Where are all the Chevrolet cars and MPV’s that once was a common sight on our roads?
This is one the few car brands that never looked after its customers in Malaysia and also Indonesia and Thailand. An American icon it might be, but when it comes to looking after customers in ASEAN, it is an automotive brand that leaves a very bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Today, only the Chevrolet Colorado pickup trucks seem to be running without after sales issues in our country (parts still available for the Colorado and some other models in Thailand) however, the Chevrolet cars like the Cruze, Aveo and Optra, SUV’s like the Captiva and MPV’s like the Zafira/Nabira that were sold to unsuspecting Malaysians seem to be mostly parked outside workshops to rust away whilst a few others are still on the road because their owners are able to salvage parts and have mechanics that are ‘not giving up’ sourcing for parts, new or used.
So, is this just a Malaysian problem? A local distributor issue? Well we do not think so as some 7 years ago in 2015, General Motors (GM) the brand owner for Chevrolet pulled out of Indonesia after operating there since 1938.
At the time, its market shares in Indonesia stood at below 1 percent. Then weeks later, GM started scaling down its operations in Thailand where its had just a 3 percent market share.
At the time, the Chevrolet Spin (compact MPV) and Sonic (compact car) were seeing declining sales despite the Thai governments push to to encourage compact vehicles sales using the ‘Eco Car 2’ program. Only the Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck seemed to continue having buyers in the worlds biggest pickup truck market.
Then some time in November 2018, after 4 business partners with Malaysian companies, GM retired yet again from Malaysia. Its 4th business partner, the Naza Group (before Naza Quest it was DRB-Hicom) ended their business arrangement after numerous issues with parts, after sales, product dumping and lack of communication between GM management and Naza Group.
So, will General Motors and Chevrolet return to Malaysia? Well, given the hazardous relationship and the simple fact that some car manufacturer have little regard for after sales and quality and rely heavily on just selling selling selling, we are quite sure a return to Malaysia will just result in another unsuspecting group of Malaysians car buyers losing their hard earned money to a large American car manufacturer and the bad ‘taste’ will remain with the Malaysian distributor who will be left with the angry customers and negative social media remarks.
It is time for General Motors and other European and also Chinese car manufacturers to understand that Malaysian and also ASEAN is a mature car market and buyers will not accept bad after sales and the lack of spare parts as the currency exchange in ASEAN against European and American currency makes car ownership expensive and almost third (33 percent) of the average household income.
