Malaysian made cars are
lemons! Do you know that you are being discriminated?
If you are reading this today, I would assume that you are a
proud owner of a Malaysian made car. Maybe you have more than one at
the moment since Malaysian households can afford to have more than
one nowadays.
Malaysian made cars have all been legendary but all for the wrong
obvious reasons. It doesn’t really matter whether you are buying new
or used, the following problems are widely reported by Malaysian
made car owners all over the country:
Mysterious creaking noises
inside the cabin that can never be solved,
Front and rear bumpers
that falls out of place after receiving small bumps,
Cabin
ventilation that is not working properly,
Excessive understeer and
oversteer,
Electronics that went hay wired every now and then,
Regular occurrence of broken lamps and tail lights,
Doors, engine
lids and bonnets that cannot be closed properly,
Noisy and
unreliable power windows and
The list goes on and on.
This is what you get by having local car manufacturers that has
links with the ruling government. Most of our local car
manufacturers or assemblers are GLCs (Government Linked Companies)
or BGCs (Bodek Government Companies). Having the ruling government
as their benefactors gave our local car manufacturers or assemblers
a lot of advantages. The most obvious is the ability to cover up and
hide their poor and low quality cars from the knowledge of the
public through dubious grey policies made by the government. The
government as benefactors, in their position as policy makers can
easily create new policies that would protect their beneficiaries or
withdraw any existing policies that may jeopardize them.
In developed nations such as those in the US, Europe and Japan,
they do not have any such nonsense. As matter of fact, consumers or
car owners are being rightfully protected by their local laws. Over
there, cars that did not meet the standards of quality, performance
and expectation are called lemons. The law that protects consumers
and car owners from defects and irregularities are called lemon
laws. Lemon laws are actually laws and acts that are being regulated
at state levels to provide remedy and comfort to consumers and car
owners that ended up purchasing lemon cars. The best thing is that
their lemon laws not only cover new cars but used cars as well! As
matter of fact, the rights accorded to consumers and car owners can
exceed the warranties that are stated by car manufacturers and
assemblers themselves! The most powerful and strictest lemon laws
available today can be found in the state of California, US.
Californian lemon laws are an absolute terror to car manufacturers
and assemblers. There are many legal firms in the US, Europe and
Japan that specializes in handling cases concerning lemon laws. I
have a few friends in the US that recently won lawsuits made against
used car dealers that provide them with horrifying lemon cars. Their
lemon cars were later replaced by better cars due to their winning
lawsuits!
Back to Malaysia, to date we do not have anything similar that
really protect the rights of the consumers and car owners. It is the
other way around instead! There are dubious policies here that if we
look at it closely actually silently protect the local car
manufacturers and assemblers! How selfish can they be? Even though
today we have a so called Malaysian Tribunal for Consumers Claim
that was established in 1999 to help the public in filing complaints
or seeking compensations for damages, the tribunal has failed to
provide immediate assistance to car owners. It is mainly due to the
fact that there are just too many ambiguous policies that are
inadequate and insufficient in protecting the rights of local car
owners. In the end, local car manufacturers, assemblers and used car
dealers were all laughing their way to the bank!
That’s it fellow Malaysians. This is why I personally feel that
Malaysian made car owners are being discriminated indefinitely by
our very own policy makers. While you ended up driving around in
lemon cars, those at the top just close one eye and pretend that
everything is great! It is not too late though to fight back and
redeem our rights as Malaysian consumers. I am sure that sooner or
later more and more Malaysian would realize what they are missing
legally and this would later turn into noises that the Malaysian
government simply have to listen. Maybe it is high time that every
Malaysians get to know more about lemon laws in the US, Europe and
Japan. Learn more about their legal system and spread the news
around to friends and colleagues. If we all pool our resources
together, it would not be impossible to initiate that crucial first
move towards introducing similar lemon laws here in Malaysia. It is
time that we make them pay for all of our sufferings, isn’t it?
Now that you know what you have been missing all this while, do
you feel that you are indeed being discriminated in your own
country? Please place your vote down below.
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