The Final Straw

I bought a new car a few months back. Only last month it arrived. Now, it's in the shops.

It broke down thrice while I was driving on the road, all in 3 days. Sent for repairs after the 1st time, and called Proton Assist too every time it happened. After the 1st repair, they told me it's working fine now and should give no more problems. They also told me it was my fault, it happened because of my driving style. Now it happened again despite me following their new driving style recommendations.

Today it broke down again as I was sending it to the Proton Edar Service Center. It broke down just a coupla kilometers from the Center, so I called them for assistance. Their answer was "tunggu la kereta dah boleh start balik then baru datang sini, tak pon call Proton Assist ". How does that help me who were stranded in the middle of the goddamn road? Luckily my insurance company provides free towing service, so the car was towed to the Service Center.

By that time I was very pissed off at the dismal quality of the car and also the attitude of the staff. I've had to deal with numerous incompetent Proton staff ever since I paid the booking fee back in April. Of course, some are actually helpful like the saleslady Anne at Proton Edar Jalan Ampang and the guy who attended to all my calls to Proton Assist. Everyone else, especially those at i-Care are just a waste of space. i-Care? What a joke. I-Don't-Care more like it.

So I went back to the office feeling very furious, and started to send out some e-mails. Yes, I wrote to NCCC, and then I also wrote to The Malay Mail, The Star and Berita Harian demanding answers from Proton for the extremely poor customer service and product quality. After about an hour, The Malay Mail called me up for more details. They asked me to wait for Proton's reply once they publish it. I hope the other papers would publish it too.

I wrote about this in a forum for Proton owners as well, and someone told me that I'm doing a brave thing. Brave? If I stay quiet, I might not even be around anymore soon. I've been lucky so far that I've not gotten into any accident every time the car's engine just stopped running while I was driving, but my luck might run out. This is not bravery my man, this is self preservation.

I have stayed quiet for far too long, being too patient with Proton's incompetence. Not anymore.