Haval H9 review: a genuine Prado alternative, if you can live with the badge
motorssouq Editorial Team
The H9 is the most credible argument yet for buying a Chinese SUV in Bahrain instead of a Japanese one: the hardware is genuinely off-road capable, the cabin is well equipped for the money, and the price gap to a Prado or Patrol is too large to ignore. What it cannot yet offer is a decade of resale data and a used-parts ecosystem as deep as Toyota's or Nissan's. Buy it to drive and keep, not to flip in three years.
Pros
- Genuine body-on-frame off-roader with low range and locking differentials
- Priced thousands of dinars below a comparably specced Prado or Patrol
- Well-equipped cabin for the money
- Composed, settled ride on the causeway
- Tasheelat's Bahrain network has matured since 2019
Cons
- No long-term resale track record in the Bahraini market yet
- Full-size footprint is a tax in older Manama parking
- Fewer independent workshops familiar with it than a Toyota or Nissan
- Combined fuel consumption around 12 L/100 km is substantial
Haval spent a decade selling the first H9 as a curiosity next to the Land Cruiser Prado and Nissan Patrol it was clearly benchmarked against. The second generation, which reached Tasheelat Automotive's Bahrain showroom in 2024, is the first version good enough to be cross-shopped rather than merely noticed. It keeps the ladder frame, adds a stiffer body structure, and pairs a 2.0-litre turbo four with an eight-speed automatic instead of the old car's less refined transmission.
On sand and on the causeway
The four-wheel-drive system offers a proper low-range transfer case and front and rear locking differentials, which is more hardware than most buyers will ever use but exactly what the Bahraini dune-bashing crowd looks for before anything else. On the King Fahd Causeway the H9 is composed at highway speed, with the solid rear axle doing a better job of staying settled over expansion joints than you would expect from the segment.
Around Manama the size is manageable rather than easy — this is a full-size SUV, not a crossover — but visibility and the reversing camera make it far less intimidating than the numbers suggest.
The real question: ownership
Tasheelat has been Haval's exclusive Bahrain dealer since 2019, and the network has grown enough that servicing is no longer a leap of faith. What has not yet been tested is resale after five or six years of Bahraini heat and use, simply because too few examples have reached that age. Buyers converting a Prado budget into an H9 purchase are getting more standard equipment and a lower monthly payment; they are trading away the certainty that a Toyota badge still buys in this market.
Who should buy one
Buy the H9 if you actually go off-road, need seven real seats, and plan to keep the car long enough that resale uncertainty stops mattering. If you need the reassurance of a fifteen-year-old resale curve, a Prado is still the safer, pricier choice.