What’s this thing about Perodua issuing recalls for Myvis?

Earlier this week, the Malaysian Reserve paper reports that the car might be recalled in the near future to fix certain issues relating to the drive shaft (article found HERE). Perodua has since denied that there will be such a recall saying they suspended production only for a day after discovering some parts of the car is not according to specifications.

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To date, I have not heard of any increase of drive shaft being broken on Myvis but the way Perodua handled this case is a little strange:

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1) why the secrecy if it’s just “some aspects of the car” that won’t affect the safety of customers? They probably don’t want to cause widespread panic but they could have turned this situation around by reinforcing their dedication towards quality & sacrificed profits for a day to resolve a discovered issue(s) without any delay.

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2) how frequent, what methodology are QC test done? Is it on all pre-delivery vehicles or random sampling?

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3) why shut down the entire plant if it’s just a car (or a couple) in the hundreds that’s produced facing this issue? Making a lemon out of a couple of hundreds if not thousands is normal so why halt production if it’s such a small issue that does not warrant a recall? Running a factory isn’t cheap so stopping it for a day has significant cost …. unless the issue affects a greater number of cars & Perodua might be playing it down.

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The last time Perodua issued any recall was in March this year to replace the electronic power steering column which saw 74,000 Myvi units sold between March 2011 to March 2012 affected. The EPS issue then, when it occurs causes the steering to feel heavy between speeds of 30-40kph and could be temporarily resolved by restarting the car.

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The issue at hand, as stated by the Malaysian Reserve is a broken drive shaft. It’s considered a critical component as it adversely affects the handling of the vehicle if it snaps and turning anything off in the car won’t do any good. I wonder what exactly happened in that 1 day closure. Manufacturing a car would mean two things: the parts or components used and the process of assembling them together.

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If the issue is true and limited to a substandard drive shaft delivered by a supplier, who knows how many of such parts has made it to the factory (and/or to the market). Even if they did discover the problem on day 1, it is highly doubtful that the supplier has extra drives shafts (and those that meets the quality requirements) that can be delivered to the factory within 24 hours OR Perodua decides to change suppliers and coincidentally Supplier 2 has extra shafts lying around. One other possibility is that Perodua has more than a few on-par drive shafts and have different production lines with different suppliers but this makes no sense as this would severely limit economies of scale in negotiating the best price for bulk purchases.

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Changes to the assembly process is more likely the case as an improperly fitted drive shaft could cause it to fail prematurely. If Perodua maintains that every single car that comes off the assembly line is strictly inspected and halting the factory is part of the SOP once a critical failure is discovered, correction measures can be taken within a short period of time as this is a factor within control of the company. Again, this is assuming that the discovery of the problem is timely and the response is immediate. I can’t help but wonder if this was the case, why don’t Perodua come up and clarify this matter. It would build consumer confidence if such an SOP is in place.

Regardless, we may have more than a couple of new Myvis already running around with drive shafts that could go bonkers with little warning. Best check with Perodua if you know anyone who has just purchased a new Myvi this year if it affects their vehicle. Officially, Perodua has released a statement clarifying that there is no such recall being planned and the earlier issue of discovering the sub-standard specification(s) has been resolved. For all our sakes, I hope this incident doesn’t add skeletons in the closet.

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