S’PORE BUS DRIVER: MADE-IN-CHINA BUS NEARLY COST ME MY LIFE

I am a bus owner and using my own bus to earn a living for myself to support my family.

I have been driving buses for nearly 18 years and would like to agree with the author saying that China vehicles should be banned let me share my story here.

I bought a used 8 years old Mercedes Bus back in 2000 and it was indeed a superb and good drive, it costs me about $65k to buy it from my friend and whenever my bus went for some repairs, I will borrow a bus from someone else and always try to get a Japanese bus from others. The bus I had was very good and durable maybe some will say because it’s a Mercedes. Sadly, in 2012 my bus lifespan was up and I have no choice but to scrap that Merc bus, I was glad that it was actually exported. So during that time I rented a Isuzu for a month as I have made purchase for Yutong bus, there was a promotion at that time and the new Yutong was actually selling at $180k with COE.

After driving the Yutong for 3 years, the bus keep on giving me problems, it often breakdown and having brake and gearbox problems without warning at all, and when it goes to the workshop to be repaired, a simple repair work takes 2 weeks and the repair cost was even higher than a Japanese bus!

And the problem did not stop after being repaired, almost every single week there are problems with the bus like steering, and brake problems. I remembered on a faithful day I was doing a night trip and I was making my way back to the heavy vehicle park on a dry road condition. Suddenly, without warning at all, my bus starting veering off and the brakes jammed, I tried to slow down my bus by dropping my gear but I don’t seem to be able to engage my clutch, so got out of the expressway and at the same time tried to find a safe spot to stop my bus, I immediately drive my bus out of the expressway and rammed my bus onto a small barrier to put my bus to a halt. Which thank god it finally stopped.

I got a tow truck to tow to my workshop and the workshop told me confessed to me that China buses aren’t easy to be repaired and recommend that after repairing my bus, he told me to get rid of it the soonest possible, after the bus was repaired, I sold back to some dealer and traded for a used 8 year old Isuzu bus, I sighed to relief that I made the right choice. My Isuzu bus was doing well and dtill now it is already 11 years old and the bus was still in superb condition! I remembered not too long ago, my Isuzu bus had it air brake pipe burst and air was leaking very quickly. I decided to take my bus to the workshop and I am actually pleased that I made it to the workshop safe and sound, the brakes took a long time to react but I still stopped.

So since I have shared my views here, I hope heavy vehicle owners will think
carefully before making purchase, it’s definitely not worth to buy a Chinese
vehicle.