I have driven all sorts of cars in my 40 year driving experience.
The latest was driving a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Clio, in August 2013.
It was rented from Avis.
I also drive Perodua cars like Viva and Kembara. Toyotas such as Avanza and Land Cruisers.
My oldest car was a Toyota Corolla 1969.
Proton cars are among the best that I had driven. Proton Wira Sedan was reliable. It did not break down and does not rust at all. My Exora still survives today with only one major breakdown due to a faulty sensor. The ABS gave faulty readings but was fixed after the sensors were changed. These are not Proton products but out sourced from other suppliers.
I bought the Wira while still driving a Mazda 323 that I love very much but the Wira was a match in reliability. The ride may not be so good but the difference is so minor. Toyota Landcruiser has a soft ride compared to the Wira, which is why I bought it to replace the Wira, on our trips from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan. But I replaced it with Avanza first and later Exora. The Exora is more comfortable but the ride is so soft that the body touches the ground after bumps. Cornering, I do not see much difference. Of course it is not as reassuring as a Wira or Mazda 323, but it fells better than a Landcruiser or Avanza.
I do not know the models tested by these magazines. My Proton models are those with full accessories. I find it cheaper instead of buying the accessories later. If Proton were to sell the low end models overseas, that could be the reason for the impressions of low quality.
I do not see much difference in quality because Proton cars are just assembled from other car models from other manufacturers or outsourced from accessories manufacturers. My accessores from Proton are sourced from well known brands such as Clarion and Balupunk. Even its aircon is from Nippondenso.
Wira is from Mitsubishi lancer. Exora is from a Mitsubishi MPV the Grandis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Grandis.
So how could the quality be so much different?
There might be a slight degradation in quality but at 5% it is too little to notice. For such small difference, to be translated to 400% difference in quality, is just too biased.
That is the only explanation that I can tell.
Maybe Proton should do their marketing especially with journalists better.
The same thing happens between Sony and Samsung.
Sony had all the features even before Samsung, and yet reviewers always put Samsung as so much better than Sony smartphones.
Now even Apple had to revert to Sony design of using metal and glass. Probably removing the ugly eye sore of bulging cameras that Sony never had. Samsung is so proud of its water proofing, Sony had it a long time ago. That was the reason why I bought a Sony smartphone. It was waterproof. Reliablity is more important. And camera resolution. The higher the better. Who cares if Samsung can take better pictures at night? When it can only take 8 Mpixel during a bright day? Sony can do 20 Mpixel now.
https://cilisos.my/can-you-drive-a-proton-saga-through-a-forest-this-mat-salleh-finds-out/
Can you drive a Proton Saga through a forest? This Mat Salleh finds out!
Although there have been news of
Proton being bought off for some time now, it was last month was when it turned from a wild rumor to a kind of reliable rumor. If you haven’t
read our article on that,
now’s the time. Anyways, shifting the topic to something a little more
light-hearted, we’ve just came across this epic video of an old, beat-up
Proton Saga being reviewed by
Car Throttle. It’s not super new (posted October last year), but a pretty recent review for an old car.
Here’s the video in all its 480p glory:
The angmoh in the video is
Alex Kersten, an automotive journalist for Car Throttle and the car in question is most probably a
1995 Proton Saga Iswara saloon with a 3-speed automatic transmission.
In the video, Kersten took the car which he affectionately called ‘
Donald Dump‘ for a wash and a drive, then into an off-road path in the forest, where it did quite well until it
got stuck in a mini lake. Why anyone would drive a sedan into a lake is anybody’s guess though.
To be fair, it does look kinda like James Bond’s submarine car.
Source
The Proton Saga did pretty well for an old city car!
As seen in the video, the car was duct-taped and sent to the car
wash, then taken out for a ride, during which its performance is
commented upon, Top-Gear style.
For a 22-year old car, it is quite a bit of a surprise to hear phrases like “
sublime ride and handling“, “
idles nicely, engine sounds good” and most of all, the automatic transmission changing gears “
like a DCT gearbox“, which is a really atas transmission system used in cars like the Porsche 911 Carrera and the Audi TT-S.
At first we weren’t sure if it was sarcasm, but then we learned that the Proton Saga Iswara uses a 1.5L,
4G15 Mitsubishi engine, which is like the
Nokia 3310 of Japanese engines.
Although the steering wheel is sticky and the car supposedly smells, it
is said to do what a car’s supposed to do: carry you from one place to
another without problems.
At the end of the ride, however, Kersten had stated that this is
one of the worst cars he had ever ridden and reviewed, so we’re taking the compliments with a pinch of salt.
The true test comes after going off road. The car is driven down a
muddy, seriously uneven path. Impressively, even after getting stuck quite a few times and moving at a 45 degree angle from the ground, the car
manages to pull through every time until finally, they get to the huge puddle that looked like a lake. The car
got through halfway before it’s totally stuck in the muddy water and had to be rescued a few hours later.
To be fair, it happens to the best of us.
Source
And here’s the thing: the
engine kept running, even with the floor and the exhaust pipe and the engine itself
half submerged in water.
After it was rescued, it trundled back out of the forest like nothing
happened. A little dirty, and with part of the bonnet a bit bent due to
the towing efforts, but overall still fine. But still…
What is a Proton car doing in the UK?
This may come as a shock to some, while others may roll their eyes while giving a “duh”, but
Proton actually sells outside the country.
And it’s not just one or two countries, either. Proton has been
exporting to neighboring countries and faraway lands alike, with some
significant market in the UK, Australia, Thailand, Egypt, Germany,
Turkey, and Syria, to name a few.
A UK police car in its natural habitat.
Source
The international marketing might be a bit surprising to some, such as
talks with Iran a while back to co-create an Islamic car,
which features a compass pointing to Mecca and specialized compartments
for the Al-Quran and telekungs, but that didn’t took off.
There are also models that we don’t normally see cruising the
highways of Malaysia, such as the Proton Arena aka Proton Jumbuck, which
is quite popular in Australia due to it’s low price in comparison with
similar models.
In case you’re wondering, that’s what a Jumbuck looks like.
Source
So really, if you are driving around in the UK or Germany and got cut
off by an old Proton, it’s not that unusual at all. But get this… if a
NEWER Proton model zooms by, by all means whip out your phones and take a
picture, because THAT’S what’s rare. Why? Well…
Newer Proton cars don’t sell very well overseas, even though they’re dirt cheap
If you want to market something, not much can trump ‘cheapness’,
which is why people will buy almost anything provided that it’s cheap
enough. However, with some products like cars where you put your own
safety on the line, that’s not always the case. A quick look at the
reviews in car-selling websites might give a rough idea on why Proton
cars don’t sell that well overseas…
As can be seen, the only redeeming feature for Proton cars in the UK is the
low, low price…
and that’s about it. In addition to words like ‘uninspiring’ and
‘disappointing’ getting thrown around like trash after a pasar malam,
some sites had hinted that even the low prices
may not be enough of a reason to get yourself a Proton.
This particular review hints that the relatively cheap Protons
break down quite often, or something else that makes it expensive to run,
suggesting low quality.
Even in the video, a second-hand beat up 22-year-old Proton Saga Iswara
costs around 200 pounds, which is somewhere around RM1,000 at the time
of the video. That’s
pretty cheap, considering it had a
(kinda useless) winch in the trunk, the engine’s still running
beautifully and it doesn’t look too beat up. For comparison, a
second-hand car of the same make here will set you back some
RM2,500 to RM8,000 in Malaysia.
Eh? Why are Proton cars so cheap overseas?
That GoPro on the hood probably costs more than the car.
Source
When asked the same question in an
interview with PaulTan.org, the founder of Proton Holdings himself,
Tun Dr Mahathir replied the reason for Proton cars being
much cheaper overseas is to
achieve a bigger market volume, thus promoting brand recognition. In the case of Proton, the volume strategy kind of backfired, leaving an estimated
three months of inventory unsold.
But it
hasn’t always been this bad.
The car in the video, the Proton Saga was once dubbed as
“The Fastest Selling Make of New Car Ever to Enter the United Kingdom“. It was
reliable, economical and trendy at the time, everything a buyer looks for in a car. But times changed, competition got fiercer, and as
other companies have
painfully learned, if you don’t keep up with the times, you go under.
However, the news on Proton being ‘bought off’ by a foreign company
may not be so bad after all. Proton has done some collaborations with foreign companies in the past, like
Japan’s Mitsubishi and
French’s Citroën for example, and the technology exchange brings much improvement to the existing Proton products.
Also, in their efforts in promoting their cars overseas, having
a foreign company partnering up with Proton may not actually be the worst idea in the world.
