle (plus the door handles are huge!). The B-pillars are set back further than they should be, and that makes it hard to get into and out of the second row seats.
The interior design is pretty smart, though — compared with some of the other older utes out there, the Steed has reasonable ergonomics and the controls and materials are of a passable quality, too.
But our car - which had just a couple of thousand kilometres on the clock - had a missing piece of exterior trim, along with a few loose bits and pieces inside. The quality is better than the first-gen Great Wall utes, but we hope the next-generation global ute from the brand will be better again. It’ll need to be.
Inside the cabin, the new updated dash – with an easy-to-use 8.0-inch multimedia screen, which has wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto – is the focal point.
The cabin is a well designed space, a neat combination of nice materials and good build quality. But even with leather accents, ‘Warrior’ branding and other nice touches, the cabin feels a bit old and a little smaller and squeezed for space inside than some rivals.
The driver's seat is eight-way power-adjustable, but the front passenger seat is four-way manually adjustable – and that’s disappointing in a circa-$71,000 vehicle.
There are plenty of storage spaces, cupholders, bottle holders and receptacles in which to place your everyday carry gear.
There’s a USB-A charge point in the console tray, and a USB-A and a USB-C in the centre console proper, as well as a 12V outlet in the console tray and one in the centre console.
The seats are quite comfortable and though some people might whinge about them being undersized I reckon they’re okay.
The rear seat, while comfortable enough, is really the realm of two adults only or three children. It’d be a bit squeezy for three adults.
There is a fold-down armrest with cupholders, as well as bottle holders in the doors, map pockets on the seat-backs, directional air vents but only one USB-A charging point on the back of the centre console.
Get ready for the teenage arguments over that!
As mentioned above, the interior of the Steed is acceptable for a budget ute, but that’s as faint praise as saying “you look fine” to the reflection of yourself in the mirror after a big night out.
The cabin has a few elements to it that are decent - the dashboard design is decent, and the controls are pretty logically placed. If you’re stepping up from a first-gen Great Wall ute, you’ll be blown away.
Things like the big media screen and leather-lined steering wheel, as well as electric front seat adjustment and leather seat trim that feels more like cowhide than repurposed garbage bags this time around will all count toward some positive first impressions.
That said, the screen is one of the most confusing ones I’ve encountered - you have to pair your phone by hitting the icon that looks like a PC tower linked to a phone. Why? Also, the load times on the screen are terrible, and when you put it in reverse the screen simply goes black. There is no reversing camera as standard, which is poor form. You can option it if you want, likewise the sat nav is optional - and it looks a lot like a UBD or Melways. Plus the volume levelling is very inconsistent.
As mentioned above the ingress and egress for rear seat occupants is poor - anyone who has feet bigger than a size six will struggle to get in and out without getting tangled. Once you’re back there, the knee room is tight, but head room is fine.
There is reasonable storage throughout - there are cup holders between the front seats, door pockets with bottle holders and a few loose item cubbies up front, too. In the rear there are map pockets but no other storage options unless you fold the rear seat backrest down.
The Nissan Navara Pro-4X Warrior, based on the SL Navara, only comes in dual-cab guise with either a six-speed manual gearbox ($68,265, excluding on-road costs) or a seven-speed automatic transmission ($70,765, excluding on-road costs).
For your reference, the Pro-4X automatic is $61,405 (excluding on-road costs) and Pro-4X manual is $58,905 (excluding on-road costs).
Standard features on our test vehicle – a Pro-4X Warrior with a seven-speed auto – include an 8.0-inch multimedia touch-screen with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as well as sat nav, dual-zone climate control, AEB, lane-keeping assist, around-view monitor and a rear diff-lock.
Standard paint is 'Black Star'. Premium paint choices are 'White Diamond' and 'Stealth Grey' (on our test vehicle) at a cost of $650. As always, check with your dealer on up-to-date pricing.
As part of the Premcar engineering upgrade more than $9000 worth of extras in the Warrior (over the standard Pro-4X) include a winch-compatible bull bar with integrated light bar, a Nissan Genuine Warrior-specific tow bar, a larger 3.0mm steel bash-plate, Cooper Discoverer All Terrain AT3 275/70R17 tyres (and a full-sized alloy spare), a 100kg GVM upgrade (now 3250kg), 260mm ground clearance (up 40mm, with springs and tyres making up 15mm and 25mm, respectively), 30mm wider tracks (to 1600mm), revised suspension with new spring rates and dampers (aimed at improving ride and handling), and a larger and taller jounce bumper for less impact harshness at full suspension travel.
But, beyond the engineering upgrades, what’s also interesting about the Pro-4X Warrior is what has had to happen behind the scenes, under Premcar’s direction, to get the vehicle to this stage.
Australia has some of the harshest driving conditions and road/track surfaces in the world. Chopped-up bitumen back roads, soft spirit-sapping beach and desert sand through to spine-rattling corrugations.
And those surfaces and conditions put immense stress and strain on vehicles, drivetrains and components.
Premcar designs, manufactures and validates its vehicle work here in Australia in the harshest of conditions those 4WDs may face day in, day out for the term of their vehicular ‘life’. It’s not testing, it’s punishment.
Australia’s aftermarket sector is great – thriving and always innovating – but unfortunately, as in any industry, there are ‘cowboys’ out there and some of the modifications done to vehicles may be, shall we say, less than ideal and even illegal or non-compliant in terms of engineering approval. The work done to your 4WD may even void your vehicle’s warranty.
But, with Premcar’s Nissan collab, any engineering work or accessory fitment on the Pro-4X Warrior is all covered by a Premcar warranty that matches Nissan’s five-year/unlimited km cover.
The Great Wall’s biggest redeeming feature is its price and specs.
You can get a base model single-cab-chassis version for less than twenty grand drive-away. This model is the 4x2 dual cab, which has a list price of $24,990 plus on-road costs, but it’s almost always on special at $22,990 driveaway. Need a 4x4? Pay an extra two grand and you’ll get it.
The Steed offers an extensive standard features list, including auto headlights, auto wipers, LED daytime running lights, front and rear fog lights, 16-inch alloy wheels, cruise control, single-zone climate control, heated front seats, leather trim, a leather-lined steering wheel, a six-speaker stereo system with USB and Bluetooth connectivity and the aforementioned optional camera and GPS navigation. You get carpet on the floors rather than vinyl, too.
The exterior is packed with features tradies will love - there’s a big step bumper to allow easy access to the tray, which has a tub liner as standard as well as a sports bar. Accessing the cabin will be easy for shorties as there are side steps fitted as standard.
The Pro-4X has the Navara line-up’s 2.3-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo-diesel engine, which produces 140kW at 3750rpm and 450Nm at 1500-2500rpm.
That's okay because that engine and auto work really well together, yielding more of a subdued, quietly effective partnership than an exciting one.
This ute has a part-time four-wheel drive system with high- and low-range 4WD, and a rear diff lock.
Great Wall uses a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder with 110kW of power (at 4000rpm) and 310Nm of torque (from 1800-2800rpm), which is only available with a six-speed manual transmission. There is no automatic transmission available. But you can get a petrol engine if you prefer, which is becoming rarer in the ute segment.
The payload capacity for the Great Wall Steed 4x2 is decent for a dual cab pickup at 1022kg, and it has a gross vehicle mass of 2820kg. The Steed has the standard 750kg un-braked towing capacity, but a meagre 2000kg braked towing rating.
Fuel consumption is listed as 8.1L/100km on a combined cycle.
Fuel consumption on this test was 9.9L/100km. That’s fine considering we included a lot of high- and low-range 4WDing during this test’s hours-long off-road section.
The Warrior has an 80-litre fuel tank, so, going by those fuel-consumption figures I’d expect an effective touring range of about 778km, but remember that figure includes a built-in 30km safe-distance buffer.
That's a fair travelling distance for a contemporary dual-cab ute, but keep in mind that your fuel-consumption will be higher than that because you'll be carrying a lot more gear than we had onboard during our test.
That included vehicle-recovery equipment, a portable air compressor, tool bag, puncture-repair kit, a tyre deflator as well as food and water.
The Great Wall has a claimed fuel use of 9.0 litres per 100 kilometres in the spec we tested, and across our testing regimen - which included on-road driving laden and empty for a few hundred kilometres, it managed 11.1L/100km. Okay, but not great.
The fuel tank capacity of the Great Wall is 58 litres, which is small for the class, and there’s no long range fuel tank option.
The Navara line-up had the maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating from testing in 2015, but that rating has now expired.
Safety gear includes seven airbags (dual front, front-side, curtain and driver’s knee SRS items), AEB, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, intelligent lane intervention, blind-spot warning, a surround-view monitor (with moving object detection), rear cross traffic alert and more.
The rear seat has three child-seat anchorage points and one ISOFIX point each on the left and right seats.
Off-road driver-assist tech includes off-road monitor, tyre pressure monitoring system, hill start assist, trailer sway control, hill descent control and an electronic locking rear differential.
This top-spec variant is missing adaptive cruise control and is not quite as comprehensively equipped with driver-assist tech as some of its rivals.
There isn’t a lot of happy reading here.
The Great Wall Steed scored an abysmal two-star ANCAP crash test safety score when it was tested in 2016, though under the disclaimer that score applies to ‘4x2 petrol dual cab variants only’. That’s nasty, especially considering it has dual front, front side and curtain airbags as standard in dual cab form.
There is tyre pressure monitoring and rear parking sensors as standard, but a camera isn’t fitted as standard. There is no auto emergency braking (AEB) or any other advanced safety tech, either.
But it has ABS anti-lock brakes, electronic brake distribution, stability control, hill descent control and hill hold control. There are three-point seatbelt for all seating positions, and if you dare, there are dual ISOFIX child seat anchor points and three top tether points in both models.
The Navara range is covered by a five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty and capped price servicing. That’s adequate in terms of years, not the best, but the unlimited km factor is in its favour.
Service intervals are set for 12 months or 20,000km. Capped price servicing is available for up to six years, with prices ranging from $574 for the first service through to $916 for the sixth service. The annual average is $703.50. Not particularly cheap.
Great Wall introduced a five-year/150,000km warranty in April this year, which is good for a challenger brand but doesn't push the boundaries for the ute segment. There is three years of roadside assist cover as well.
There is no capped price servicing plan, but the Steed requires maintenance every 12 months or 15,000km (following an initial six-month checkup).
Concerned about problems, issues, faults, common complaints, transmission or engine reliability? Check out our Great Wall problems page.