‘Gov’t uses Lemon Law to avoid responsibility’
Criticism has been growing over the Moon Jae-in administration’s move to revise the country’s car management law so that carmakers, not the government, are obliged to prove their vehicles are not defective, according to industry analysts Tuesday.
They say policymakers are trying to avoid responsibility by giving up their oversight role over the safety of vehicles sold here, while consumers are crying foul that the revision does nothing to address the financial losses and inconvenience caused by faulty cars.
According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the revision to the Motor Vehicle Management Act, initiated by Rep. Park Soon-ja of Liberty Korea Party, will take effect Jan. 1.
Though the revision was tabled by a lawmaker, it is described as a government-driven bill because it mostly reflects the transport ministry’s position.
It is also dubbed the Korean version of the “Lemon Law” because it benchmarked the U.S. Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which was enacted in 1975 to protect consumer rights in the automotive field.
Under the revision, carmakers will face stricter standards for recalls or refunds if the same error occurs consecutively. Also, stronger punishments will be imposed if the carmaker fails to correct faults, and if injuries occur due to them.
What stirs the controversy is the article obliging carmakers to “submit data and documents which prove a certain model has no defects.”
Also, the next article states that “the model will be presumed to be defective if the manufacturer of the model does not submit such a data.”
Currently, the ministry has the authority to decide whether to launch recalls on faulty cars and its Korea Transportation Safety Authority (TS) has been investigating suspected defects in malfunctioning cars.
However, the consecutive fires in BMW vehicles this summer triggered criticism that the TS is not capable of investigating faulty cars properly, depending heavily on manufacturers’ data.
“Rather than enhancing its authority to investigate the reason for the malfunction, the government is dumping its responsibility on carmakers,” an official at a car company said asking not to be named.
“If the government wanted its recall decision to be more objective and fair, it should have created an objective organization comprised of the authority, carmaker and a third party. It seems that the current revision is just aimed at punishing carmakers.”
Another car company official said the clause obliging carmakers to prove its products have no defects is problematic, because it will force carmakers to launch recalls without knowing the cause of an error, even if it later turned out the error was caused by a driver’s mistake.
“Finding the cause of an error and proving a model’s flawlessness is a completely different story,” the official said.
Consumers are also not satisfied with the revision because it does not protect consumers who suffered damages seen in the BMW cases, in which cars just caught fire without prior warning.