SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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We drive the 2012 JMC Carrying 1.3-ton dropside

Pics supplied by importer

Carry on delivering

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednsday November 28, 2012

If you think the JMC (Jiangling Motors Corporation) light truck looks rather like an older N-Series Isuzu and sounds like a KB280 from the early noughties, you would be quite right. JMC entered into a co-operation agreement with Isuzu in January 1993 and began building certain body parts the same year. Ford is also involved, with Jiangling manufacturing its own version of Transit vans since 1997. Major shareholders today include JMC and Isuzu at 37,8 percent each with Ford and others owning the balance.

Unlike other Chinese brands that have come and seen but failed to conquer, JMC is in SA as a result of its own desire to establish a presence here, rather than by invitation of a local distributor. Investment in infrastructure and parts presently stands at about R500m and its management is mostly Chinese, although certain key positions are held by South Africans.

The Carrying range (Kairui in its home country) consists of short and long wheelbase small trucks with GVMs ranging from 3100 kg to 5040. They all use the same 84 kW version of Isuzu’s venerable 2771 cc, four-cylinder diesel with a five-speed manual gearbox. Chassis cabs, dropside and van bodies (small pic above), with single- and king cab front ends and in standard or luxury trim, are readily available although customers can naturally specify their preferred body requirements. Our test vehicle was a plain swb, single-cab, dropside in lux finish – that means it had air conditioning and electric windows. A radio and CD player is standard across the range.

Forget any light truck with car-like ambience and handling that you might have driven at some time in your past. This thing is all about work, so forget frills and luxury. The Isuzu diesel, sited right beneath your butt, has a job to do and doesn’t care who hears about it. In typical cab-forward style, you place your feet on either side of the adjustable steering column; clutch pedal to the left and others to the right. Push the clutch pedal in and select first gear firmly.

Others follow in normal sequence although finding third takes practice. It requires a conscious movement to the right, but not far enough over to accidentally shift into fifth. You get used to it although racing changes are best forgotten. Frantic revving is something else you don’t do. The dial is red-lined at 4200 rpm and it’s pointless being silly. The truck will amble along happily at about 2000 rpm in top in city driving, because there is really no need to hurry.

In keeping with its workmanlike image, the Carrying is fitted with fully manual rearview mirrors that require your loyal assistant to hop out and wrestle them into position for you. He will also find that the dropdown sides and tailgate are held in place with simple, sturdy swivel levers and that the panels drop down about 170 degrees until they hit the rubber bumpers provided. The bin is 3100 mm long, 1600 mm wide and 380 mm deep.

The “keep it simple” theme continues with doors that lock manually, although luxury overtones are provided by a mirror on the left visor, two cup holders, a couple of glove boxes and a pair of ashtrays. I read somewhere that people in China smoke a lot – guess this gives credence. Interior fit and finish is somewhat sketchy and the plastic used seems rather light, but the basic vehicle appears solid enough.

With simple, rugged construction backed up by technical expertise from Isuzu and Ford, JMC commercial vehicles should be more than up to the job of carrying your loads well into the future.

The numbers
Prices: Standard – R150 880 and Lux - R158 880
Engine: 2771 cc, direct injection, four-cylinder turbodiesel
Power: 84 kW at 3600 rpm
Torque: 235 Nm at 2300 rpm
Maximum speed: 120 km/h
Fuel consumption (claimed): 8,0 l/100 km
Tank: 63 litres
Tare: 1865 kg
GVM: 3160
Turning circle: 10,4 metres
Warranty: 5 years/120 000 km, with 4 years’ roadside assistance
Service plans: Optional
Service intervals: 10 000 km

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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