Monday, August 25, 2008

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.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

proton sengal duh kekadang..kekadang keta xde problem lgsg..kekadang problem bertimpa2..QC mmg hancur beb !

Perky said...

I've lost confidence in Proton a long time ago.

I hope you get your probs sorted out though.

cacah said...

I m a proton owner too. What to do, it's the affordable one. Seriously, kadang2 ada kereta yang ok, takde problem langsung...tapi ada gak yang bermasalah...

It s not yet a year, but I already changed the tyre and the wiper. Huhu.

But yours is risky, and you do the right thing by reporting all the problems to the media.

Kecewa kan?

Drive safe.

fidanuar said...

ko beli kereta ape? i bought my persona last year and thank God they work just fine. at least so far. phew. people said beli kereta proton depends on your luck. some got it good and all fine, others mcm2 problem.

but yeah, your self preservation worth attention. biar proton take note those complaints.

Anonymous said...

I think you are the unlucky few (or many?) who happen to possess the defective car....QA/QC ...maybe zero. My sympathy to you

idya said...

i can conclude that both proton and perodua punye service mmg sux..

kete aku dh sebulan masuk perodua service tk siap2 lagi.. alasan sparepart tk smpi2.. bile aku mintak tukar service centre, reason derg bagi "awak antar satu malaysia punye service centre pn tk kn dpt la pintu tu".. begitu kurang ajar skali.. rase seperti nk blasah je.. huhu..

Miss Aida said...

Well, if no one complains, they'll assume that the quality of their service is adequate.

You're doing the right thing.

The Banker said...

life4hire: ditto

perky: its out of the shops now, hopefully no more probs like this

aishah: kecewa is just one of many things i feel now. mostly anger though, heh.

fidanuar: ku beli neo, hanya itu ku mampu..huhu

distant observer: thanks. it's more of a QA prob than QC i think. either ways, this should not happen.

idya: lama tuh beb sebulan, start calling up everyone connected. sooner or later u'll annoy them enough and they'll do something abt it.

aida: exactly, hopefully my complaints will help in ine way or another in changing things around a lil bit.