Severe Safety Problems: China Stops Renault Imports
China’s quality watchdog found cars made by Renault to have severe safety problems. China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) banned the Laguna Ph2, Scenic/Long Scenic, Megane Ph2 and Megane Ph2 Coupe-Cabriolet, Xinhua reports.
In March last year, Renault was warned by the AQSIQ for not reporting problems concerning its Megane models to the Chinese government when it recalled the model in Europe for transmission issues. China had instituted a much milder form of recall reporting than the draconian (and later relaxed) reporting regime instituted by the NHTSA.
According to Gasgoo, Renault said the vehicles were damaged in transit and that there are no issues connected to manufacturing.
“We’re sending a team of experts to look into it and to make sure we establish the proper processes,” Renault spokeswoman Gita Roux said. “Our concern is to ensure that we comply fully with requirements of the Chinese authorities.”
“There is no time like the present for consumers and policy makers to preemptively block these un-safe, spawn-of-cheating cars,” said Kerri Toloczko, senior analyst for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) and appointee to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “Based on history and crash testing, driving these cars is roughly equivalent to adding wheels to a dishwasher and expecting it to survive a collision.” Wait, he said that about Chinese cars.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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@folkdancer "kaleun : We all know that Renault cars are POS. Please leave me out of your comments. The use of the word “all” is inappropriate." Hear, hear folkdancer! Couldn't agree w/ you more. All the Renault cars mentioned as banned by the China gov are, in my book, great (well, maybe not great, but surely competitive, very competitive in their respective markets), efficient, tossable, desirable cars. Not to mention safe.
I really have to laugh at this article where China is stopping the sale of Renault imports because of safety problems. This from a country (China) that dumps lead tainted products onto the rest of the world consumers, uses child labor as a means for bigger profits and outlaws any type of Unions in a communist country.
Irony Defined... however as good as Renault cars are, the lack something vital. Not to mention that they are expressly designed to pass the 5 star ranking. out in the real world starts don't mean much, but truth be told they are a million times safer than the contraptions they call Brilliance and Cherry cars. and the ones the chinese are banning have probably been damaged while on the way in the ship, like a crane fell on them or something and completely flattened them, but some sales agent thinks they are still road worthy....