Proton oh Proton !

Proton Persona was launched by DYMM Agung yesterday (15 August 2007).


This article from Forbes.com caught my eye today:

Malaysia's Proton Pins Hopes on New Car

Malaysia's money-losing car maker Proton launched a new stylish sedan Wednesday that it hopes will lift its sagging sales and return the company to profit.

The new Pesona model, together with Proton's new ventures in China, will "mark the emergence of Proton from its low ebb," Managing Director Syed Zainal Abidin said in a company statement.

Proton has been losing money and market share in Malaysia, Southeast Asia's biggest passenger car market. Its domestic market share has plunged to around 23 percent from 60 percent in 2002 amid stiff competition from both domestic and foreign rivals.

Syed Zainal was quoted by national news agency Bernama as saying that Proton hopes to export the new car to Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Britain and Australia to reap economies of scale. Proton "cannot concentrate on the domestic market alone as it is getting smaller and smaller. That's why export is going to be the approach," he was quoted as saying.

Some analysts are not convinced the Pesona can greatly boost Proton's fortunes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Michael Backman commented in his exclusive interview with Malaysia-today.net recently that Malaysia should NOT have a national car because one cannot get sufficient economies of scale with a population as small as Malaysia's when it comes to car manufacturing.

Whether this statement is true of not is not the subject of this blog.

The truth is, Proton car, especially GEN 2 is just too disappointing, to say the least.

My first Proton car was, unfortunately, a GEN 2. I was unlucky to have been the first batch GEN 2 owner, having awed by its sleek design and by the euphoria of the grand launch by PM. I received the car after six weeks and after resisting the countless offers to "jump queue" to be among the firsts to get the car.

The car "behaved" well for the first 3 months, if you did not count the complaints of creaking noise from my family as imperfections. Then one fine day while driving near our house, we noticed the car wobbled and jerked as if we had a flat tyre. But the tyres were fine.

We brought the car to Proton Platinum showroom immediately and upon arriving, we noticed the bonnet was dented by something protruding from below. It was the shock absorber which had come loose and now sticking up like a sore thumb! Imagine if we had been on the North South Expressway at night, far from civilisation or on the busy Jalan Tun Razak during peak hour... we could have caused a massive jam! And it was supposed to be a brand new car, for crying out loud!

The Proton mechanic knew the problem right away. He even suggested that I should have brought the car in earlier as they knew of this problem (probably by the numbers of car brought in for repair) and had informed their office to notify the other owners. Sadly, they "managed" to exclude our names.

Our "new" car had to be "hospitalized" for more than a week to replace the parts, to change to a new bonnet (I insisited I would not accept a re-knocked bonnet) and to do the painting job. And all these within 6 months of owning the new car !!

We are still trying to get rid of the GEN 2 but the price is so bad that we have no choice but to keep it as a spare car.

One thing is for sure... no more Proton car for us !