In regards to the customer (Jayanta Phukan) incident in Assam, FCA India has issued a statement – “The FCA customer service team attended to Mr. Phukan as soon as we were informed about the incident and we resolved the issue within 24 hours. We are investigating this incident thoroughly and are not aware of any other instances. Nonetheless, we are immediately reviewing and reinforcing our quality assurance activities to further ensure the quality of our vehicles in the marketplace.”
Please use this statement in its entirety and attribute it to FCA India.Jayanta Phukan has posted the following updated along with images on Facebook – “Yesterday I have taken the delivery of my Jeep Compass car at Mahesh Motors Guwahati. On the way to Duliajan near Nagaon the car broke down the co_passenger side front wheel with drive shafts came out from the car and I somehow managed to stop the car. It’s a serious safety issue. Multinational company are selling such poor quality products in India which may cause fatal. I drove the car for just 3 hrs/172kms only. Looking forward for your suggestions what to do!!!!”
Below are the images shared by Mr Phukan.
We have left messages to Jeep India as well as Mahesh Motors if they can share any update from their side.
As far as the images are concerned, it seems like a ball joint failure in the front left wheel. There is no damage done to the vehicle body or to the tyres. The road is decent. After the tyre came off, you can see its marks on the road, all of which points that the there was no external factor that played.
As per Sudeep Chakraborty, a proud owner of Toyota Corolla, “A ball joint should eventually wear out and the steering starts to wobble in a old car and the car doesn’t hold its alignment. I changed it on my Corolla at 1.1 lakh kms.”
Another comment from Aniruddha Bhattacharyya, read – “Seems like manufacturing defect. Some one in assembly line forgot to tight the nuts to proper torque figure.” Ravi Varma Eradi said, “The lower arm ball joint stud came off from the knuckle…
The ball joint is the weakest link in McPherson suspension system…that’s why this suspension setup is not used in heavy vehicles and trucks, but in light vehicles only…but this is unfortunate.”
One of the comments on Mr Phukan’s post by Ashwin Kugan read – “Thats the beauty of FCA Engineering.You have to see the brighter side of this accident. Considering the severity of this accident on a highway, had it been any other car, it would have resulted in a terrible event causing loss of life. Thanks to Jeep India’s uncompromised quality & safety incorporated in the product, the aftermath of this incident has been mitigated drastically. Had it been a Maruti or Hyundai or Mahindra, pretty sure the effect would have been on a high scale.”
Another comment read, that this could be a case of poorly done QC (Quality Check) or PDI (Pre Delivery Inspection). Whatever be the case, we await for official reply from the company / dealer.
