More delays? Issues? Promises? Here’s what we heard from Omoda & Jaecoo PH

Omoda & Jaecoo (O&J) Philippines have been making promise after promise to the Filipino motoring public and motoring media over the last year. These include brand and car launch dates, indicative prices for their vehicles, vehicle features, among others. As of this writing, much of these promises remain just that. 

I was invited to attend yet another livestream presentation by the O&J Philippines team for the Omoda 5 EV, held today with representatives from the China and Philippine-based teams of the Chinese twin automakers. Unsurprisingly, they made another set of promises.

Before everything else, here’s a little bit of context. Recently, there have been reports of Omoda 5 crossovers in Malaysia (where it is known as Chery Omoda 5) experiencing an axle snapping issue while driving. This is not only a quality issue, but rather a safety issue. Thankfully, the source of the issue has already been properly identified and traced to a welding mishap. Chery in Malaysia is already working to rectify this situation.

As for promises, O&J Philippines promised that the incoming Omoda 5 and Omoda 5 EV models for the Philippines will not be affected by the axle-snapping issue that we saw in their Malaysian counterpart. As to why they can make this promise, we have to refer to an article by our friends over at CarGuide.PH which you can read here.

O&J Country Manager for the Philippines Marco Chen said there “I believe that the issue has already been resolved due to their local production capabilities.” 

To be fair, this makes perfect sense as the affected models in Malaysia are right-hand drive models locally manufactured there, and not in the main Chery manufacturing plant in Wuhu, China. For reference, our Philippines-spec left-hand drive models will be sourced from Wuhu. All this would lead us to assume that only those made in the Malaysia factory would have a possible axle-snapping issue, right?

Now, here’s where things get a little iffy. A few days ago, Chery Auto Philippines, under United Asia Automotive Group, Inc. (UAAGI), announced a recall for 90 units of their Tiggo 5X Pro crossover due to “insufficient welding bead dimensions on its rear torsion beam assembly which may eventually lead to breakage during vehicle operations, especially if driven under hard conditions.” This sounds oddly similar to the welding issue found on the Omoda 5, or is it?

In case you’re wondering why these two issues on two different vehicles could be the same, the (Chery) Omoda 5 is actually built on the same platform as the Chery Tiggo 5X Pro.

Let’s go back to Chen’s statement saying that the issue has something to do only with “their local production capabilities (in Malaysia).” Is this statement even true since we’re seeing similar issues with models made in China already? When we asked another representative from O&J to comment as to why Chery Auto Philippines issued the recall above despite the issue supposedly being limited to Malaysia-produced units, they said something along the lines of “that is just Chery Auto Philippines (UAAGI) focusing on their ‘own personal benefit,’” without giving a proper explanation as to why these are mutually exclusive issues. All the while again reassuring us that our local Omoda models will not be affected by the issue.

With this, I’m not sure how “personal benefit” is related to consumer satisfaction and SAFETY.

One key takeaway from this issue that our editor-in-chief, Julian Panlilio, would like to add is that saying things against other companies, whether it would be to a public or private audience, is not at all good for business. This will definitely hit them back in some way eventually. 

Going back to the brand’s official launch and availability in the Philippines, Chen said that “the launch will push through sometime in 2024.” When we asked the O&J representative during the livestream if they already have a specified or target date, they said that they could not give us that information yet. Probably, even they don’t know yet.

The real question here is, what are you doing, O&J?