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A Mitsubishi Montero Sport caught on CCTV last September 7 acting crazy and ravaging parked vehicles in Quezon City is going viral.
In a TV Patrol report Wednesday, the Montero was shown trying to park in front of a police station when it suddenly accelerated backwards, crashing into three parked motorbikes.
Horrifically, it then lurched forward and crashed into two more sedans, damaging another multicab in the process. These vehicles are all owned by policemen, by the way.
“Bigla na lang nakarinig ako ng malakas na ingay ng makina na akala mo galit na galit. Ginawa ko ang lahat, inapakan ko ang brake at hinand-brake ko, pero wala eh, may sa-demonyo ‘yung sasakyan,” the driver named JR told TV Patrol.
JR added that before buying the Montero, another Montero-owner advised him about that kind of, erm, behavior from the car. Said advisor got into the exact same accident before.
“Pero hindi naman ako naniwala,” JR told TV Patrol.
Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation (MMPC) has since issued a statement saying that the Montero Sport is neither defective nor unsafe to use.
“MMPC and its principal Mitsubishi Motors Corporation of Japan (MMC), has conducted extensive testing and investigation of all submitted claims of unintended acceleration, using current and available technology to determine the cause of said Unintended Acceleration but has not found any defects or cause directly linked to the vehicles involved,” the statement reads.
The Department of Trade and Industry is planning to create an investigating panel about the incident.
The thing is, this sudden and unintended acceleration of the Montero Sport has long been a problem. As early as 2011, complaints about this feature have been filed.
TopGear Philippines’ Editor-in-chief Vernon Sarne, who already addressed his opinion about this before, reiterated his stand on Tuesday. In “One Question if the Montero Sport really suffers from unintended acceleration”, Sarne said he doesn’t believe there is such a thing!
Among his points are: World-class technical experts have not been able to prove nor replicate it. Other claims have been proven as fraud already. And, it’s never happened to him too, he says, even after test-driving the unit with “with a collective mileage of thousands of kilometers involving multiple variants.
So now, what gives?
Here is the complete sequence of events in that Mitsubishi Montero Sport incident. See for yourself. Two things immediately jump out:1. They were having serious difficulty parking the vehicle into the slot they were targeting, so much so that it necessitated a change of drivers; and2. The brake lights were PERFECTLY FINE. How come they stopped functioning all of a sudden when the second driver took the wheel?Another question: How come ABS-CBN didn’t show the early part of the video? Just asking.
Posted by TOP GEAR PHILIPPINES on Thursday, 26 November 2015
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