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29 March 2024

Ministry cracks down on car dealers selling vehicles with defects

Published
By Staff

The Ministry of Economy (MoE) has cracked down on car dealerships in the UAE, with 2,500 vehicles replaced over the past two years for not meeting safety standards.

The figures were revealed to Arabic daily, Al Bayan Newspaper, with the replacement affecting vehicles across different models and makes.

Dr Hashim Al Nuaimi, Director of Consumer Protection at the MoE, revealed vehicles with defects were largely affected, which included defects in the airbags system, among others.

Dr Nuaimi further said the dispute committee has ensured dealerships are obligated to repair some of the defects, while in some cases, they need to provide the affected person with an alternative cars.

He emphasised that in the event of the appearance of defects in a product, the ministry will withdraw it immediately from the UAE market, in coordination with the local agents in the country.

Dr Nuaimi added the committee has looked into seven issues of disputes among different models of cars and one generator, where the committee obliged the dealer of a type of generators to submit the affected client with a new generator.

He said measures are taken after reviewing a product and confirming that there were manufacturing defects.

He added that what happened where the replacement of the generator or any other products due to manufacturing defects in the old generator.

Narrating an incident that was put forth with the committee, Dr Nuaimi said one customer claimed he had visited a car dealership six times to fix a defect but the company was unable to do so.

After the customer approached the committee, the authorities gave the dealership one last chance to fix the air leakage or be forced to replace the vehicle with a new one.

In a similar case, a car dealership was handed a last chance to repair a vehicle, or the customer would recover the value of the investment, amounting to Dh248,000.

Dr Nuaimi added that in this instance, the customer recovered his money after a 20 per cent depreciation for the first year usage.