It's odd that what should have been an occasion to celebrate, turned into the biggest nightmare of the month.

Being one of those few who braved the news of impending price drops with the coming of Afta, I placed an order for what I thought was a pretty decent car the pride and joy of the country ... a Proton.

Not just any Proton, but the Proton Wira Special Edition. Great looks, decent build quality (at least on the showroom demo car I sat in) and it was priced below anything the market was offering at that point in time for a car that size.

After settling all the necessary paperwork and payments, my pride and joy was delivered about two weeks later. But what I thought would be an eventful and enjoyable term of ownership of a brand new national car turned out to be the exact opposite.

By the next day, my brand new, 75km old Wira was in the workshop. The automatic gearbox wasn't shifting gears as it should. The recalcitrant unit insisted that first gear was the only gear it had and ignored the existence of the rest despite the owner's manual clearly stating the existence of those gears somewhere in the labyrinth of hydraulic fluid and mechanics. Reverse, thankfully, was working fine.

I promptly booked the car into the nearest Proton Edar service dealer for remedial works. The centre which I sent my car into requires special mention. ProService at Wangsa Maju took the car in for a whole day and returned it in as-new condition. What I mean by "as-new" is that they didn't fix the problem at all. The gearbox still insisted first gear was the only gear it had, and yes, thankfully, reverse still worked.

The 'service advisor' advised me "not to drive the car" until they find a solution, though oddly, he said that his engineers found "nothing technically wrong" with the car. You mean to tell me all Protons have only one forward gear? His words of wisdom did nothing to bolster my confidence in how Proton builds its cars or trains its service centre engineers

He promised to call me once they receive a response from the technical department at Proton itself. I waited. And waited. And waited.

Three days passed before I decided to try my luck at another smaller, Proton Edar service representative in Ampang. This service centre, though not a Proton Edar-run establishment, found and remedied the problem within half an hour. It all boiled down to a cable adjustment which the full-fledged Proton Edar service centre completely overlooked.

One wonders why there is such a disparity in the quality of the engineers that service Proton cars at their various service centres.

Its been 760km and two weeks now since I took delivery of the car. Although nothing major has occurred or failed in the car, and the gearbox has finally realised that first gear is not the best way to get to the legal speed limit, things are already showing signs of undue wear and tear.

The fancy bodykit skirting, although tastefully sporty in design, has sadly started to detach itself from the rest of the car. The front suspension has started to volunteer squeaking noises when going over road undulations and the driver's seat groans the moment its unlucky occupant moves. The rear hatch has also started to volunteer strange groaning noises when it is opened or shut, and there is now a warranty sticker peering out of the steering column, half attached to the wiper stalk. The engine too has started to sound oddly diesel-ish, with a continuous tapping noise when it is running. Oh, and the car stalled in gear when I was reversing this morning.

The gearbox still isn't perfect - not at any rate. The unit shifts gears with all the refinement of a drunken mule, jerking as it shifts up and down the ratios, sometimes forgetting that 5000rpm is not an optimal shift-up point when the driver is treading lightly on the accelerator.

My 1992 Proton Saga 1.5i automatic, which I still own, feels like a Lexus in comparison, managing its gearshifts with far more refinement that you would credit to a 12-year-old design.

Buying a Proton perhaps prepares you mentally for a realisation that its quality control isn't exactly world class as yet. You tend to want to forgive Proton for such screw-ups, and you want to be supportive of the national car industry.

Honestly, I want to as well desperately so. But when your 1992 Proton Saga is far more refined, more reliable and more trouble free than a brand new Wira, you cant help but feel that Proton hasn't tried hard enough to improve itself in the past few years.

It still baffles me as to how a car with such a blatant defect like a badly calibrated gearbox can be allowed to pass quality control at the factory. Does Proton just slap on the 'Proton LULUS' sticker on its car's windows for the sake of sticking something onto the car or does it actually bother to check that its products are in proper working order when it leaves the factory? Ironically, my car also has an additional "Proton Edar PDI Lulus" sticker on it.guess that shouldn't be taken too seriously either.

It disappoints me immensely to have what was a brand new car act up on me the very day I took delivery of it. It annoys me endlessly to realize that my car will not get the professional attention it needs to be kept in proper running order because of the inept service engineers that are stationed at the Proton Edar service centers. And most of all, it frustrates me to no end to realize that my two week old Wira already feels tired and old.

I love the concept of a national car. I believe that Protons are essentially sound designs on paper. But if my Wira is as good as it gets, I can say with virtual certainty that Proton has lost one avid supporter of their vision of being a world-class manufacturer of quality automobiles.