Land Rover accused in gearbox expose
Print Edition
FAULTY gearboxes in Land Rover’s Evoque cars in China were highlighted by China Central Television’s annual “3.15” program last night.
Owners of Evoques throughout the country have encountered malfunctions such as sudden loss of speed and reverse gear faults.
The problems emerged again even after the gearboxes were replaced, the program said, and maintenance workers at different Land Rover dealers could not identify the fault.
The consumer protecting show said Land Rover (China) had denied there were problems with the gearbox, claiming that buyers “drove too fast,” Xinhua news agency said.
However, CCTV’s investigation showed that Land Rover had identified the problem some time before and issued confidential notices only to the company’s engineers.
So far, Land Rover has not announced any recall of Evoque cars in China.
Also exposed last night were Nissan, Shanghai Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz dealers falsely reporting or exaggerating problems with vehicles so they could charge high repair fees, the CCTV program claimed.
CCTV reporters disconnected an ignition coil in a Nissan Teana and sent the car to a Nissan shop on Tianmushan Road in the eastern city of Hangzhou.
The “fault” should have been a simple fix after a mechanic had spotted it, said Zhang Wenli, an auto expert with the China Association for Quality Inspection.
But the shop charged around 1,000 yuan (US$160) for the repair, with a staff member surnamed Ma suggesting a number of problems.
“More serious problems will occur if it is not fixed immediately, like cold may lead to pneumonia if it is not cured,” Ma said.
Charged 3,000 yuan for ‘fault’
There were similar situations at other Nissan shops, according to the problem.
One in Hefei in east China’s Anhui Province charged 433 yuan to replace the ignition coil on a Nissan Livina car which had also been disconnected.
Another Nissan dealer in Hangzhou charged 3,000 yuan for the same “fault” in a Teana car, saying six ignition coils and six spark plugs all needed to be replaced, the program said.
It also said that three Shanghai Volkswagen dealers in Tianjin City charged 1,424 yuan, 690 yuan and 803 yuan for Passat cars with the same “problem.” All claimed that the spark plugs had to be replaced.
A Hefei Mercedes-Benz dealer charged about 10,000 yuan, with a number of cleaning items and replacement items added to the bill, including the replacement of a fuel filter.
CCTV said it had sent 22 cars to dealers of all three makes of cars, and were charged extra on 16 occasions.
The program also accused China Mobile and China Tietong of giving the green light to nuisance calls, allowing call centers to use fake numbers in fraud scams.
The numbers can fool the public by appearing to be from police stations, banks and even courts, and some call centers even collected personal information to target customers, the program said.
The program’s reporters also accused Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China of turning a blind eye to fake identification cards, something that they said made money laundering possible.
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