Domestic 10-15 million grade A-class coupe, has been the world of the joint venture brand, the representative models are Civic,? Lange, Corolla, Hennessey and so on. A few sales of domestic brands can rank the top models, the main price is also below 100,000 yuan. This is both the reason for the relative strength of the joint venture brand, but also the reason that the domestic brands have been in the 10-15 million range lack of A-class heavy sedan.

But national brands don't want to be left behind. Recently listed Geely Starry, priced at 113,700-149,700 yuan, called the Chinese national sedan subversive, to the strength of the class, to challenge the same price of the A-class joint venture car. 2.0T power, the widest body and longest wheelbase in the same class, more luxurious interiors and configurations ...... Geely Starry's outside is said to be a class, but its internal workmanship The first thing you need to do is to get a good look at the car and the materials used. Compared with similarly priced joint venture cars, is it really as generous as its appearance? We wanted to find out.

So, this time, we found a Starlet and a Ranger to carry out a pair of demolition tests. What's the difference between the two in terms of materials and workmanship? It should be noted that this dismantling is not to compare the high and low, but just want to take a peep at the domestic and joint venture in the "invisible place", the quality of their cars and craftsmanship are at what level? After all, the Lange is the A-class car dominant, so far in the country has sold 4.7 million cars. The Starlet is a new model that has just been launched. This old one and new one just represent a fascinating clash of two forces.?

Look at the chassis section first. Raising the body, I found that the chassis of the Rangie is extensively covered with resin protection plates; the exhaust channel is also made of full-coverage heat-insulating aluminum foil, and the front section has been fitted with aluminum alloy guards, and the rear section has been sprayed with a rust-proof layer. The overall leveling is very good. However, we noticed that its stock engine guard is a plastic plate, and it's torn in several places. It seems that this plate only provides the most rudimentary protection.

▲LangYi chassis

Looking at the suspension again, the LangYi's suspension is a front MacPherson + rear torsion beam suspension. Its front control arm, a single sheet of steel, is a bit thin.

▲? The front control arm of the Ranger

The rear suspension uses a torsion beam suspension, which has the advantage of being low-cost, not taking up much space, and guaranteeing ride space, which is a mainstream choice for JVs at this price point.

▲Rear Torsion Beam Suspension on the Lanyard

The longitudinal rocker arm of the rear suspension, with one end attached to a spring and the other welded to a torsion beam, is also a single-layer steel plate. It's easy to see that it has a simple, compact suspension structure for both the front and rear wheels.

▲Longitudinal rocker arms for the Rangie's rear suspension

Overall, the Rangie's chassis is moderately well made, with good flatness, and a relatively simple suspension structure and materials, which is the idea that just enough is good enough.

The eye turns to the Starlet. Raise the body, found that its chassis is also basically a full package, and removed to find that the Starry's guard plate as a whole are used composite resin material, better than plastic strength, and taking into account the performance of sound insulation. In addition, Starlet's chassis exhaust direction is the same as that of the Lanyard, which is also more organized and intuitive. The exhaust heat insulation area is also fully wrapped with aluminum foil.

▲Singray's chassis

Singray's front suspension also adopts MacPherson structure, but the front control arms are made of double-layer steel plate stamping and welding, which is thicker than that of the Lange. It also has holes punched in it to reduce weight. In addition the steering knuckles are made of aluminum.

▲Starlet's front control arms

Coming to the Starlet's rear suspension, it uses an E-type multi-link structure and incorporates a lateral stabilizer bar. In addition to giving the rear wheels a better follower effect and better handling performance. It also allows for better ride comfort for rear passengers.

▲Starring Rui's E-type multilink rear suspension

Looking closer, the E-type multilink structure looks much more complicated and takes up a lot of space, which is usually only found in larger B-segment cars or above.

▲Starring's E-type multilink rear suspension

Additionally, there are subframes at the front and rear of the Starring's chassis, and the joints between the subframes and the car body are lined with rubber bushings, which can effectively absorb the impacts of road surfaces and improve the NVH performance of the entire car. In addition, the subframe also enhances the connection stiffness of the suspension system, which makes the chassis tighter and more sporty.

▲Starray chassis adopts front and rear subframes

Additionally, Starray's chassis highlights include the longest suspension travel in its class (185mm at the front and 203mm at the rear), which provides longer cushioning space to ensure better comfort, and also ensures better grip on all four wheels. Moreover, the wheels of the Starlet have a negative camber design, commonly known as "outward curvature", which improves the grip of the tires when cornering.

▲ Starlet tires with negative camber design

Through the comparison of the chassis, we can see that Starlet, compared to the Lange, no matter the material or design, is really more willing to spend money on a lot of details.

Removing the front bumper of the Lanyard, I found that it still has a crash beam (indicating that there is still no cutbacks), and it has a layer of cushioning foam wrapped around the outer layer of the crash beam, which reduces the damage when collided with at low speeds and provides some protection for pedestrians.

Removing the cushioning foam layer reveals that the Rangie's front bumper beam is basically still a piece of tin, made of steel, with a cap-type open structure for the side section, and the energy-absorbing box at the rear is also made of steel.

▲Front bumper and energy-absorbing box

Taking a look at the cabin of the Ranger, the overall layout is neat, the wiring harnesses are tidy, and most of the harnesses are wrapped by bellows and insulating tape to ensure durability of the harnesses. The cabin firewall is insulated with fireproof insulation foam and hemispherical grain aluminum panels for thermal and acoustic insulation. Weld seams in the cabin are coated with sheet metal adhesive, which is applied rather liberally, although the sizing is thick.

▲Engine compartment of the Rangie

Overall the front end of the Rangie is quite generous, at least it has what it needs without cutting corners.

Look at the front end of the Starlet again. Removing the front bumper reveals that the Starlet's front bumper is painted the same blue color as the body, and is a closed box structure that looks at least a little thicker and more resistant than a piece of tin, and the energy-absorbing box looks larger than the Ranger's. Using a magnet to test it in real life, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the front bumper and the rear energy-absorbing box are, in fact, made of aluminum.

▲Starlet's front impact beam and energy-absorbing box

Why the surprise? Aluminum front bumper beams are usually standard on luxury cars, and are rarely seen on B-segment cars. And the Starlet is just a $100,000 or so A-segment car. The benefits of aluminum bumper beam is "light", than the same strength of the steel bumper beam is 2/3 lighter, two is "hard", the same quality of aluminum alloy strength is 3 times that of steel. The third is "energy absorption". In fact, in addition to the impact beam to be hard, more importantly, in order to absorb energy, some people have done calculations, the collision of steel impact beam can absorb 50% of the energy, while the aluminum impact beam can reach 70%, aluminum alloy absorbs energy than steel to absorb the ability to 40% higher. That's why so many luxury cars have aluminum front impact beams as standard equipment.

Opening the Starlet's hatch, you can see that the internal layout alignment is also more organized, with the wiring harnesses wrapped and insulated, and the internal structure appears fuller due to the larger engine volume.

▲ Starry's engine compartment

The biggest difference between the two in the front part of the car is the front bumper, a steel, an aluminum, and the latter absorbent box size to be larger.

Removing the rear bumper, the Ranger's rear crash beam is also steel and has the usual German bow-type beams, with energy-absorbing boxes on both sides as well, bolted to the longitudinal beams.

The Ranger's rear bumper is also steel, with the usual German bow-type beams.

▲Rear Crash Beam of Ranger

The dimensions of the energy-absorbing box of the rear crash beam, we use a screwdriver to make a comparison.

▲Demonstration of the size of the rear bumper beam energy-absorbing box of the Lanyard

Opening the trunk lid, you can find the spare tire pool of the Lanyard, without any isolation treatment, the white body is directly exposed. The sense of class is almost interesting.

▲The spare tire of the Ranger?

Removing the rear insurance cylinder of the Starlet to reveal the rear bumper beam, and using a magnet to actually test it, I found that this time, the rear bumper beam, including the energy-absorbing box, is not made of aluminum, but steel.

▲Rear bumper and energy-absorbing box

Why did StarElite use aluminum front and steel rear? Personally, I guess there are two reasons: First, the steel rear bumper is relatively low maintenance cost and difficulty, while the domestic high speed limit is more, the relative speed of rear-end collision are not too high, there is not much need to use aluminum bumper. This is why the domestic Mercedes-Benz BMW and many other luxury cars, the rear bumper beam are used in high strength steel. Secondly, even if a high-speed rear-end collision, the trunk also has enough space to collapse the energy absorption, the impact on the passenger compartment is not as big as the front end of the collision, many times even if the tailgate hit the car can still drive. But once the front end collision, one is the engine compartment is hit, the repair cost is very high, and even the possibility of scrapping. Second, the energy will be extruded through the engine compartment, directly to the passenger compartment, the risk of injury to passengers is higher. That's why "aluminum front and steel rear" is a common practice for many domestic luxury cars, and Starlet has clearly taken this standard into account.

The same screwdriver is also used to compare the size of the energy-absorbing box, which is obviously larger than that of the Lanyard. And from this angle, it's clear that the StarElite's rear bumper also covers a larger area than the Lanyard.

Demonstration of the size of Starlet's rear impact absorber

Lifting the trunk panel again reveals that the Starlet's spare-tire compartment is fully encased in acoustic foam, which is usually found only in higher-level B-segment cars. This detail also shows that StarElite pays more attention to soundproofing performance.

▲Starlet's spare tire?

After the comparison of the rear part of the car, it is found that the Ranger rear bumper, energy-absorbing box, etc., should have all, which is quite generous. But in comparison, in terms of size, workmanship and materials, the Starlet is still more solid and more advanced.

Removing the interior portion of the doors, let's take a look at the differences between the two cars. The Ranger's doors use a hard plastic sealing cover, the wiring harness is wrapped rather sloppily, just simply take the insulating tape wrapped around, and you can even see the flowery wiring harness inside. I have to say that the workmanship on this detail is a bit too casual.?

Removing the plastic cover of the rear door, you can find asphalt shock absorbing patches laid inside the door panel to prevent the door from vibrating and rattling. But it's still the same problem, the wiring harness is wrapped very casually and almost all exposed.?

Removing the interior of the Starlet's front door panels, it's clear that the Starlet's detailed workmanship is a notch above. This is reflected in several details: first, the sealing cover is larger, and is made of thicker and softer foam, compared to the hard plastic of the Ranger, it is thicker and has a better waterproof and soundproof effect. Second, the wiring harnesses are wrapped more tightly, so you can't see the color of the wiring harnesses inside, unlike the Ranger, which is flowery and green.

▲Starlet's front doors

Removing the rear door's interior panel reveals that it's crafted exactly the same as the front door.

Looking at its Styrofoam cover up close, it's clear that the thickness and texture are much better than hard plastic.?

Writing in conclusion

With this simple teardown, it's easy enough to draw conclusions. Although the price point is similar, but the two cars in the unseen places, materials and workmanship, the difference is still quite large. Many people feel that the competitiveness of domestic cars, mainly by piling high configuration, and then pull down the price, relying on cost-effective to PK with joint venture cars. but from this Starry and Rangyi demolition, it is not difficult to find like Geely such a national brand, has not been satisfied with the role of "cost-effective," but hope to use a higher grade of materials and workmanship, better quality, to enhance the "price-performance" role.

In addition, many people have this habit, may feel that the domestic brand outside to do very luxurious, the inner is not necessarily how good. Joint venture car outside the more simple, but the inner is after all the joint venture blood, quality workmanship is certainly better than the national brands. But the demolition proved that, at the same price, the Starlet such as domestic cars, many aspects are better than the joint venture car. Hopefully, this teardown will also reverse some people's prejudices. We also hope that more and more domestic cars can get rid of the reliance on "high cost performance" and conquer consumers with higher quality.

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