Chery Malaysia has issued a safety recall for approximately 600 examples of its Omado 5 SUV, which is currently on sale in Australia, after a customer experienced a catastrophic rear axle failure that immobilised the vehicle.
The vehicle owner and driver, Stephanie, posted up the details onto Facebook on the weekend, explaining the situation and showing the resultant wreckage. Photos show the rear torsion beam structure completely detached from the chassis. According to Stephanie, this happened while driving along with “no bumps, no accidents, no potholes” on the road:
“I would like an explanation as to why my back axle snapped clean off while driving. No bumps, no accidents, no potholes, just sudden failure in the middle of the road,” Stephanie said.
Upon closer inspection of the sheared beam, the owner asks a Facebook group why there appears to be only two weld spots instead of welding all the way around the beam. The photos show that is not quite correct, but there are two sides of the box-beam welded and the top and bottom are not welded. This could explain the failure.
In a statement, Chery Malaysia says it is “committed to providing safe and reliable transportation” and that it is dedicated to ensuring “all our vehicles meet the highest safety” standards. It says it has identified the issue and highlights that it is an “isolated case”. However, it is still sending out a precautionary recall for 600 vehicles. The company said:
“We would like to reassure customers that no other vehicles are affected. Chery Auto Malaysia continues to focus on upholding the safety of our customers and ensuring their peace of mind. A website to cater to this precautionary measure will be in place for all Omoda 5 customers to confirm that their vehicles are not affected.”
Interestingly, Stephanie says the broken vehicle was towed to a service centre and a salesperson said this is the second case, and that the first was “quickly and easily” resolved.
Worryingly, Stephanie said that at the time the beam snapped the vehicle was only travelling slow. In the Facebook post, Stephanie said:
“We were quite lucky that it happened when we slowed down to go round a bend; I shudder to think what would happen to me and my 3 friends in the car had the axle snapped at high speed on the highway, which we just exited not even 5 minutes prior.”
A dashcam fitted to the vehicle, which was rolling during the time of the incident, captured the moment the rear axle separated from its intended position. And it shows it occurred at about 40km/h. See the Facebook post below.
The Chery Omoda 5 is currently on sale in Australia. It’s available in two main forms, including the regular and the GT. Chery Australia is yet to confirm if any local models are affected by this issue and recall. We’ll keep you updated if we hear more.
