First impressions: Jetour T1 1.5L first drive - comfort over pace

KUALA LUMPUR: Jetour Malaysia has added a new face to its growing SUV line-up, and it wears the same rugged, adventure-ready look that has become the brand's calling card since the T2 landed here.

The T1 is now on sale in Malaysia from RM129,800, slotting in just below the T2 in the family line-up. Worth clearing up early though: like the T2, it wears a tough, go-anywhere design, but it is not pretending to be a hardcore off-roader.

Even with an all-wheel-drive variant in the range, this is at heart is a lifestyle SUV, built to look the part while keeping the everyday drive easy and comfortable.

Also Read: Jetour T1 launched in Malaysia, priced from RM129,800

To find out how easy, we pointed the entry 1.5L TGDi 2WD east and drove it from Kuala Lumpur out to Terengganu. A few hundred kilometres of expressway, a stretch of coastal trunk road, and plenty of time to work out exactly what kind of car this is.

One caveat before we dive in: our seat time was in the 1.5L only, so everything that follows is a read on that variant, not the 2.0L XWD.

Where the T1 sits

If you already know the T2, the T1 is the slightly softer-styled sibling. Same square headlights, same bold JETOUR wordmark stamped across the tailgate, but the boxy, upright T2 stance gives way to smoother, more contemporary body lines. It sits on the same 2,800mm wheelbase while being a touch smaller overall, and it is assembled here as a CKD model.

Both still lean hard into that rugged Jetour aesthetic, and that is really the appeal. You get the adventurous look and the road presence without signing up for a stiff or compromised drive. Park it outside a cafe or load it up for a weekend away, and it looks equally at home.

What the 1.5L is like to drive

Here is the honest read on the 1.5L: this is a cruiser, not a sprinter. And once you stop expecting it to be the latter, it makes a lot of sense.

Climb aboard and you sit up nice and tall. This is a high-riding SUV and you feel it in the best way, with a commanding view out over the traffic that makes the car easy to place and plays right into the adventure-ready character the styling promises.

In fact, without the side steps, climbing in is a bit of a stretch, and that alone tells you this is not your run-of-the-mill SUV. Or perhaps I'm just short!

Pull out of KL and the next thing that strikes you is how unbothered it is by everything. The 170 PS turbo is tuned for calm, not drama.

There is no shove in the back, no urgency, just a smooth, steady gathering of speed that asks nothing of you. The throttle is soft and progressive off the line, better than than the nervous, jumpy response that plague other non-adventure looking Jetour models, so pulling of the line, crawling through toll queues, traffic jams or car parks is genuinely better.

Out on the open expressway is where the T1 finds its happy place. Settle it into a cruise and it just gets on with it, quietly munching through the kilometres east.

This is where the ride comfort really earns its keep. Our roads serve up potholes, patched-up stretches and expansion joints all day long, and the T1 rounds off the worst of them before any of it reaches you. It is not floaty or wallowy, it simply takes the sting out of a rough surface and carries on.

Refinement backs that up. Wind and road noise are kept well outside, so hours into the drive you can still hold a normal conversation without raising your voice or nudging up the volume. It is a surprisingly quiet, unstressed place to spend a long day, and that suits the car's whole personality.

Would you want to hustle it? Not really. Line up a quick overtake on a two-lane stretch and you learn to plan the move rather than stab the pedal and go. But that rather misses the point.

For the 1.5L variant at least, this is the one you pick when you would rather switch off, settle in and let the drive come to you, and on a long haul like this one, that easy-going nature is exactly what you want.

Over the run out to Terengganu we saw around 10 litres per 100km, well off the rated 6.8. In fairness, a media drive is hardly a hypermiling exercise, all abrupt acceleration and heavy braking, so expect that gap to shrink a fair bit in normal driving.

Two variants, two very different characters

Jetour keeps the range simple with two variants, and the difference between them is worth understanding before you book.

The 1.5L TGDi 2WD we drove is the one for daily commutes, the school run and the occasional weekend highway stint. Its 1.5 litre turbo makes 170 PS and 270 Nm, driving the front wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch. It runs 18-inch wheels, a 12.8-inch infotainment screen and an eight-speaker sound system, with three drive modes: Normal, Eco and Sport.

The 2.0L TGDi XWD is for buyers who want proper shove and genuine all-weather ability. Its 2.0 litre turbo lifts output to 245 PS and 375 Nm and adds the intelligent XWD all-wheel-drive system with seven drive modes, four of them, Snow, Mud, Sand and Rock, aimed at loose surfaces, plus a 600mm wading depth. It also brings the nicer kit: 19-inch wheels, a panoramic sunroof, a bigger 15.6-inch display, a nine-speaker Sony audio system and a powered front passenger seat with leg rest.

Our schedule did not leave us any wheel time in the 2.0L, but everyone who did drive it came away with no complaints about power, which is rather the whole point of stepping up to a 2.0 litre turbo.

Inside and on tech

Both variants come well equipped. Standard across the range you get a 10.3-inch digital instrument cluster, leatherette seats, ventilated front seats, a powered driver's seat, paddle shifters, ambient lighting, a voice assistant, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a 50W wireless charger, seven USB ports, auto rain-sensing wipers and a powered tailgate.

On a long drive in Malaysian heat, those ventilated seats are less a luxury and more a necessity, and the powered driver's seat makes it easy to dial in a comfortable position for the hours ahead.

The material quality holds up well where it matters most. Up front, the soft-touch surfaces are good just about everywhere you regularly look and reach, with the scratchy hard plastics kept to the lower parts of the cabin where they are easy to forgive.

Jetour has done a decent job masking the harder materials in the back too, though look and touch a little closer and it is not quite on the same level as the front.

The top of the rear door card, for instance, is hard plastic, though where your elbow actually falls on the door armrest is soft touch, which is the part that counts.

Space is a real strong suit. The seats are comfortable all round, the cabin feels genuinely roomy, and the rear seats even recline to a properly relaxed angle, so grabbing a snooze in the back on a long journey is easy.

Boot space is generous too, which rounds out its credentials as a do-it-all family SUV. To put that in numbers, Jetour quotes 574 litres of boot space for the T1, expanding to around 1,455 litres with the rear seats folded.

That gives it a clear edge over some obvious SUVs: the Proton X70 offers 515 litres, the Chery Tiggo 7 Pro 475 litres, and the Jaecoo J7 around 412 litres in petrol form. So if outright luggage room is high on your list, the T1 makes a strong case in this company.

All in all, the T1 feels current and easy to live with day to day.

Safety

The T1 comes with quite a  good amounts of safety features. It comes with six airbags, Level 2 ADAS driver-assist features and a panoramic-view camera system as standard, and it has earned a five-star ASEAN NCAP rating with an overall score of 87.67 points. That is reassuring for families weighing it up against more established names.

Pricing, warranty and launch deals

On sale in Malaysia now, the T1 1.5L TGDi 2WD is RM129,800 and the 2.0L TGDi XWD is RM146,800, both for Peninsular Malaysia and excluding registration, road tax and insurance. Jetour Malaysia backs the car with a seven-year or 150,000km vehicle warranty, a 10-year or one-million-kilometre powertrain warranty and five complimentary maintenance services.

Early buyers are looked after too, with the first 2,000 registrations getting a RM2,000 rebate and financing rates from as low as 1.68%. It is available for test drives and bookings at 43 authorised showrooms nationwide, in four colours: Khaki White, Aviation Silver, Sand Gold and Carbon Black.

At this price, the T1 lands in one of the most crowded corners of the Malaysian market. Chinese rivals like the Chery Tiggo 7, the Jaecoo J7 and the GWM Haval H6 all fight in the same space, while the Proton X90 offers a seven-seat alternative and the Mazda CX-5 and Honda CR-V remains the established non-Chinese benchmark for buyers who want a familiar badge.

Then there is Jetour's own T2 at RM156,800 if you want the more rugged look.

First impressions verdict

After a full day and a few hundred kilometres, the Jetour T1 makes a lot of sense as a lifestyle SUV for Malaysia in 2026. The 1.5L is not about pace, it is about comfort, quietness and easy everyday manners, and on a long cruise east it delivered exactly that.

Pair it with generous kit, a five-star safety score, a long warranty and keen pricing, and Jetour Malaysia has given value-focused buyers plenty to think about. If you want more urgency and go-anywhere ability, the 2.0L XWD is perhaps the answer. Either way, the T1 is a genuinely likeable addition to the range.

Also Read: Top 5 things to know about the upcoming Jetour T2 i-DM