Look Out Toyota, Here Comes The Good Enough Chinese Car

[bronsin]

Originally Posted by xnamerxx

Since no one here has ever had the joy of sitting in a brand new Chinese made vehicle or seeing a crash tested Chinese made vehicle I can tell you my story.

The company I work for has contracts with several firms and one of those firms makes cars in China so we see them from time to time here in the shop. Sitting in a brand new Chinese car isn't like sitting in a car made in Korea, France, Poland, or even Mexico the quality of the materials can appear nice at first but its quickly obvious that it's built down to a cost you can tell because the new car smell isn't what your used to here and we joke around the office that its the new cancer smell because it almost gives you the feeling like your breathing in mercury or lead or something else poisonous.

Well one of the things we also had to do here was demonstrate a 5 mph test, and I'll tell you this unless the quality of the metals that Chinese OEM's use improves I'll never and I repeat that never ride in one. The 5 mph test resulted in FRAME damage so we had to reinforce the front structure so much that it gained a bunch of weight simply to pass the minor accident test.

Just because the Yaris results in more injury claims doesn't mean its a dangerous car, statistics can be very misleading and even more so when someone has an agenda.

I drove VW Beetles hundreds of thousands of miles in the 70s and 80s. No ABS. No airbags. No "crush zones", no nothing. The gas tank is right in your lap, theres no engine in front of you to absorb energy in a frontal crash, the brakes are manually adjusted drums all around (no power assist either) and the car is completely directionably unstable.

But at least you are inside something, unlike the motorcycles I have also ridden for a like number of miles over thrity years. Any mistakes by yourself or others results in unpleasentness.

Safety in driving machines begins and ends in your head. Because of things like airbags the public is under the impression they are "safe" in modern vehicles. (airbags result in something called "degloving" as well as amputation to an alarming degree while minimizing other things)

Good luck with that!