China's State Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine yesterday moved to notify Chinese users of the Mercedes-Benz MB100 minibus to stop driving the vehicle because of a serious manufacturing flaw.
The administration also asked users to send the vehicles to maintenance centres as soon as possible. An administration official said imports of the 12-seat vehicle made in the Republic of Korea (ROK) will be suspended according to Chinese laws and regulations.
The administration has asked Mercedes-Benz to recall the vehicles in line with internationally accepted practices.
An MB100 which crashed killing one person and injuring two others in northwestern Gansu Province on February 29 was found to have suffered a brake failure.
After a careful check of the van belonging to a branch company of China National Petroleum Corporation, the administration found the space between the exhaust pipe and axle shaft was less than required, which caused the exhaust pipe and the brake oil pipe to bump. The latter subsequently became deformed, leading to fuel congestion.
It was later found that the defect was common among vans of this model.
Unofficial statistics show that 2,076 MB100s have been taken for repair around the country since 2000. Some 11.37 percent of the surveyed vehicles have reported the same defect.
Eleven such vehicles in the provinces of Gansu, Helongjiang and Anhui have found severe abrasion in the rear brake oil pipe. Other accidents related to the defect have taken place in areas where roads are of poor quality.
(China Daily May 24, 2002)
