Toyota Avanza Premio MT temporarily discontinued in Vietnam due to Daihatsu safety scandal

According to Reuters on December 20, 2023, Daihatsu – a subsidiary brand of Toyota – will temporarily suspend the delivery of all its car models after an investigation into safety test cheating involving 64 car models, including about 20 models sold under the Toyota brand.

Immediately after the news of the Daihatsu scandal emerged, Toyota Vietnam suspended the transportation of related Daihatsu car batches to dealerships from the afternoon of December 20 to further confirm specific information for the Vietnamese market.

After investigating the details of the scandal-related abnormalities, Toyota Vietnam confirmed that there was one affected car model in the domestic market, which is the Avanza Premio manual transmission (MT) model.

Toyota Vietnam stated: “According to the investigation results of a third-party independent committee, there was an inappropriate modification on the Avanza Premio MT model during overseas emissions and fuel consumption testing. However, in Vietnam, all Avanza Premio models comply with testing regulations and are certified to meet Vietnamese standards.”

Therefore, some Toyota-branded car models related to Daihatsu, such as Wigo, Avanza (other versions), Veloz, Raize, Yaris/Vios, and Yaris Cross, will continue to be sold in the Vietnamese market as usual.

For the cars sold in Vietnam, Toyota affirms that customers can continue to use them normally because Daihatsu has retested them with actual car models and concluded that these car models still meet safety and environmental standards (confirmed by an independent testing agency), so there is no need to stop using them.

According to Japanese media, an independent committee has investigated Daihatsu after the news of the company’s cheating in safety crash tests related to 88,000 cars in April, most of which were sold under the Toyota brand. However, the latest investigation shows that the scope of the scandal is much larger.

In particular, the committee found that the airbag device used by Daihatsu in some safety test models is different from the airbag device used in cars sold on the market. Toyota said they have not received any accident reports related to this cheating. The Japanese automaker affirmed that the safety tests may not have complied with regulations and laws, regardless of whether the airbag device in the test car and the car sold on the market meet safety standards for passengers.

In addition, the cheating also involved falsified reports on tests involving head restraints and test speeds with some car models. The cheating behavior has been carried out by Daihatsu since 1989, but it only became widespread after 2014.

Toyota stated that the affected car models include models for Southeast Asian markets such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam, as well as Central and South American countries like Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, and Uruguay.

TT (Tuoitrethudo)