Omoda 5 Review 2025

So, you’re in the market for a family-sized SUV, you’ve looked at the usual movers and shakers, but wait… Could you be tempted by an alternative model that offers more equipment and power for your money albeit from a manufacturer you’ve never heard of? Sounds too good to be true — read our full Omoda 5 review to find out if it is.

Every car brand was new at some point, so it’d be foolhardy to ignore Omoda’s wares simply because it’s a fresh name to our ears.

It’s one of a flurry of Chinese brands that’s arrived in Britain — with many more to follow — in this case sharing showroom space with another newly hatched marque, Jaecoo. Both are part of the Chery manufacturing group, one of the bigger players in China. In other words, they’re new to the UK, but not to building cars.

Least expensive of the trio of models available is the Omoda 5 we’re scrutinising here. It’s a combustion-engined, five-seater SUV, similar in size to the popular Nissan Qashqai. It’s already gained a foothold on the British market courtesy of its temptingly low pricing, which starts at a smidge under £26,000. Not only is that over £4500 cheaper than the least-costly Qashqai, only two versions of the smaller Nissan Juke will set you back less.

Its showroom siblings are its electric-only, near-identical twin — the Omoda E5 we’ll review separately — and the larger, plusher plug-in hybrid Omoda 9. Completing the family, for now, is the Omoda 5’s close cousin, the Jaecoo 7, which is both larger and available with petrol-only and PHEV power options.

Helping keep costs down is the very straightforward Omoda 5 model mix comprising of one propulsion choice and two trim levels. Providing the motive power is a turbocharged 1.6-litre petrol engine, free of any degree of hybridisation, producing 186PS and driving the front wheels via a seven-speed automatic transmission.

Comfort is the highly specified entry-level trim with the top-ranking Noble costing just £1800 more, with its notable kit upgrades being dual-zone climate control, an electric sunroof and tailgate, plus a 360-degree camera system.

Styling-wise the Omoda 5 doesn’t cut new turf — if anything, from the rear and side it could be mistaken for a previous-generation Nissan Qashqai. Given that model’s popularity, it’s evidently an agreeable shape to many.

Where Omoda has gone to town with the 5 is the more daring diamond-pattern grille motif which dominates the front bumper, picked-out which chrome-look highlights so that it’s not entirely lost when a darker paint hue is specified. It works far more successfully than the dummy third side window behind each back door — if their role is to create unnecessary blind-spots, they perform brilliantly.

Five adults together will find the 5 a tight fit and other SUVs also have the Omoda licked for boot space, but for a quartet of averagely sized folk and a moderate amount of luggage it doesn’t feel too compromised. The dual-screen, largely buttonless dashboard looks contemporary and minimalist but isn’t equally slick in operation, even when you’re used to the controls’ positions.

Those gripes aside, the Omoda 5 still represents almost as much metal as better-known rivals in the forms of the Ford Kuga and Hyundai Tucson, yet it's cheaper than the much more compact Ford Puma and Hyundai Kona.

Its most direct alternative is the recently launched second-generation MG HS — it’s a similar size to the Omoda 5, while their starting prices are within a whisker of each other.

So, is there a catch with the Omoda 5?

Well, yes, there is — you don’t need to spend long with one to home-in on the cost savings that help generate those double-take-inducing prices. Principally, it lacks refinement — specifically in terms of how the engine and gearbox interact and the ride comfort and handling imbalance. Cheaper-feeling interior fixtures found lower down inisde the cabin are understandable and forgivable.

That aforementioned lack of hybridisation also results in fuel economy levels that would have been disappointing in a family SUV a decade ago, while the consequential high CO2 emissions mean it’s unlikely to interest company car drivers at all.

There is a caveat, though. Being so inexpensive when pitted against competitors of similar — and smaller — sizes, the Omoda 5’s relative lack of polish could well prove to be a compromise that customers are happy to accept.

An automotive equivalent of the Primark Principle, then? Quite possibly, which will mean the Omoda 5’s biggest challenge won’t necessarily be potential customers’ initial lack of familiarity with its name — no, it’ll be why should they buy one when a GWM Haval Jolion Pro, with hybrid power, could be theirs for £24k? When competing primarily on price, offering the most for the least is vital.

It’s an inconvenient truth that none of us have to venture very far in the UK to encounter terrible road surfaces, although doing so reveals one of the Omoda 5’s weaker points all too easily. It rides too firmly too much of the time, with the suspension arrangement lacking a sufficient degree of sophistication to absorb and round-off those many asphalt imperfections.

Aside from on those lesser-spotted glass-smooth highways that appear to have been rolled-out no more than 24 hours earlier, the Omoda 5 rarely feels settled, constantly jiggling about as the dampers start dealing with the latest ripple before they’ve finished with the last. The result is near-constant movement through the Omoda’s body which is immediately transmitted to its occupants’, spoiling the 5’s passenger-cosseting potential.

More sound-deadening material wouldn’t go amiss, either, as the clonks from the suspension as it goes about its business are disconcerting.

If you’ve read those opening paragraphs anticipating that such firmness creates a happy byproduct of keen handling, then banish such thoughts. Driven as it will be 99% of the time, the Omoda 5’s steering and brakes feel anaesthetised when it comes to feedback, but you never feel wary about how it’ll behave.

What may occasionally catch you out when pressing-on a bit along a windy back road is a notable reduction in the tyres’ adhesion if an enthusiastic degree of pace is ambitiously angled into a corner. You’re immediately aware that it’s not tracing the bend as accurately as it does at lower speeds, but only because your eyes are telling you so because it’s not communicated via the wheel. Once you’ve scrubbed a little gusto off, that tendency to push wide evaporates.

Again, it’s all safe and predictable, but it serves as a reminder that for those who derive pleasure from driving, the Omoda 5’s a fun-free zone.

Unless you want to experience the electric-only drive system of the Omoda E5 we’ll review separately, there is but a sole combustion engine and transmission pairing for the Omoda 5 covered here.

It’s a surprisingly lusty 1.6-litre petrol-fuelled unit, with its urgency not ramped-up by any level of electrical assistance as part of a hybrid system, but by tried and trusted direct-into-the-cylinders fuel injection aided and abetted by a turbocharger.

That combination ekes 186PS of power and a very useful 275Nm of torque from as low as 1750rpm, making the Omoda 5 usefully sprightly when tackling an overtaking manoeuvre. Its 7.8-second 0-62mph time isn’t to be sniffed at, while the essentially academic top speed of 128mph still warrants a nod of appreciation.

Channelling that drive to the front wheels is a seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox that to all intents and purposes is driven as any conventional automatic transmission would be. Its here where much of the engine’s good work is undone, although we suspect rather than due to a design flaw, it’s more that the software controlling the transmission’s behaviour needs refining.

Two niggles in particular soon become apparent, one being a split-second hesitancy when moving off from a standstill. At urban speeds it’s less noticeable, but go for a gap on a roundabout across a busy dual carriageway and you’ll experience muscles clenching you didn’t even know you had during that brief latency between hoofing the accelerator and the Omoda scooting off.

It’s when driving steadily that the other one becomes apparent, particularly when the cruise control’s been set to hold the Omoda at a maintained speed. On several occasions the 5’s transmission seemed unwilling to pick a ratio and stick to it. Even at 60mph it regularly dithered between sixth and seventh, seemingly responding to every angle change in the road’s topography and not just the more acute ones.

Theoretically, those gearchanges should be actioned to optimise fuel efficiency, but given the frequency they occur, we wouldn’t be surprised if they’re having the opposite effect.

Perhaps a legacy of the same lack of sufficient sound-deadening that blights the Omoda 5’s suspension, there’s no escaping the sounds generated by the engine and transmission, particularly when both are being worked hard. That wouldn’t be at all bad if it was a suitably sonorous soundtrack to complement a well-executed overtake, but disappointingly it’s more of a metallic din. Smoother, less excitable progress would be championed by all occupants’ ears.

We also found that the automatic gear selector proved to be surprisingly tricky to master, even following a period familiarity. Rather than a directly linked mechanical lever, as is common in many of today’s automatic cars, it’s more of a glorified switch.

It seems far too easy to pull it into Manual (M) mode when you were after Drive (D), while on other occasions, despite being sure it had been pushed sufficiently forwards to engage Reverse (R), a lack of movement when releasing the brake confirmed the Omoda was languishing in Neutral (N).

On a much more positive note, the crash-testing aficionados at Euro NCAP don’t give out five-star safety ratings easily, so the Omoda 5’s top-level score warrants applause.

When tested in 2022, a date that reflects it’s been on sale elsewhere in Europe long before it arrived in the UK, the Omoda 5 scored 87% for both adult and child occupant protection, 68% for vulnerable road users and 88% for its on-board crash-prevention technologies.

Those include standard-fit automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-departure warning and prevention, rear cross-traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors, plus blind-spot detection. If you are unfortunate enough to be involved in a collision, then the seven standard airbags, including the side window-covering curtain variety and one between the front seats, will prove a welcome inclusion.

If you’re considering an Omoda 5 because you plan to tow heavy then you’ll likely need to revise those intentions if you wish to haul more than its 1100kg braked trailer limit.

Despite the Omoda 5 being of similar external dimensions to the Nissan Qashqai, its designers haven’t managed to liberate as much of the space within its sleek body for passengers and their belongings.

All Omoda 5s have an electrically adjustable driver’s seat, with the passenger side being altered manually on the cheaper Comfort version. The front seats are sufficiently supportive, despite our initial reservations about their integrated headrests, although the cushions do feel rather high-set.

Taller drivers aren’t likely to feel robbed of headroom, but they may feel as though their eyeline is closer to the top of the windscreen than in other similarly sized SUVs. Overall, it’s a straightforward job to achieve a satisfactory driving position.

Moving to the back seat, a six foot-tall passenger should find legroom’s just about acceptable with the front seat positioned for someone of the same height, but headroom does feel compromised due to the Omoda’s tapering roofline.

Although there are three seatbelts on the rear bench, would-be passengers will want to draw straws to avoid the notably less comfortable middle position.

Storage space in the passenger area is decent enough, the centre console of the dashboard being a two-tier design with a shelf and USB-sockets beneath, a lidded cubby, twin cupholders and a couple of angled, felt-covered phone placeholders above.

The left of those is equipped with wireless charging and a cooling vent, but despite trying a number of handsets, with and without covers ade of different materials, none would reliably remain in position while the Omoda 5 was being driven, gaining no additional power as a consequence.

Boot space in the Omoda 5 is disappointing when compared with its rivals’ statistics. Rear seats in place and up to the height of the parcel shelf just 380 litres of cargo space is available. That’s 86 litres less than the slightly smaller Hyundai Kona, while the similarly proportioned Nissan Qashqai has between 455-504 litres available, depending on the trim level and MG’s latest HS offers 507 litres.

Fold the 60:40 split bench seat over, which doesn’t lie flat, and Omoda quotes the 5 at 1915 litres. Given that’s significantly more than the Qashqai’s 1447-litre best and the HS’s 1484-litre maximum, we suspect the Omoda’s figure is for total interior storage space, including the glove box, door bins and so on.

Mimicking a mediocre football commentator, the quality of finishes inside the Omoda 5 really is a tale of two halves — albeit upper and lower, not the first and second.

That’s not terrible news given most of the areas your fingers will come into contact with inside the Omoda feel pleasingly good given its low purchase price. The soft sheen finish to the centre console is far more convincing in terms of substance than the gloss black horizontal strip across the dashboard’s width, as well as being far less prone displaying an array of fingerprints, but everything feels screwed together sufficiently well.

We’d be curious to revisit an Omoda 5 once it’s covered the equivalent of a typical year’s driving to see if its unsettled ride quality had induced any rattles and squeaks from the interior fittings, regardless of how well they’d been initially assembled.

Inevitably, cheaper plastics that sound thin when tapped are used further down inside the Omoda 5’s interior, with the glovebox being a particular lowlight for the grade of grade of material used for its moulding.

Faux leather upholstery is used for the seats and steering wheel, which feel of a similarly acceptable quality to that used in far more expensive cars. For the seats we’d have preferred a fabric alternative, but as this is your only choice it’s more than acceptable.

As is the way these days, a pair of screens sit along the upper edge of the Omoda 5’s dashboard — they’re both 10.25-inch displays set within a single, curved pane that blends neatly into its surroundings.

First impressions are positive although when being used while driving, both feel smaller than is ideal, particularly the driver’s instrument display where the graphics are squished together. It looks busy with little differentiation between font sizes and their prominence to quickly determine what you’re looking at without taking your eyes off the road for longer than periods.

It feels less of an issue with the infotainment touchscreen, which is logically arranged with various tiles resembling apps, responding to prods swiftly and displayed with clear renderings. You’ll likely use the smartphone mirroring for the majority of the time, anyway. Happily, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connect both wirelessly and quickly.

Less useful is how often your view of Google Maps and other phone apps is lost because you’re using the touch-sensitive panel of virtual buttons just below the screen, such as when adjusting the interior temperature. Those red and blue up and down arrows for doing just that also feel a bit too far to be within comfortable reach — they could have done with being swapped over in the conversion to right-hand drive. That would have added to the costs, of course…

Physical buttons are present and correct on the steering wheel and work well enough once you’ve mentally logged where each function resides.

Sound reproduction from the eight-speaker Sony system is unlikely to delight seriously indulgent audiophiles but we’ve experienced many alternatives in doubly expensive cars that can’t touch the clarity and richness of those in the Omoda 5. For the money, they’re impressive.

To get behind the wheel of the entry-level Omoda 5 Comfort you’ll need to shell-out a modest £25,915. It’s no hair-shirted special that’ll itchily remind you that you didn’t spend more with every passing mile, either.

In fact, unless you desperately want dual-zone climate control, an electric sunroof and tailgate, a 360-degree camera system and the option of forking out more for a contrast-colour roof, there’s no real reason for choosing the Omoda 5 Noble range-topper. Except, perhaps, that with a price difference of just £1800, it still significantly undercuts most of its rivals.

Take the Nissan Qashqai, where the 140PS, manual transmission, Acenta Premium grade range-starter costs £30,615. Only two versions of the smaller Nissan Juke cost less than the Omoda 5.

What about Hyundai? The 5-sized Tucson costs upwards from £33,080, while the compact Kona is at least £26,140. It’s a similar story at Ford where the smaller Puma’s £26,350 price for a base model is shaded by the cost of the Omoda which is dimensionally closer to the Kuga.

There’s greater competition from a pair of recently launched SUVs that are also imported from China. Starting at £25,995 the second-generation MG HS has impressed us so far and generally feels a step ahead of the Omoda 5 in most regards.

While we’ve yet to drive the GWM Haval Jolion Pro, it’s hard to ignore that it costs from £23,995 and that’s for a model with a petrol-electric hybrid system.

Galena Silver metallic is the only standard paint colour for the Omoda 5, with six other solid and metallic hues available for an extra £500. Plumping for the pricier Noble specification also opens the opportunity to spend an extra on a two-tone colour scheme.

Stick with Galena Silver and an Obsidian Black roof and pillars is yours for £500, while £1000 buys you the same roof colour with the optional Selenite White body or if you’re feeling more daring, a Selenite White roof with Jade Green bodywork is the same price.

While it’s inexpensive to buy, the Omoda 5’s disappointing fuel efficiency makes it far from a bargain to run, which is why it’s not been awarded five stars here.

According to the WLTP Combined cycle test, the Omoda 5’s 1.6-litre, non-hybridised petrol engine returns an average of 31.4mpg. Over the course of testing one for our review, the trip computer suggested we were averaging close to 33mpg — while that’s better than the official score, it’s nevertheless a disappointing figure for a family car in 2025. Expect to be visiting a filling station every 350 miles or so at best.

Disappointing fuel consumption figures go hand-in-hand with high CO2 emissions — an output of 170g/km isn’t something to boast about and it effectively renders it of zero interest to company car drivers as it’s in the highest 37% Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) taxation band. For comparison, the electric Omoda E5 is taxed at just 3% in 2025/26.

Grasping for positives a little here, the Omoda 5’s low prices ensure it’s not remotely in danger of being subjected to the government’s Expensive Car Supplement premium payable on models costing over £40,000, while the standard seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty will have appeal to private buyers who intend to hold on to their Omoda for the long-term.

Trim level structure for the Omoda 5 range is very straightforward with just two specifications to choose between — Comfort and Noble.

Standard equipment on the Omoda 5 Comfort includes 18-inch alloy wheels, LED daytime-running, head and tail lights with automatic main beam, automatic wipers, electrically adjustable, heated and automatically folding door mirrors, keyless entry and starting, darkened rear privacy windows, automatically holding brakes, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera.

Once inside you’ll also find dual 10.25-inch screens for the driver’s display and multimedia system, DAB radio, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity, an eight-speaker Sony audio system, a dashboard-mounted wireless phone charging pad with integrated cooling, a six-way electrically adjustable driver’s seat, faux leather upholstery, air conditioning and all-round electric windows.

Take the £1800 step-up to the Omoda 5 Noble and your extra outlay gains you a four-way electrically adjustable front passenger seat, an electric sunroof, an electrically operated tailgate, dual-zone climate control and an air filter, heated front seats and steering wheel and a 360-degree surround-view camera system.

Given the high level of specification as standard, the range of options for the Omoda 5 is understandably limited.

For Comfort-grade models, personalisation’s limited to which of the optional £500 paint colours you might fancy — even if Garnet Red and Jade Green aren’t to your taste, at least there’s some vibrancy on offer beyond shades of greyscale.

Noble specification Omoda 5s can also be upgraded with three two-tone paint schemes for between £500 and £1000, in addition to a £600 swap for 19-inch alloy wheels of a sportier design than the standard 18-inchers.