I like to share my experience as an owner of three Protons. I have a Perdana, Wira and Saga. My worst experience was with my Perdana. When I bought it four years ago, my nightmare started when the salesman told me that my Perdana had only one set of keys and that the spare set was missing. He, however, offered me a discount so I took the car.

When I took my car home, I noticed that my alarm would not function and so I rang the salesman who told me this was a biasa (normal) problem which could be fixed immediately. This ended up costing me three additional visits. Unfixed, I bought my new alarm at an accessory shop.

The next trauma came with my automatic transmission. I noticed my car was behaving like a Kancil, despite being labelled 'two-litres'. It refused to go any faster than 60km/h. I took it to EON service centre and they told me the computer chip had malfunctioned. I was puzzled as I could not imagine there was a computer chip in my Proton. Anyway, they fixed the problem, but this lasted only for six months, after which the problem returned.

The most irritating experience was when I noticed that my car started bouncing up and down after driving over the speed bump. I took my Perdana to EON to check the suspension and they told me "suspension, OK".

So I asked the mechanic to inspect my car as it was due for maintenance. All of sudden, he told me that my air-conditioner and air-filter was out of order. I could not believe it and insisted he show it to me. To my horror, my air-cond was making a loud knocking noise and the mechanic told me to replace it.

I was upset as it was working well before - they must have damaged it. And then guess what, the mechanic said his friend at another workshop outside could fix the problem at half the price. This was too much. I immediately understood what the mechanic was trying to do. I took the car away and drove it to another mechanic who fixed the problem for RM20. It turned out that my air filter was suddenly damaged and that caused the noise when the air-cond was turned on.

Needless to say, my Perdana continued to feel like a yo-yo when I drove over a speed bump or anything uneven. I took it to a Goodyear tire shop where the excellent mechanics took my wheels off for inspection and showed me that all four of my suspensions were damaged and worn by an oil leak.

I was very irritated as EON was unable to detect the problem in my four visits to them. I went back to EON for an explanation and they said: "Sorry, we missed it." That was not the only problem as the Goodyear mechanics also noticed one of my front Proton-made alloy wheels was deformed.

That was not the end of the story as two weeks ago, my rear-view mirror fell off by itself. I had it fixed and a week later the new rear-view mirror fell off too. So I have sworn never to buy another Proton.

If Proton wants to compete, it has to be interested and committed to its customers. It should employ only the best. Ultimately, the accident toll will rise if the suspension problem like the one in my car was not detected. Come on, my car is the flagship Perdana.