Right choice of cars for State Assemblymen

All the talk about saving money for state governments, yet one by one, frugality is the last thing on their minds.

In my opinion, the incredibly high repair costs of Proton Perdana seems silly when we have the choice of other makes which the dealers might have been able to provide extra warranty for a fixed amount which includes labour and spares.

Hyundai Sonata would have been a good choice if price, fuel consumption and maintenance are the essential criteria. Given the chance, Kah Bintang would have been too glad to offer something better than what Toyota is able to offer for their Camrys.

What about leasing instead? Judging from the ludicrous amounts of repair costs, leasing would have been a cheaper option.

Yet another tempted by glamour instead of thrift, judging from this report:

Sabah government to replace Perdana cars with Volvos
This appeared in today's star.

Looks like Sabah is taking opportunity to jump on the "lets ditch our Proton's" bandwagon, and it is really quite hard to blame them.

The good news is that Perak. Selangor and Terengganu have all paved the way forward. Terengganu was the first to get the ball rolling and of course it was super controversial, as the had chosen to go with Mercedes for the replacement of the Perdana's.

When Selangor and Perak went with Toyota CAMRY's it was very uneventful because Toyota's makes absolute sense.

Lets look at why Toyota's make sense:
1. Toyota has grown from nothing to be the number 1 car company in the world, as measured in Sales & Profitability
2. On a Global basis - Toyota is number 1 in quality and reliability.
3. Toyota has for years had the highest quality ratings of any car manufacturer
4. Toyota has the highest customer satisfaction rating and the highest customer retention rate among all brands
5. Locally it is the same story.
6. Year on year Toyota sales in Malaysia have been growing - a sign of a strong franchise
7. Total cost of ownership is low due to high reliability and low service cost
8. Resale value is strong relative to all other brands.
9. Toyota has a strong dealer network throughout the country , dealers are well trained and have all the proper equipment for servicing and maintaining the cars.
10. On a personal level - you hardly ever hear anyone complain about the cost of owning a Toyota.

Back to SABAH, switching out of Perdana's is not suprising. The SHOCK is replacing Perdana's with VOLVO's.

Lets use the same criteria above that was used to evaluate Toyota to Evaluate VOLVO:
1. Unlike Toyota, VOLVO is in trouble and Ford is looking to sell it off
2. On a Global basis - Unlike Toyota, VOLVO has never been regarded as a brand that is number 1 in quality and reliability.
3. Unlike Toyota, VOLVO has never been known for quality. Instead VOLVO's legacy is safety but even then other brands have overtaken VOLVO. In 2008 the AUDI A6 and AUDI A4 were placed ateh safes large and mid sized sedans. (here)
4. Unlike Toyota, VOLVO does not have the highest customer satisfaction rating and the highest customer retention rate among all brands
5. Locally it is the same story.
6. Unlike Toyota, year on year VOLVO sales in Malaysia have been declining
7. Unlike Toyota, total cost of ownership is higher due to lower reliability and higher service cost
8. Unlike Toyota, resale value is weaker relative to all other competing brands.
9. Unlike Toyota, VOLVO has a limited dealer network throughout the country (and none in SABAH) (here)
10. On a personal level - you will hear owners complain about their VOLVO - love the car hate the cost.

I think the people of SABAH really need to ask some hard questions. If the goal is to save cost - then the benchmark surely must be the CAMRY and all else must be measured against the Total Cost of Ownership of a Camry - like for like.

I am not too sure about the maintenance costs of Camry being low, though compared with Volvo, there should not be any doubt. Just like medical expenses are likely to be higher if one is insured because they are paid by the insurance company, maintenance costs of state-owned vehicles tend to be higher than privately owned ones!