Should Hyundai Australia be investigated for defective vehicles?

QUESTION

Hi John,

I’m trying to contact you about Hyundai and the bad customer service with their unsafe vehicles.

Currently I’m in a social media group of people unhappy with Hyundai’s lack of care and support. Even Jo Ucukalo from Handle My Complaint is helping - she has been on the media (current affairs, news websites, the morning shows and possibly another coming soon).

The ACCC is currently investigating Hyundai and also a class action will be started very soon.

Hyundai refuses to follow Australian Consumer Laws in that if they can’t fix a serious issue, consumer law dictates they must refund their customers.

I would love to hear from you because you don’t hold back and it could benefit both of us and our group.

Please contact me for further information ie. videos of engines rattling, house fire photos, and other information.

Kind regards,

Shane

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ANSWER

Hi Shane,

Respectfully, I’m going to decline to pursue this. Here’s why:

In NSW, for example, Fire & Rescue respond to about 3000 vehicle fires annually - that’s 60 a week, or about 8-9 every day. Vehicle on fire is a common Fire & Rescue call-out. You could easily prosecute an argument that all brands catch fire. (A Current Affair is really good at hatchet jobs of this nature.) What causes the fire is, however, a very important consideration.

For the manufacturer to be responsible, it obviously has to be a manufacturing defect. The public certainly has a right to expect vehicles to be free of such defects, but vehicles catch fire for many other reasons (dodgy electrical modifications, driving damage, poor maintenance, etc.).

There’s no specific ‘fire’ (or engine failure) predisposition I am aware of with Hyundai vehicles in Australia. This has been a problem in North America, but Australian Hyundai vehicles are not sourced from North America. Fire risk is a common reason to issue a recall across the automotive industry, but I am unaware of Hyundai failing to honour its responsibilities here, in Australia.

I am aware of engine failures, which happen across all brands occasionally, but Hyundai has a good track record of customer support there, provided the vehicle has not been abused (such as by not getting it serviced on time).

Furthermore, events of this nature (engine defects, fires, etc.) tend to correlate very closely with specific makes, models, powertrains, and ranges of build dates. As far as I can tell, your group comprises more a series of random dissatisfied owners, and the independent investigations I’ve been made aware of into the fire(s) in question (in particular) have failed to link them to extant recalls or manufacturing defects more broadly.

Statistically, Hyundai has sold roughly one million vehicles here, in the past 10-12 years. Most of these vehicles are still on the road. Your group represents, therefore, less than one tenth of one per cent of current owners. (When there is a widespread manufacturing defect, as there was recently with the Toyota 2.8D DPF installation, which was verified in Federal Court, the number of affected owners tends to be confined to a specific set of parameters, such as those detailed above, and they number in the tens of thousands.)

I do understand that some customers are dissatisfied with their Hyundai vehicles, which is normal and understandable, but until there’s an independently verified link to a provable manufacturing defect that has not been dealt with appropriately by them (ie, by recall) than I’m afraid it’s just a witch hunt.

Also, my face-to-face dealings with Hyundai, on behalf of owners with legitimate problems, leads me to conclude that they’re among the best carmakers at customer care and consumer law compliance in Australia.

Ms Ucukalo getting on TV is of course free to hypothesise at will, but in my opinion this doesn’t establish a causal link between the event (a fire) and the cause (manufacturing defect). In other words, I am a vocal critic, but I don’t do witch hunts - they have no merit in my view.

If a link is independently established, I will cover it, aggressively.

Sincerely,

John Cadogan

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