As US automakers get cozier with their Chinese counterparts, the quality of PRC-produced cars has become a topic of debate/concern. And for good reason. According to Daily Report, a recent customer satisfaction survey in China shows that 77 percent of new car owners reported problems. The report, which would make JD Power's mob weep (or salivate), revealed 338 problems for every 100 vehicles across the industry. China has no equivalent to our Consumer Product Safety Commission, so the only way consumers there have to learn about hazardous products is word-of-mouth. This is not the kind of culture you'd naturally associate with building safe, reliable vehicles for the U.S. market, Just sayin'.

The Big 2.8 should consider themselves lucky in their current UAW negotiations if the union just wants keep what they have and not give anything back. The Moscow Times [sub] reports that workers at the AvtoVAZ assembly plant in Togliattigrad, Russia are demanding a pay increase that equals three times their current salaries. Five thousand of the 110k workers at the plant are threatening to strike if they don't get a pay increase of 25K rubles (about $980) per worker. The Times suggests that a strike of that size could effectively shut down the plant which produces, among other things, GM joint venture vehicles. No word yet on whether the UAW plans a show of solidarity in support of their comrades.

Help me out. Once again, Parisian youths have “celebrated” Bastille Day by taking to the streets and burning cars. According Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the vandals topped last year’s one night total by 12 vehicles, destroying some 266 whips. Other than all the socio-economic politico-religious motivations for this orgy of criminal property damage, I don’t understand what this report means by “detonators.” Apparently, the French authorities attempted to forestall the conflagrations created during these “routine riots” by banning the sales, storage and use of “detonators.” Something’s been lost in translation. 

When the U.S. and South Korea signed a new trade agreement last week, the dems bitched on behalf of The Big 2.8: "Last year, South Korea exported more than 700,000 cars into the U.S.,” their statement proclaimed. “While the United States exported fewer than 5,000." Setting aside the question of what American-made cars could generate 650k South Korean sales, chosenilbu.com reveals that the existing importers are playing silly buggers. Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has ordered Mercedes to stop price fixing. “The importer allegedly had a firm ‘three-strikes’ guideline for dealers that broke its rules more than twice. The offending dealers were stripped of their sales rights and required to pay penalties of W30 million [US$1=W928].” BMW and Audi may be next.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, and one of Pakistan's most important military locations. (Quetta means fort in Pushto). It's also a German driver's worst nightmare: roads stuffed to the gills with over-loaded smokey wrecks, shopkeepers setting-up stalls on parking spots, traffic lights that don't work (which everyone ignores anyway) and pettifogging wardens who are easily (if not enthusiastically) bought off, who've still managed to write 38,910 tickets so far this year. OK, you say, that describes most of the "developing world." But have you ever wondered if there's a bureaucracy behind the madness trying to bring order to chaos? This story in the Daily Times sheds some representational light on Quetta's microscopic blue line.