2024 GWM Cannon XSR on/off-road review (inc. 0-100, turn assist & braking): RIP Ranger Raptor?

CarExpert

GWM has launched an off-road monster. It's the 2024 GWM Cannon Ute XSR. It comes with front and rear diff locks, rock sliders and a snorkel. Is it any good? Paul Maric finds out!  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More GWM content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/gwm More GWM Ute content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/gwm/ute  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 01:03 Interior: 04:31 Infotainment: 05:45 Safety Tech: 07:25 Practicality: 08:01 On-road: 10:35 Performance: 18:14 Off-road: 20:36 Verdict: 30:42  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #gwm #cannon #review

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul at GWM. They are bringing so many cars to Australia at the moment, and

00:04 while the Canon, their version of the ute, has been out for a little while now,

00:09 they've just added this variant to the lineup, and I'm pretty excited by it because it brings

00:13 a stack of features, but not for a stack of price. It's called the GWM Canon XSR, so it's the top of

00:21 the tree in the Canon ute range. It is priced at just under $53,000, drive away. But if that's too

00:28 expensive, the entire range kicks off at under $40,000, drive away. This competes with things

00:33 like the Toyota Hilux Rogue, kind of competes with the Ford Ranger Wildtrak X, and also the

00:39 Mazda BT-50 Thunder. They're kind of more off-road oriented versions of their standard vehicles.

00:45 Today we're going to do a detailed review of this, including some light off-road driving,

00:48 so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the timecodes that

00:52 are on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below,

00:55 and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon,

00:58 so you can find out every single time we drive a new GWM.

01:02 Now let's talk design. So your optional colours are $600, your white is a standard colour,

01:09 big open section here on the grille. Never really understood this logo, it kind of looks like a

01:15 Google Maps, Waypoint, TomTom style thing, but it is the logo that's on their car, so it is

01:20 actually, it does stand out a fair bit when you see these coming, because I always see it and I'm

01:24 like, what is that? Full LED headlights over here, the XSR model, have a look at this,

01:28 gets steel front and rear bumpers, so it is definitely gauged for more off-road driving.

01:34 Unfortunately, GWM hasn't given us approach and departure angles, but to me, this actually looks

01:39 like it has a far better rake at the front there to give you better accessibility to off-road

01:43 tracks, so I'll be interested to see how that goes when we do a little bit of light off-roading.

01:48 You've got tie-down points under here, they're not rated, so you won't be using those to snatch

01:52 this out of here, but in the aftermarket, they actually have a stack of rated recovery point

01:56 options for you if you do want to do a bit of that. In terms of the off-road specs, and I'll

01:59 run through this in more detail later on, this gets a front and rear diff lock, so it's kind of

02:04 like the Ford Ranger Raptor in terms of the equipment that it gets there, which is pretty

02:07 cool. Over on the side here, you've got a set of all-terrain tyres, so they actually look really

02:13 good, so they're Cooper Discovery AT3s. Worth pointing out here that we haven't driven this

02:18 in the wet. The Ranger Raptor with the KO2s in the wet is diabolically bad, so I will be keen to

02:24 have a proper crack in this when it is wet to see how it performs, hopefully significantly better

02:29 than the Ranger Raptor, because I think it's probably a bit too much of a compromise for regular

02:33 on-road driving as a comparison. Red brake callipers under there, don't be fooled, it

02:39 doesn't have some incredible braking system, they've just painted those red. Big wheel arch

02:43 cladding here, you get a snorkel as standard on the XSR model, which is good. Look at these side

02:48 steps, I'm often complaining about how chintzy and cheap side steps are on dual cab utes. This

02:53 is like a proper steel setup, so really impressed with that. I like that they've gone to a bit of

02:58 effort here to actually differentiate this from the rest of their range instead of just making

03:02 it kind of a sticker pack. You have roof rails up the top here, you've got privacy glass, you've got

03:08 a sports bar up the back here for tying things down on if you do need to. More wheel arch cladding

03:13 here, I love the fact that this has rear disc brakes as well. Some brands, including Mitsubishi

03:18 with the new Triton, still aren't in the current day and age and stick with drum brakes instead,

03:23 strangely. Around the back, full LED taillights, you've got a steel rear bar, including a step for

03:30 retrieving things from the tray if you need to. A couple more recovery points here. Again, we don't

03:35 know if they're rated or not, so I wouldn't rely on them, I'd go with an aftermarket option if you

03:39 do need to. I like the fact that the camera is central as well, so when you do actually hook up

03:43 anything to tow, this has a 3,000 kilo brake towing capacity, it is going to be central to

03:48 line up, which means it is going to be much easier to connect. This is another great innovation too,

03:52 so you've got hydraulics here for the tray, but you also have a step as well, so you push into here,

03:57 step drops down, and then you can climb in there without toppling over, so I think that is a really

04:04 good thing to see, and it's nice to see they've thought about that stuff. Inside the tray,

04:07 you've got tie-down points off to the side, and in terms of tray dimensions, the load length is

04:12 just over 1,500 mil, and the load width is a little over 1,500 mil as well, and in addition

04:18 to that, you have a payload of just under 900 kilograms. So, Canon XSR, what do you reckon?

04:24 Do you think this is where it's at for that $50,000 price bracket? Keen to hear your thoughts,

04:29 let me know in the comment section below. So, we're inside the Canon, this is what the key

04:33 looks like. You've got remote start, panic, lock, unlock, and then on the back, you've got the GWM

04:40 logo, that way I think. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket,

04:45 and then you have a push-button start down here. I really like that they've gone to a lot of effort

04:49 with this cabin just to make it look nice, and this is a $50,000 car, and I just keep saying that

04:55 because it amazes me how you can spend significantly more than that on a dual-cab unit in Australia,

04:59 and it doesn't feel anywhere near as nice as this does. So, I'm talking soft-touch finishes

05:04 up on the top there, you've got this quilted finish on the doors, even the seats look nice

05:09 and fancy as well, so good on them for giving it a crack and actually making you feel like you're

05:13 getting great value for money here, including a sunroof there as well. In terms of your touch

05:18 points, that's firm there, soft on the door. How soft is it? We've got our durometer, we've tested

05:24 the main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've

05:28 tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. Now, build quality, what is

05:32 it like? So, a little bit sort of flexy in the centre there, but all of this feels OK. This is

05:38 what the door slam sounds like. Now, let's talk infotainment. So, you've got a 9-inch infotainment

05:48 display there. Ahead of the driver, you have a smaller 7-inch LCD display. Start off here with

05:53 the infotainment. It's a pretty straightforward setup, doesn't have any inbuilt satellite

05:57 navigation. They lean on your smartphone mirroring for that. On the radio front, you have AM and FM

06:02 radio, no DAB, and only a six-speaker stereo. Stereo is fine, sort of nothing to write home

06:08 about. In here, though, you do have the settings for the rest of the vehicles, little bits and

06:13 pieces like your comfort, lights, ADAS settings and all that sort of stuff. Apple CarPlay and

06:18 Android Auto, they're both wired. This is what Apple CarPlay looks like. Tiny bit laggy as you

06:23 flick through it, but not the end of the world. And this is what Android Auto looks like. So,

06:28 again, wired, full-screen integration, slightly faster than Apple CarPlay, which is good.

06:35 And then, in addition to that, you also have a voice assistant that uses the car's internal

06:39 voice control to do commands, but I just prefer to use the... Cancel. I just prefer to use the

06:46 phone one. I love the accent. But I just prefer to use the phone one. I just think it's easier

06:52 to forward commands through Siri or the Google, whatever it's called, the Google equivalent.

06:57 Now, in terms of the screen ahead of the driver, there isn't really a great deal of customization

07:02 there, and it can be a little bit frustrating to use, like getting back to the main menu

07:07 outside of all of these warnings and settings that come up. You have to push and hold the OK

07:12 button until it clears, and then if you do go anywhere near a line, for example, and it wants

07:16 to bring up another warning, it then brings you back to that screen. So you can't actually ever

07:20 get back there quickly. It is quite frustrating to use sometimes, so hopefully they do fix that

07:24 soon. On the safety front, you've got autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist

07:29 detection. You've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. Strangely, you've got a provision for it,

07:33 but there is no blind spot monitoring. So that is a bit of a head scratcher, that one.

07:37 You have rear cross traffic alert, rear parking sensors, and a 360 camera. I'll show you what

07:42 that looks like. So there it is there. Quality of that's excellent, so you can clearly see out of

07:46 that, and then you can also zoom in if you need to and go from a 2D to a 3D view as well, along

07:53 with the sides of the car. Not a bad setup at all. That's what the horn sounds like.

07:58 Moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. You've got two USB-A

08:05 ports down the bottom here. You've got a 12-volt outlet. Interestingly, there is actually a button

08:10 up the top here to control the 12-volt outlet as well, which I haven't seen before. You have

08:16 another USB-A outlet up the top here for dash camera. You have a wireless phone charger.

08:22 In terms of storing your little bits and pieces, you can pop your phone down there.

08:26 You've got ample storage here that actually has a cover on it as well. And then let's have a look

08:31 at bottle storage. So you've got teeth in there to hold your bottle in place, which is good.

08:35 Bottle storage inside the door. We'll see how big the bottle fits in there. Yes, it does,

08:42 which is excellent. You've got additional storage just here next to the driver's knee,

08:46 plus this centre section here as well that's nice and deep. You have a glovebox down the bottom

08:51 here that's pretty reasonably sized as well. Finally, a sunglasses holder up the top here.

08:56 OK, so comfort. You have single-zone automatic climate control. You have heated seats for the

09:02 driver and front passenger. You have electric seat adjustment for the driver and front passenger,

09:07 so you can go forwards and backwards. Your backrest can go forwards and backwards.

09:11 You can lift the back of the seat, but you can't lift the front of the seat,

09:15 which I find a little bit annoying. I wish I could sort of get the front of the seat up a

09:18 little bit. Steering offers both tilts and reach adjustment. And on our reach test,

09:25 all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving.

09:27 OK, so second row. Before I hop in, let me show you some of the little

09:32 bits and pieces here. So you can lift the base of the seat. Once you do that,

09:35 you have a little bit of storage under there for odds and ends. But in addition to that,

09:40 you can also fold the back of the seat down as well. And in there, you're going to find just a

09:47 little bit more storage as well for things like the jack. You'll also find your two top tether

09:52 points in there as well. Pop inside. Let's have a look here. Look at that. I've got heaps of

10:00 knee room there. That's awesome. Toe room's great. Headroom is really good as well. You've got mat

10:05 pockets back here. You've got air vents. You have a 220-volt power outlet there. You've got a USB-A

10:11 charger as well. Got a centre armrest here. No cup holders, but a place to rest your arms. That

10:18 is actually an interesting point. There are no cup holders back here outside of the doors, so

10:22 that'll be a nice addition to have back here. ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with two

10:26 top tether points as well. Now, window test. So it's auto up and down. Look at that. All the way

10:33 down as well. Excellent. So we've hit the road in the Canon XSR. What's this thing all about? Look,

10:41 it is all about off-roading, and that's why they've gone down the path of snorkel, all-terrain

10:47 tyres, front and rear diff locks. It is really just designed to give you a vehicle that is ready

10:52 to operate off-road. But does that compromise it on-road? Well, that's what I want to figure out

10:56 now. So under the bonnet, you've got a 2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder diesel engine. Makes

11:01 120 kilowatts of power and 400 newton-metres of torque, which, to be honest, really isn't much

11:07 at all. If you have a look at the rest of the competitors, Ranger Hilux, they're both at 500

11:11 newton-metres now. New Triton's just been revealed. That's at 470. 400 is well and truly way down on

11:18 where it needs to be, especially for a vehicle that's now adding on weight. You've got the

11:22 snorkel, you've got the side steps, front and rear steel bars. Like, it is really just stacking

11:27 on the kgs, but they haven't increased the output. And as a result of that, it's all mated to an

11:31 eight-speed automatic transmission. It is pretty lazy, so you get stuck into it, and even when it's

11:37 at full noise, it doesn't really do a great deal. Biggest issue for me, though, is how laggy it is

11:43 from a standing start. I'm going to show you what I mean. I'm going to come to a full stop here.

11:46 All right, there it is there. What I'm going to do is just stand on the throttle and just watch

11:52 how long it takes to do anything. So I'm on the throttle, nothing, nothing, nothing. Now I've got

11:56 stuff. That is a massive delay, and you can just imagine if you are driving on a road, you need to

12:02 give it some beans. It is waiting a long time for that to spool up and get moving. You can go

12:07 aftermarket and get throttle adjusters that will actually give you a sharper throttle response,

12:12 but ultimately I think it just needs to come down to GWM giving this thing a little bit more punch

12:17 under the bonnet. GWM claims a combined fuel economy of a little under 10 litres per 100kg.

12:24 We are currently sitting on, and this is another frustrating thing, you've got to push and hold

12:27 OK to exit the lane departure menu. We're currently sitting on 9.7, which is actually

12:34 pretty good. It's significantly better than I thought it was going to be, given how lazy the

12:38 engine is. I guess that is probably what you'd expect from it, but it's good that it doesn't

12:42 use a huge amount of fuel. This operates slightly different to the rest of the Can-Am range,

12:48 because instead of being a full-time four-wheel drive, this is actually a part-time four-wheel

12:53 drive. So it's predominantly in two-wheel drive high range. You need to move it to four-wheel

12:57 drive high range manually for it to be a four-wheel drive vehicle, but you can't use that on sealed

13:03 surfaces. And if you want a better understanding of why that's the case, you can click up here to

13:06 watch a video we've recorded before on four-wheel drive controls. So not a huge detriment, because

13:12 you do get that added four-wheel drive equipment, but it is one of the downsides to the rest of the

13:16 Can-Am range that is a more permanent four-wheel drive solution that you can use on a sealed

13:21 surface. Okay, let's jack the speed up to 130 k's an hour. I want to see what this is like across

13:27 our sine wave. So we do this at 130 because it's the maximum speed limit in Australia. If you're

13:33 going to be buying this in regional Australia, it's highly likely you're going to hit that speed

13:37 when you're overtaking on a choppy section of country road, which there is plenty of.

13:42 See what the body control is like at that top end at 130. It's actually surprisingly good.

13:49 That's actually really impressive. So it has good body control there. It's pretty well sorted.

13:54 You've got leaf springs under the rear, and typically these vehicles, if they're not settled

13:59 and they don't have weight in the back, they tend to be a bit sort of all over the place.

14:03 But this is actually not too bad. It is a little bit choppy in and around the city, but it's a

14:07 compromise I'd be more than happy to make for that kind of compliance on the highway. Okay,

14:12 bumpy road time. Worst road in Australia. What's it like? We do this at 90 k's an hour.

14:19 So you can hear in my voice already that it is pretty choppy. So while you get the benefit of

14:24 compliance over the sine waves there, it tends to be a little choppy here. Here comes our condensed

14:29 sine wave. Yeah, probably just lacks that little bit of refinement that they would have found if

14:38 they actually did the tune here in Australia. It just feels like it's probably a bit of a generic

14:42 tune. It's on the firmer side of comfortable. Probably just needs a little bit more work.

14:48 Now in terms of road noise, there is actually a fair bit of road noise that comes into the cabin.

14:52 A lot of it is wind noise around the snorkel. I just think they've kind of just slapped it on

14:56 and not really thought about the sort of dynamics of what that's like for wind noise inside the

15:01 cabin. So you do tend to notice that at highway speeds, which is just a little bit disappointing.

15:06 Let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the vehicle there,

15:09 the wing mirrors are nice and big to see down the side, and then visibility out the rear is

15:13 great as well with that envelope. Turning circle comes in at just under 14 metres. It's on the

15:19 bigger side, but I guess that's what you expect from a dual cab ute. Now we don't have a sport

15:25 mode, but we have cross country expert mode. I'm going to pop it into that. We're going to go for

15:30 a punt around the track here. See what this feels like. I've just left it in two wheel drive mode,

15:36 so it's gone out of cross country expert mode because we've exceeded predefined speed,

15:40 but we'll see how it feels anyway. Yeah, look, it's got a fair bit of body roll there, but there's

15:47 a surprising amount of traction from those all-terrains. Typically, all-terrains tend to

15:52 kill all your fun, but this is holding on really nicely. I just have my foot flat to the board.

15:58 I don't think we've driven a slower car here in terms of how much it's accelerating. You could

16:05 possibly just hold it flat through the whole track. That's quite funny. Yeah, I don't know,

16:12 I just reckon they could have just wound it up a little bit. If this had 500 newton metres of torque,

16:17 this would genuinely be a rival there to the Ranger in terms of how that performs around here.

16:24 The Ranger is quite a dynamic vehicle, and this has the bones to it. It just needs that little

16:30 bit more punch. So, yeah, I'm pretty impressed with how this is performing at the moment in

16:34 terms of handling, which really shouldn't be this good given the type of equipment that's

16:38 currently fitted to the car. Okay, so time to test the autonomous or semi-autonomous driving

16:46 features. So I'm going to set cruise at 70 k's an hour, and then once it's 70 k's an hour,

16:53 we'll just wait for it to engage the lane centring function, and once that is active,

16:59 we'll see how it performs in terms of keeping the vehicle in the centre of the lane. So there's 70,

17:04 I've got that active, it's pretty much sitting on the line there. I don't love that.

17:11 Yeah, I don't love that at all.

17:13 It kind of needs to be nudged into position. It is trying to pull the steering in, but it's

17:23 not really doing an amazing job. I'll jump over to the next lane and see how it performs up here.

17:30 Wait for that to activate.

17:31 Okay.

17:36 A very good system, and it's kind of gone straight onto that line there.

17:44 Now it's randomly veering over there. Yeah, this is really not a very good system at all.

17:52 I think it probably needs a little bit of work. We actually found the same story in the

17:57 tank as well, where it just kind of just makes up its own mind in terms of what it's doing. So

18:02 yeah, really not very impressed with that. So yeah, I think the semi-autonomous driving

18:08 function here really needs some work. Yeah, not very good. Okay, time to do some performance

18:15 testing. I'm going to tell you about Help Me Car Expert first. So Car Expert, it's a big company.

18:20 We have a stack of Veta dealers that have cars in stock like this thing here, and those Veta dealers

18:27 are primed to get you guys the best deal. All you're going to do is Google "Help Me Car Expert,"

18:32 and all the details are on the page there. Okay, so we're going to do a little bit of

18:36 performance testing here. We'll see how it goes. We're going to go from zero all the way through

18:40 to 120. So it'll give us a zero to 100 and an 80 to 120 as well. I'm going to go into that

18:46 cross-country expert mode just so there's no traction control on, and we'll see how we go.

18:53 All right, pretty leisurely.

19:07 Okay,

19:14 we have to use our exit road here, running out of space.

19:17 And there's 120. All right, and we just made that.

19:24 We are in the depths of the exit road here. Okay, so zero to 100, 12.72 seconds, and then 80 to 120,

19:39 11.96 seconds. That is crazy. So it took almost as long as it did from zero to 100 to get from 80

19:46 to 120. So I think that shows you just how, I guess, underpowered this engine is. It really

19:52 needs a bit more grunt to get it moving along. So all right, let's head back and do a break from 100.

19:58 Okay,

19:59 100.

20:04 All righty, let's have a look. Typically on all terrains it's not great. 2.95 seconds,

20:16 41.04 metres. That's actually a pretty impressive stopping distance for a vehicle like this on all

20:21 terrains. So yeah, not a bad effort there. And now our reverse acceleration test. There we go.

20:32 All right, 40 kilometres an hour. Okay, let's do a little bit of light off-roading. We'll see

20:40 how this performs. I want to run you through the four-wheel-drive specs to start with. So

20:44 GWM doesn't have approach and departure angles. They don't advertise them for some bizarre reason,

20:49 but the approach and departure angles of the non-off-road version effectively are 27 and 25

20:55 degrees respectively. So that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit something at

20:59 the front, and then the departure angle is the same but at the rear. Ground clearance of almost

21:03 230 millimetres. And in terms of off-road equipment, so I mentioned earlier you've got

21:07 front rear diff locks. You have four-wheel-drive low range, four-wheel-drive high range,

21:12 two-wheel-drive high range, three off-road modes. In addition to that you have crawl control,

21:17 so that's a speed adjustable hill ascent and descent feature. You have turn assist,

21:22 which I'm going to demonstrate a little bit later on, and then you also have a standard

21:27 hill descent control as well. So it is jam-packed full of gear. So what we're going to do,

21:32 I'm going to go over our offset mobile first in two-wheel-drive high range. We want to see how

21:37 well the traction control system works and whether it is capable of limiting wheel slip and getting

21:43 you where you need to go without switching into four-wheel-drive high range. We do this test with

21:47 every single car that we test here, so it's just a really good indicator of how well it actually

21:53 works as a two-wheel-drive. So here we go, we will line it up, nice and dry today, so it should

21:58 actually do okay. So we'll approach our mogul here, wait till we get that rear tyre off the ground.

22:06 Once that rear tyre is off the ground I'll just lean into the throttle here and see how well

22:11 traction control works. I'm leaning into the throttle now, I can see the traction control

22:16 light flashing. It's actually doing a really good job, but yeah we're in two-wheel-drive high range,

22:22 nice. That's actually done really well. So previously with the Canon we've had issues

22:28 with the traction control system. Here on the other hand it's done a great job of limiting

22:33 wheel slip and then just getting us over the obstacles, so really nice job there.

22:38 Okay, time to give four-wheel-drive high range a crack, so I'm going to switch this over to

22:42 four-wheel-drive high range. In terms of the modes you have here, what have we got? We've got

22:47 this mode which is sand, we have snow and then we have mud mode. So each of those is going to

22:54 adjust the way that it interacts with traction control, but we'll just leave it on four-wheel-drive

22:58 high range for the moment and just see how it performs over this. So creep up to here, get it

23:05 into a situation where we have a cross axle setup, so we have only two tyres with traction. So that

23:13 is just there and then I'll lean on the throttle and we'll see how well it performs. So here we go.

23:19 I can hear traction control kicking in there, lean on the throttle a little bit more.

23:26 Yeah, nice. That has done an exceptional job. Very impressive there, so I didn't have to engage any

23:35 diff locks or anything like that. It is worth calling out as well that the rear diff lock works

23:40 in two-wheel-drive high range as well. So that is pretty cool. Let's head over to our hill.

23:45 I'll give that a crack now. Okay, so it is time to tackle our hill. Given this has so many features,

23:51 let's just try it with the rear diff locked in low range for the moment and then if it struggles,

23:57 I can then pop it into the front diff lock mode and then we'll come back and try it again with

24:01 the crawl control feature. So that's in low range, I'll lock the rear diff as well. All right,

24:07 that's all engaged. Let's give this a shot and see how it goes. So just gradual throttle up here.

24:13 This is ridiculous. What a walk in the park. That is unreal. Look, it is pretty dry here at the

24:26 moment but I've got to say it was absolutely effortless just then. So yeah, incredibly good

24:33 effort there. No dramas at all. So we'll go back and give that another crack. I reckon we'll even

24:37 skip the stopping part and I'll just go straight into the crawl control mode. Let's try our hill

24:42 descent here. So I'm going to disengage the rear diff lock, pull the hill descent on and then we

24:49 will see how it goes once we crest this. I can't actually see anything over the edge there so

24:53 pop that camera on. Nice, I can see with that camera running. So here we go.

24:59 To the top here, come to a stop and then let go of the brake.

25:02 A little touchdown there as we crested.

25:06 Yeah, nice. It's also pretty slow down there, nothing too crazy. So we'll head back again and

25:15 give our hill a crack with crawl control running. So you activate it by pressing this button here

25:23 and it comes up here asking you what speed you want to use and you use cruise control to adjust

25:28 that speed. So I'm just going to let off the brake now and just see how it runs up here.

25:34 That's set on level three. So here we go.

25:38 This is ridiculous. Just a walk in the park. That is unreal. It is just cruising through that.

25:53 Genuinely wasn't expecting this. I know that this terrain isn't really all that difficult but

25:57 this has caught out a few vehicles before and I think it just shows you that you just need a

26:01 really well-sorted four-wheel drive system and then you're going to be right as rain.

26:05 Now it is worth mentioning at this point as well that you do have off-road thermal management mode

26:09 so it actually runs the fans a little bit longer and harder to dissipate the heat under the bonnet

26:14 there. So a really good feature if you are doing some more hardcore off-roading. So there is no

26:19 speed management on the hill descent control but with the crawl control running you just set the

26:26 speed here using cruise and away it goes. So pretty good. Okay time to go over the rocks. I'm

26:32 going to leave the rear diff lock engaged and I'll just load up the brake with the throttle.

26:39 Let's see how it goes through here. So just under 230 mil of ground clearance. I have noticed it

26:48 touch down a couple of times now just like then. So yeah it is okay but I'm just thinking that if

26:57 you are going to be doing anything sort of too crazy I probably want to be getting just a slight

27:02 bit more of a lift just to make it easy. But in terms of comfort here over the rocks actually

27:06 doesn't feel too bad. It's not sort of throwing this around too much which is good. All good.

27:13 Very happy with that. One thing I have noticed here is we are getting a lot of interference from

27:19 the traction control when the diff is locked. Like right now it's almost coming to a complete

27:26 stop because it's constantly trying to apply traction control when I have part throttle load.

27:31 And I think the only way to overcome that is actually to switch everything off. The setting

27:38 is disabled in the current sub brake state. Yeah so I think that's probably something they need to

27:42 sort out because when I turn the steering and have throttle applied it's trying to apply traction

27:48 control when the diff's locked which is bad news for everyone involved in that equation. Both the

27:55 rear diff lock and the traction control system is just going to be forever fighting each other. So

28:00 that's something that I think they need to sort out. But let's go through our river crossing now.

28:06 It's around 650 mil. This has a wading depth of 700 mil so I'll be interested to see how this goes.

28:12 And we'll lock the front diff for this one as well and just see how this performs. So here we go.

28:17 We've got the snorkel. We're all set. Okay.

28:23 Yeah nice. No dramas there. All right here's our climb out. Let's see how much clearance we have

28:31 there. Yeah no touching which is good. All right. Stay on the throttle here. Beautiful.

28:40 Very straightforward. Alrighty. Now last thing I want to show you is turn assist. So I'm going to

28:46 set the car up here so I can demonstrate exactly how this works. It's designed to break individual

28:52 wheels to tighten your turning circle. So I'll show you what I mean. Right now I've got it in

28:56 four-wheel drive high range. I'm just going to do a u-turn here. You can get a feel for exactly what

29:03 this is like. So you can see there it's pushing pretty wide and then I'll straighten up there

29:09 and that gives you an idea of what it's like normally. Now let's try it with turn assist on.

29:14 Okay so we are starting from the same position again. I've got to put it into low range for turn

29:19 assist to work. Once low range is active you have to engage crawl control and then turn assist.

29:29 Wait for that to go solid. There it is. Now what I'm going to do is the same thing again. Just put

29:35 full steering lock on. Now what it's doing it's breaking individual wheels. So it's breaking an

29:40 inside wheel there and overcoming that braking with a little bit of engine throttle.

29:47 And there it is there. It is a much tighter turning radius and it's going to be useful for

29:54 things like trails and stuff where you've got tight u-turns. This will help you really tuck it

29:58 in there and turn it around. You don't want to be using this on sealed surfaces but on unsealed

30:03 surfaces like this where you have that degree of slip it's going to be perfectly fine. So in

30:08 terms of this as an off-road vehicle it's actually performed really well. It's done a good job here

30:13 with little fuss. I am a little concerned by that traction control system though. It is constantly

30:18 biting and it appears you can't totally switch it off when you have the diff locks active in four

30:23 wheel drive low range. Well I couldn't figure out how to do it so that is going to ultimately

30:27 affect the way this performs off-road because you're going to be battling the diff lock and

30:32 the traction control the entire time which is going to get pretty bloody frustrating. But let

30:36 me know if you've driven one of these off-road extensively. What is it like? How do you overcome

30:40 those things? I'm keen to see your feedback. So Canon XSR, what do we reckon? Look I think

30:49 it's actually really commendable. The price is ridiculous but ridiculous in a good way. It is so

30:54 cheap compared to some of the competitors in this segment that charge so much more for the same kit

30:58 that you're getting here. It is let down by the engine though. I reckon it needs a stack more

31:02 punch than 400 newton meters and the traction control systems when you are off-road probably

31:07 need a little bit of tuning as well. But outside of that I think they've actually done a really

31:11 good job here in terms of delivering excellent value for money and a vehicle that you shouldn't

31:16 be afraid to modify. I think with a few mods this would be a go anywhere dual cab ute and probably

31:21 with a couple of very minor engine mods it'd have the punch that it really needs. So let me know

31:25 what you think in the comments section below. Do you reckon this is good value for money? Would you

31:29 be considering one of these over some of the more well-known brands? I'm keen to see what you think.

31:34 If you did enjoy this video please make sure you like it and share it with your mates and if you

31:37 haven't done so already subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time,

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