Mazda Sends 4,703 New Cars to the Scrap Heap
Two summers ago, a cargo freighter, the Cougar Ace, was en-route to Vancouver, British Columbia. Its cargo was a fleet of cars from Japan, mostly from Mazda, which had 4,703 autos on-board destined for Canadian and American dealerships. While exchanging ballast water in the open ocean, the cargo ship tilted badly to the side and had to be abandoned. It was later up-righted and the cars saved (most weren't even wet), but despite this save, Mazda has decided to scrap every last one of the shiny, new autos.
Mazda decided it couldn't determine what could have gone wrong with the autos after being held at an angle for so long, and with the potential future lawsuits it foresaw should any of these cars ever fail, the auto manufacturer went the conservative (though extremely wasteful) route of sending them to the dump.
The tale of the Cougar Ace was told in 'Wired' magazine, including the heroic rescue of the ship by a crew of modern-day (legal) pirates who boarded and righted the ship. The pirates lost one of their team in the process, Marty Johnson, who slipped down the heavily inclined ship and suffered a fatal head injury. The story is a fascinating read and, apparently, is set to become a movie in the not too distant future. [Source: The Wall Street Journal, via BoingBoing]
Mazda decided it couldn't determine what could have gone wrong with the autos after being held at an angle for so long, and with the potential future lawsuits it foresaw should any of these cars ever fail, the auto manufacturer went the conservative (though extremely wasteful) route of sending them to the dump.
The tale of the Cougar Ace was told in 'Wired' magazine, including the heroic rescue of the ship by a crew of modern-day (legal) pirates who boarded and righted the ship. The pirates lost one of their team in the process, Marty Johnson, who slipped down the heavily inclined ship and suffered a fatal head injury. The story is a fascinating read and, apparently, is set to become a movie in the not too distant future. [Source: The Wall Street Journal, via BoingBoing]
Filed under: Car Tech, Green Tech
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
THEFIREMAN101 @ May 1st 2008 4:15AM
YOU HAVE GOTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 TO BE KIDDING ME MANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEY SCRAPED 4700 CARS.....................MANNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEY COULD HAVE RECOVERED THEIR MONEY FROM THE SALE OF THOSE CARS AS " AS-IS" CARS ON A CAR LOT- REMOVE THE WARRANTY AND LET THE PEOPLE KNOW. JUST SELL THE CARS FOR $1500 BUCKS................
henry ford @ May 1st 2008 7:44AM
why bother. just put a dodge nameplate on them and nobody would know the difference.
M.Furman @ May 1st 2008 10:06AM
Legal pirates? You mean it was salvaged by some lawyers?
I.M.Black @ May 1st 2008 3:32PM
I cant believe this... They should have aleast donated them to some sort of non-profit agency to assist with something... who cares??? Also as you stated Fireman... they could have easily sold them As-Is... used car dealerships do it all the time... what's the difference here?? To me this makes no sense at all... "preserving Mazda's name?" the fact of them destroying the cars and not donating or selling them as-is to me does more damage to the Mazda name than destroying them would have ever done IMO.
Sam @ May 4th 2008 2:25PM
Why can't they randomly scrap the old junker rusty cars in cities in the USA? It would be economical to scrap the older models and encourage gas efficient vehicles!! It's about time 100 mpg cars are on the market, pressure needs to be applied to the industries to help clean the environment up a bit!
Pat Bohanan @ May 4th 2008 2:54PM
This happened about 15 years ago to Diahatsu. Their freighter was caught in a cyclone and the cars and trucks were destroyed once the were on land. The insurance company did not want to take the risk of the cars having potential damage and face lawsuits.
G.L. @ May 4th 2008 3:10PM
If the cars didnt get wet,what's the big deal? Better safe than sorry,though.
carcrazy714 @ May 4th 2008 3:13PM
What a waste. Mazdas are crap but why not part them out or use them for auto related classes. There must have been hundreds of better uses for these cars without the risk of liability on Mazda's part.
cathys0820 @ May 4th 2008 3:20PM
oh for goodness sake....they could have "given" them to some charity or tons of other things they could have done with them....scrapping them just makes costs rise!!!
RAC55 @ May 4th 2008 3:25PM
Mazda did the right thing in this "sue happy" world we live in. Probably, most other automakers would have done the same thing. The cost of 4700 cars is chump change compared to the cost of defending yourself against class action lawsuits for years on end.
Wm J. Rountry @ May 4th 2008 3:45PM
@@@ ~~ MAZDA ??
ALA FORD!!
ALIAS GM*!!
ALSO THE GREAT GARBAGE AND DUNG HEAP MANUFACTURERS??.
smartest move LATELY by any of the garbage spewing auto makers.
they all need to be "" SCRAPED ""!.
Rachel @ May 4th 2008 4:00PM
How sad that thanks to our sue happy society all these new cars had to be destroyed. They could've been sold for parts or donated to needy people but I understand Mazda not wanting to take a risk if something malfunctioned in one of the cars.
Barry @ May 4th 2008 4:16PM
Mazda is very cool. They have integrity.
Roland Esquivel @ May 4th 2008 4:24PM
Rountry, you dummy ! They were SCRAPPED not scraped !
You must ride a jackass !
chris @ May 4th 2008 4:28PM
here is a thought why didn't they just take them back to thier prodution lot let them sit there while they conducted some ivestigation on some those cars and pusht them to see what effect it had on the car if they passed all safety test then the rest of them would have been safe to donate to some of the fire departments to use as extracation training cars this way they would not end up on the street for common consumer use only becuse it would be to difficult to determine long term effects of what happened to them
SG HOPKINS @ May 4th 2008 4:36PM
PEOPLE ARE STARVING IN OUR OWN COUNTRY AND THEN YOU SEE THE STUPIDITY OF OTHERS !
SirFixalot @ May 4th 2008 4:48PM
I agree, what a total waste! But I see thier point about the liability issue.
ALTHOUGH, if they wouldv'e taken the engine and transmission out of the cars and replaced them, or rebuilt them, they still could've sold them for the cost of the parts and labor. I wonder if they even thought of that??
It helps to have a basic understanding of the internal combustion engine to know why they did what they did. It would've been a nightmare for years to come (for all involved) if they sold those cars "as-is".
Tell ya what tho, IMHO, Mazda's are junk. I had a B2000 pickup years ago and grew to hate it...it broke down on the side of the road one day, I
got my tools out, and let it get towed and never bothered to get it out!
Chris @ May 5th 2008 7:00PM
You do realize that truck was a Ford, right? They just stuck some Mazda badges on it so they could sell it somewhere else.
Henry Ford @ May 4th 2008 5:00PM
At 1 car a minute coming off the assembly line, for a 12-hour day, thats 6.5 days (a weeks) worth of cars. They probably had insurance, and it's just a write off, that is cheaper than lawsuits. Look at GM stopping trucks because there are too many: they pay workers 80% of their normal pay while they are not working.
Molly @ May 4th 2008 5:24PM
With the sue happy nation that we are now, I think they did the right thing. They aren't sure what would have happened to these cars on the ship and if they donated it there is still the chance of them getting in the wrong hand risking injury to someone in turns will be a lawsuit. Seems too easy these days to sue.