Car owners protest against recall solution

Launched at FAW-Volkswagen due to dissatisfaction over proposed measure to remedy rear suspension problem

Several groups of owners of FAW-Volkswagen's Sagitar sedans in China launched protests Sunday to express their discontent at the company's solution for its latest recall, despite the company's promise that its cars and recall solution are perfectly safe.

Sagitar owners' protests took place on Sunday in East China's Shandong, Fujian and Jiangsu and South China's Guangdong provinces, news portal auto.qq.com reported.

"The consumers' anger shows that the company did not communicate effectively and its explanations may not be convincing enough," Hao Qingfeng, director at the Auto Complaint Center under the China Association for Consumer Protection Law, told the Global Times on Sunday.

FAW-Volkswagen, the joint venture between German carmaker Volkswagen and its Chinese partner FAW Group, announced on October 17 a recall of 563,605 Sagitar cars and 17,485 imported Beetle sedans in China, to ease consumers' concerns about the safety of the models' suspension arms on the rear axles.

The Sagitar sedan is based on Volkswagen's popular Jetta model. The company said that globally some 1.3 million cars are involved in the recall.

The recall comes two months after the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) initiated a probe into the model on August 14 in response to consumer complaints about broken suspension arms on the rear axles.

Media reports over quality problems with the model's rear suspension have been published since April. So far there have been 55 cases of broken rear suspension arms, the company said in a press conference on Friday.

In the recall, the company proposed to wrap a U-shaped sheath around the suspension bar so that it makes a noise if bent, which will serve as a warning for car owners if the rear suspension is bent, according to a statement posted on the website of the AQSIQ on October 17.

The company also announced at a press conference on Friday it would extend quality assurance for the rear suspension of thevehicles involved in the recall to 10 years, compared with 2 years in regular cases.

The company also noted that the cars were not defective as the broken rear suspension arms were caused by rear-end collisions in accidents in those cases, not quality problems, Su Weiming, executive vice president of Volkswagen Group, said at the press conference.

The U-shaped sheath remedy was only adopted as a preventive measure, or "double assurance," Su said.

However, car owners are not satisfied with the sheath solution.

"We hope the company could replace the rear suspension. Adding a sheath is not an effective way to solve the problem," a Sagitar owner surnamed Zhang in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Around 30 Sagitar owners took part in the protest in Zaozhuang, Zhang said.

Zhang also said that he has been very reluctant to drive his car recently for fear that the suspension may break.

The recall covers Sagitar cars produced between May 2011 and May 2014, which adopted a technique called non-independent rear suspension. The models produced before and after the period, which used independent rear suspension, did not report such problems.

The independent rear suspension generally provides better ride quality but costs more, analysts said.

"It is understandable that car owners are asking to change the rear suspension, as a broken rear suspension could be very dangerous," Wu Shuocheng, a senior analyst at market research firm Menutor Consulting Shanghai Co, told the Global Times Sunday.

Analysts said that the company did not offer a clear explanation about what had caused the problems.

"FAW-Volkswagen should make it clear whether it is caused by defects in the material or design and provide evidence for its explanation," said Hao from the China Association for Consumer Protection Law.

Hao further noted that instead of launching protests, car owners should go to the quality authorities or resort to the law to solve problems.

The recall is the second major recall issued by Volkswagen in China in the past two years. Volkswagen recalled over 380,000 vehicles in China in April 2013 due to problems in its direct shift gearbox transmission (DSG) technology.

But it is still too early to say that the recent recall could dent Volkswagen's sales in China, Wu said, as despite the DSG recall, the company sold 3.27 million units of cars in China last year, ranking first among all auto brands.

In the first nine months of this year, FAW-Volkswagen sold 1.35 million units of cars, ranking No.1 among all carmakers in China, and Volkswagen topped the sales list with a total of 2.7 million cars sold in China during the period, up 15.2 percent year-on-year.