The New Car Assessment Program for Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN NCAP) said that they have received complaints from consumers on violations of safety specifications in one of their tested vehicles. It is said that a top tether fitment has been removed from the locally made car, which is vital to improve the child protection system inside the vehicle.
ASEAN NCAP Secretary-General, Mr. Khairil Anwar Abu Kassim said that the action of removing such fitment will surely have severe impact on the result of Child Occupant Protection of ASEAN NCAP test. Thus, the variation or exclusion of such specification shouldn’t be allowed at all.
“This is an irresponsible act by the manufacturer and needs to be made public in order to demonstrate safety is not tolerable. The results from ASEAN NCAP rating is a “promise” between manufacturers and NCAP, especially on the safety fitment installed inside their respective vehicles, and certainly this manufacturer has broken their promise.” said Khairil in a statement.
The agency will send a show cause letter to the said manufacturer with demand on a plan to recover the situation. The result from the discussion will be either the car to be retested with lower specification variant or total rating will be suspended.
The overall finding will also be made public stated Khairil. He added that due to this complaint ASEAN NCAP is also investigating other model of the brand which is assessed by ASEAN NCAP.
We’re not sure which ‘locally made cars’ are involved in this investigation, there has been some speculation, but we’ll keep you posted when more info emerges.
