Low Quality Cars Have Got to Go

Director of Iran Standard and Quality Inspection Company says according to law, production lines of several low-quality vehicles should stop by the end of the current fiscal (March 2018).

ISQI conducts monthly quality and safety tests on behalf of the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade. According to the reports published by the organization, many locally-made cars suffer from poor quality and barely earn one star in its five-star ranking system.

Ashkan Golpayegani, the ISQI cheif says, “By the end of the current fiscal, production of vehicles that fail to earn at least two stars in ISQI ranking will be halted,” Alef.ir reported.

ISQI’s latest report on the quality of local vehicles shows that out of 43 models evaluated 14 have only one star.

According to Ministry of Industries data, 293,285 units of the 14 models were  produced in the first four months of the current fiscal or 71% of the total domestic output.

Golpayegani’s comments are backed by the head of Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran. Manosur Moazemi says, “Substandard vehicles have got to go by the end of this year.”

According to Moazemi, ISQI has been authorized by the government to put a permanent end to production of low quality cars.

If carmakers continue to flout the quality regulations and “produce the low-quality models they will not be allowed to sell them in the market,” says the

IDRO chief without specifying what would happen to such vehicles.

In the past couple of years, aiming to counter air pollution,

The government has announced stringent regulations to improve the quality of domestic cars and remove the high emission vehicles from the streets. However, it has visibly failed to implement the rules leading to repeated complaints and protestation by the people, environment activists, economic experts and NGOs.

Most cars produced by the two major state-owned companies, Iran Khodro and SAIPA, have engines that are no longer in use in most countries with strict environmental rules. They are notorious for high emission, poor mileage and flaunting safety rules, especially the low-priced sedans and hatchbacks. All such  models so far have failed to earn more than one star in ISQI rankings.

According to earlier reports the first low-quality vehicle to leave production lines will be the originally South Korean Kia Pride produced for more than two decades by SAIPA.

On Monday, Reza Taqizadeh, SAIPA deputy sales manager, told reporters that production lines of Pride will be halted soon.

However, history of Iran’s auto industry shows government prohibitions hardly  stop automakers from manufacturing low quality vehicles.

In 2005 and by government decree, IKCO officially “halted” production lines of Paykan, a locally popular sedan based on the UK Hillman Hunter. However, up until now a spinoff of the Payakn pickup is still produced and sold in the local market.