Pakatan Rakyat Ditches Proton In Favour of Toyota

The Toyota Camry have been unwittingly thrusted into the limelight of Malaysia's soap opera like political landscape. If a country's political struggles are a drama series, Malaysia would have scored have scored first. Thailand may be getting most of the news in the international media mainly due to the disruption it caused to international businesses when Survanabhumi airport was shut down by anti-Thaksin protesters, but it lack the saucy bits involving a Mongolian beauty, C4 bombs and dirty cops, and a celebrity prince whose fame rivals that of any local rock star.

Following the footstep of the Pakatan Rakyat government led Perak state, the coalition of opposition parties led state of Selangor will be replacing the Proton Perdana official cars in favour of Toyota Camry. The controversy surrounding the replacement of Proton Perdana official cars have been brewing since last year, first with the state of Terengganu's decision to purchase a fleet of Mercedes E200K, citing high maintenance cost of the Proton Perdanas as an excuse, the same reason given by Selangor state exco member Ronnie Liu.

My take on it? A bunch of political bollocks! I hardly speak in defence of the Malaysian state owned Proton car company, for reasons which require a separate blog post. But on this issue I think Proton have been unfairly used as a scapegoat by a bunch of politicians who can no longer tolerate doing long distance commutes in the Perdanas, whose design dates back to early 1990s, and is largely a rebadged Mitsubishi Eterna.

These politicians claim that their Perdanas keep breaking down and some have raked up repair bills of over RM 100k, more than the price of the car when new! Ronnie Liu even mentioned that in one incident, the hood of his Perdana became unlatched while driving, flipped open and crashed into the windscreen.

To be fair Proton made an inquiry into all these allegations. Yes the Perdanas might not be a final word in reliability but it is ridiculous for the maintenance cost to be over RM100k. Proton's inquiry later revealed that none of these cars were maintained by its authorised service centers, but were instead serviced by third parties using non-original Proton parts. One unit inspected even had cross drilled brake rotors fitted! There were signs pointing that these parts were not only non-genuine but were cannibalised parts from other cars. What sort of a reliability do you expect then? A manufacturer, no matter how bad should never be faulted of any reliability issues if the vehicle is no longer maintained by its trained technicians with genuine parts. However most of the mainstream media stop short at that. They did not reveal the parties responsible for the vehicles' maintenance and why were these cars charged up to 5 times the normal price to carry out simple maintenance work. More importantly, why weren't the government's account books audited and surely something is clearly wrong to pay RM10k for a routine service?

The Perdanas are known to have problem with the automatic gearbox, word from owners is that it tends to overheat after prolonged use in harsh driving environment. Fitting a transmission oil cooler usually sort things out. But surely transmission failures alone cannot cost up to 100 grand.

Image from The Star.

I understand that many of the Malaysian government vehicles are not maintained the vehicle manufacturer's authorised service center, but by a third party company by the name of Spanco. The company's dodgy looking website does not reveal much but they claim themselves to be "Malaysia's Leading Fleet Management Company." In 1994, Spanco was awarded with a contract to supply and maintain government fleet vehicles until 2018. Why does the local state government need to outsource its vehicle maintenance to a third party instead of the vehicle manufacturer? You form your own conclusions. Yes some fleet operators contract the services of such companies, but those fleet operators run thousands of vehicles in their fleets - i.e. police force, logistic / postal companies. But the end result of these outsourcing should be more efficient operations. Doesn't seem to be happening here. In short, the public should not be questioning Proton. They were unfairly dragged into this mess. Look to who were the ones who authorised for these repairs and who authorised for these payments.

Next problem I have Pakatan Rakyat's choice of vehicle - a top of the line Camry 2.4V. As far as the car is concerned I don't have a problem with it. They can choose a Maybach 62 for all I care. The problem arise when you recall Pakatan Rakyat came into power after a landslide victory on March 8 2008 general election, promising to not spend on unnecessary items like changing cars.

Which now raise the question, not only on the reversal of their stance, but why a Camry 2.4V, which retails at around RM170k? Our local Camry models are imported from Toyota Motor Thailand's plant in Gateway Plant in Chachoengsao Province, shipped over to Port Klang using foreign shipping companies. Toyota also sells a lower grade 2.0E version, which retails at around 141k. The Star claims that the Selangor government fleets are purchased at RM150k each while Malaysian Insider claims RM 160k. So I am not sure which is the correct sum, but my guess is both figures are wrong as the Perak state government purchased their Camrys at market price, inclusive of tax as the BN led Federal Government refused to grant them any tax waiver. By the way, contrary to The Star's report, there is no such colour as stone-Black in the Camry colour options list. There is however Black Mica.

Toyota Motor Thailand's Gateway plant is a regional production hub for the ASEAN / Asian specs Camry. This year, TMT's Gateway, along with Australia TMCA's Altona will begin production of the Camry Hybrid.

All these begs the question, why the choice of a Thai-built Camry? And why a top of the line 2.4V when a base model 2.0E will do just fine. So it is down on power from a smaller engine and lacks one cog from the 2.4V's 5-speed transmission. But surely the fuel savings from the extra gear ratio cannot account to RM30k within the reasonable lifespan of the car.


Honda Malaysia builds the similar class Accord locally at its Pegoh plant in Alor Gajah, Melaka, at almost the same price but with even better equipment list. Support locally made goods they say? Did I hear them correctly? A typical locally assembled car is usually assembled at a plant built by local contractors using local materials and other support services. Locally assembled cars are built with locally made batteries, wheels, tires, glass for windscreen and windows, noise and heat insulation materials, rubber linings / weather strips, plastic interior components, audio head units and speakers, suspension, interior lights, headlamps, tail lamps, fog lamps, car alarm / security systems. I think you get the picture. And all these items are transported from their respective manufacturing plants to Honda's plant in Melaka and the completed car is then transported to the showrooms with local transport / freight forwarding companies. The contribution to the local economy is immensse.

Accords at the end of the production line at Honda Malaysia's Pegoh plant.

An imported Thai built Camry contributes almost none to these local manufacturers. The only link between Pakatan Rakyat's decision and Toyota that I can think of is that the government owned investment vehicle Perbadanan Nasional Berhad is one of the main shareholders in UMW-Toyota, the local distributor for Toyota vehicles in Malaysia. But shouldn't support for local industries come before self-interest?

Of course, many will conveniently ignore this. The current psychological state of the Malaysian public is that it is not cool to criticise the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, who is supposed to bring change. Criticising the incumbent Barisan Nasional party however, and the people will cheer you on.

Anyway, all these talk by politicians about supporting local products are just lip service. Ex-PM and brain child of the Proton national car project Tun Dr. Mahatir himself did not fancy a Proton. When he was in office he was often chauffered in a Lexus LS430 and later a Volkswagen Touareg. Minister of PM's Department Nazri Aziz travels in a Toyota Hilux while the Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim uses a Lexus RX350. Some of these might be their privately owned cars, as in the case of Khalid Ibrahim. But the point is, what is the message you are sending, as a state leader?


Chancellor Angela Merkel's armoured Audi A8L

If you think that state leaders should be seen in a posh car, then by all means go ahead. European Union technocrats in Brussels travel in Bentley Arnages anyway and German Chancellors have been alternating between armoured VW Phaeton, Audi A8s and Mercedes S-class models, despite all their talk about capping CO2 emission. If the government runs a hyper-efficient, crime free state, I don't think voters will be quite bothered with whatever car the government fancies. Just don't hoodwink voters that you are all for change, that you very careful with taxpayer's money and that you are so much different in every way from the previous corrupt administration, and then do exactly the opposite!