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[Warning: In an atypically-narrowband fashion, this post is going to be a long Proton-rant.] So, the new Saga a.k.a. BLM is supposed to be Proton’s best offering yet. *Clap clap*. Coupled with ultra-low pricing - a luxury that the national carmaker has long enjoyed (with no end in sight), no wonder the waiting period for the new car has now stretched to as long as 6 months. I’ve seen the car in flesh several times and I must admit it does not look too bad at all. Crash tests have shown that the car’s pretty safe. Sounds like a perfect combination - safe, good-looking, cheap. Would I consider buying one? Nope. I’ll tell you why.

Proton and I go way back. Yeah. The first Saga was rolled out shortly after I was born. Dad bought one of those Mitsubishi-powered Sagas back then and it served us well as far as I can remember. I hadn’t even entered kindergarten that time, so don’t ask me how good the car was. We upgraded to several Japanese brands in the years that followed. We did not have any major problems with our cars until one day, we got our second Proton. It was a brand new, high-spec Proton Waja 1.8, and it was a big mistake. As a matter of fact, Proton discontinued that model a few years later.

Problems after problems cropped up. The high-spec nature of the car meant that there was a lot of electronics involved. Sensors and electronic circuitries and automatic transmission. None of these was perfect. And because the model had been discontinued, sourcing for replacement parts was hell. Parts were rare, and expensive. About three years down the road, all sorts of colourful, error and warning indicators started to light. The head-up display became a vibrant display of the handbrake indicator light (the one with that red-coloured “!” symbol), ABS warning light (in solid amber, to indicate an error/malfunction), occasional flashing of the door-not-shut warning (in red), and sometimes if you’re lucky, you may even get to see the auto-gearbox error indicator light (in amber, together with the transmission going haywire). Quite a mouthful eh? Let’s look at each and every one of them separately.

Picture of Proton Waja 1.6. The 1.8 version comes with 16″ wheels as opposed to 15″ on 1.6 models.

For some reason, even though the handbrake has been lowered, the red “(!)” indicator never goes away. It’s supposed to tell you that you haven’t lowered your handbrake. Strangely enough, this indicator is always accompanied by yet another indicator - the ABS sensor indicator, which is in amber. According to the Owner’s Manual, once this light comes on, it means that there is something wrong with your ABS (anti-lock braking system). We’ve sent the car to Proton service centers numerous times, in both Glenmarie and Mutiara Damansara’s, but nobody could solve the problem. Some service personnel even had the cheek to tell us it was not within their scope, and that it would take a lot of hassle to repair, that it’d take a long time and that it may even mean replacing the whole car’s ABS completely. That wouldn’t be cheap.

It was obvious that they were not keen to do it. Besides, we were not ready to send our car away for an extended period of time. We needed to use the car. The people at the service center added that the car would still brake normally, and that there was no cause to worry. We could only leave the service center in disbelief and disappointment. FYI, the problem was never solved. It’s been so long that we’ve gotten used to it now. I think none of us remember that we actually paid for the ABS feature, which has never been fully utilized.

And then the occasional flashing of the door-not-shut indicator only adds to the disco-like ambient in the head-up display, especially at night. The indicator is supposed to tell you that at least one door has not been tightly shut. It’s definitely a wiring problem, because the light comes on even though our doors have been properly shut. We got it fixed once but the problem came back. Since it doesn’t really affect our driving or comfort, we began to ignore it as well. Since this door-sensor and the cabin-light (at the ceiling in the car) are wired together, we sometimes get the disco-light effect at night too. And since we’ve decided to ignore this warning, we have to force-off the cabin light.

Next, let’s move on the transmission problem. This one takes the cake, I tell you. The automatic transmission would ‘hang’ while you’re driving, sometimes jerking the whole car so strongly that you’d have thought you ran over something hard. That’s when the automatic-transmission warning light comes on. This ‘rock-hard jerking’ has frightened not only my passengers numerous times, but also myself, even! It’s like this - while you’re cruising at gear 4 for example, the gearbox suddenly drops back to 3rd and it stays there. Even if you try to floor the accelerator, the gear will never shift back up to 4th. You can try, but the engine will sound so damn loud you’d think it’s on the verge of exploding. Red-lining a stock-standard Proton is a no-no.

When slowing down (like approaching a toll booth), the gear may drop to 2nd. When you finally stop the car, you’ll realize that it’s very difficult to get the car moving again. That’s because the gear is stuck at 2nd gear. It’s like you’re trying to drag a reluctant cow to move. The deep growl of the engine only contributes to the analogy. You don’t know what I’m talking about? Try moving your car from standstill in 2nd gear (not 1st!) - the pickup will be much slower and your engine will feel ‘heavy’. When we told the Proton Service Centers about our problem, the mechanics could actually reply confidently, “Oh! Just stop by the roadside, and switch off the engine, and then restart it. The light will be gone and your transmission will be fine again!”. Hello? We really didn’t need them to tell us that, because that’s exactly what we had been doing everytime we encountered the problem. The thing is, it kept recurring so frequently!

We wanted to get it repaired once and for all. Again, the staff at the Service Centers could not solve the problem. They did try to change some oil here and there, changed some parts that we had to pay on our own, but at the end of the day the problem still persisted. They later gave up and said that the gearbox was sourced from Renault, and that we should go back to Renault for their expertise. We knew that some parts of the car was sourced from the French carmaker, including the engine and the gearbox. But hey, did we buy a Proton or a Renault in the first place? We eventually went to Renault to try and get it done - the car was okay for a while, but then the problem came back not long after. To say that we were frustrated is an understatement. We’ve given up. A new car is inevitable. [Addendum (Feb 4th, 2008): I came across a story related to my case. I believe the complainant had been suffering from exactly the same problem. Hop on over to blog.thestar.com.my to read it. His car was a Proton Satria Neo.]

My experience with Proton and its Service Centers and the mentality of its service personnel has been far from satisfactory. The purchasing power ultimately lies in hands of the consumer and as a disgruntled customer, I’m steering clear of Proton the next time I’m thinking of buying a new car. Forget about it being a national pride, an “everybody’s car”, that it looks good (surprisingly Proton has won the hearts of many Malaysians simply by playing the cosmetic game), and nonsense like that. I’m all for practicality, quality, safety, reliability, and excellent after-sales support. Right now it’s as if everything in a Proton car has a pre-set lifespan (like a ticking time-bomb), which will give way after some time, and you’ll need to go back and purchase a replacement part. Especially door handles, power window motors, and other poorly-designed mechanisms that shouldn’t be giving so many problems the way they have. I’m inclined to think that this is a deliberate attempt to help sustain the income of its vendors and create jobs for aspiring mechanics.

By the by…

One Flaming Hot Neo

That’s Jen’s car. You can read about her misfortune on her blog. Her car’s electrical circuitry had been accidentally shorted by one of Proton’s authorized service centers, and it caused her car’s engine bay to catch fire (with a small explosion, no less). Imagine a girl driving the car alone - had she not pulled over, don’t you think her life would have been in great danger? And now she’s being victimized even though it wasn’t her fault at all. What utter codswallop!

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