DON'T BUY WARNING: Why owning an LDV in Australia is a mistake
Buying an LDV is the same as buying a Japanese or South Korean vehicle, only cheaper, right? Let’s end that fantasy right now, thanks to an uplifting Queensland Consumer Court ruling...
Right now, a shockwave is being felt the across the entire egotistic network of car dealers and their affiliated brands who think it’s okay to treat customers like fools.
It comes all thanks to the matter of Timothy Rigby versus LDV Automotive, in Queensland consumer court.
It’s inconvenient timing for the brand, because a lot of people are asking me whether they should buy an emerging Chinese brand or if buying a Chinese vehicle is risky >>
Tim is the soon to be ex-owner of a shitbox LDV T60 dual cab ute which he erroneously bought way back in 2018, when Australia only had one plague to manage in the federal government. So, his LDV is still under its five-year warranty, obviously.
This is a vehicle, about which, LDV claims on its website:
Actually, these are the very first words LDV inflicts upon you, concerning its shitbox, on its ‘overview’ page, today. “Robust features needed to take you anywhere.” Hold that thought.
Of course, this claim is just the tip of a marketing bullshit iceberg at ldvautomotive.com.au.
This is of course just marketing dribble which offers zero information. But that’s not specifically here, because the bigger picture revolves around how LDV claims its T60 ute is, essentially, all things to all people, regardless of what they do with it.
This is typified when they claim:
Now, this is where things get really interesting in relation to what a consumer might misconstrue as a dare.
Timothy Rigby was signed in to this challenge, too, back in 2018, when he bought the T60 because it seemed like a suitable vehicle for someone who works at a surf club on the Gold Coast.
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Court action against consumers can backfire
Timothy Rigby was signed into this challenge, too, back in 2018, when he bought the T60 because it seemed like a suitable vehicle for someone who works at a surf club on the Gold Coast.
Here’s the official ruling: Https://www.queenslandjudgments.com.au/caselaw/qcat/2021/316
In short, Timothy Rigby notices the rust eating away at his LDV over time. He takes it back to the von Bibra dealership, where LDV fobs him off. Tim (presumably) says to himself, ‘You cocks are not getting away with this’.
Beach hero Tim, who actually gives his time to keep people from literally drowning, finds himself being carried by an anti-consumer riptide. So he rings the dealer, at his wits end and asks if they could fix his shitbox T60.
And they tell him no, effectively said ‘See you in court’, and Tim takes them on. Proper arseholes, personal opinion. Suddenly it’s ‘pistols at dawn’, entertainingly. But then something happens: Facts (and logic) inform a verdict.
The court appoints an assessor, who finds:
It might have been quicker simply to list the areas that were not rusty.The CSI-type court assessor dude also identifies several other non-rust defects. So, it’s a proper lemon-scented shitbox.
And, of course, the dealer had already quoted repairing all that rust. Cranwell, the judge, (they actually call them ‘members,’ which is vaguely pornographic now that I think about it). Anyway, he noted:
That quality manufacturing. To me, this case orbits the mother of all intended dealer/carmaker brush-offs, to the effect of putting the problem back on Tim.
They suggest that working at a surf club is not a task for which the LDV T60 is designed to cope with. The rust is, according to the LDV dealer, therefore entirely a consequence of the consumer operating the vehicle in these unduly arduous conditions.
The problem with this position LDV has put forward, is that the website today (October 1, 2021) fully endorses that the T60 has the robustness needed to take you “anywhere”, especially near the beach or salt water. They’re even trying to further allege that the T60 is up to any challenge you care to take on (coastal car parks not included).
Tim even signed up for that bullshit rust protection at Von Bibra’s LDV dealership by the sea, for which he needlessly paid $1445.45 extra for. They couldn’t even round that figure down to $1400. Or zero, given how effective it ultimately proved to be.
In my view, this scientifically bullshit snake oil-style ‘rust protection system’ shamelessly flogged by at every car dealer today is disgraceful and should be illegal to promote, given the non-existent efficacy of the product.
Now, thankfully the judge saw straight thought this ‘surf club’ defence for the utter bullshit that it is:
Tim is probably thanking his lucky stars on this, that somehow sanity prevailed here.
Imagine if you might buy a shiny new LandCruiser 300 Series and take it for a jaunt out over the dunes, and it mechanically fails on you, despite being depicted on the front of the brochure doing just that.
Unfortunately, in this hypothetical LandCruiser scenario, it keeps flashing up fault codes and goes into limp mode, none of which was in the brochure. Quite the opposite - Toyota’s highly publicised media campaign has depicted it on sand dunes, and when it eventually arrives in Australia, you can guarantee it’ll be shown doing all kinds of off-road driving in regional areas.
![LDV Dealer: Don't do this. [Press image: supplied by Ateco]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/51297e5de4b01fa6748bc904/1633325019908-GWTDRGR9OS550R6QPF91/LDV_T60_LUXE_0085.jpg)
The non-fiction Von Bibra Toyota, hypothetically, would probably suggest its owner abused their LandCruiser by driving such a vehicle on anything other than black bitumen.
The point is, using the same customer ‘care’ approach, they would probably allege: Well, you took it into the sand, dude. They’re not designed for that.
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Meanwhile, back in reality: This is the most hilarious part of all.
It’s pretty hypocritical to sell a vehicle in an environment in which it is not designed to be parked.
Ultimately the judge has ordered Tim a refund of $38,415 from Von Bibra, who has to take that rusty shitbox back. Unfortunately, they’ll probably sell it to some sap, I imagine. So, the good guys win, in this case, and Cranwell gets a big tick. And that’s nice.
But it’s curious just how stupid you have to be, from a corporate perspective, to pursue some defences like this one.
Now, LDV is indelibly associated with ‘poor quality materials’ and that’s tantamount to a death sentence for an emerging brand. And it’s make much worse by the fact this brand was finally making its mark.
It’s now profoundly easy to perceive poor quality and in terms of reputation, simply write those vehicles off.
One tradie can now say to his mate, on the job site, ‘I was going to buy an LDV T60, but I eliminated the middleman and got this bucket of rust instead’.
Tradies live and die by their utes and now, thanks to this rather public verdict as a result of LDV’s Von Bibra thinking with their lawyers and not with their brains, Tradies 1 and 2 won’t hesitate to select from the other ute brands which won’t rust out from under them.
‘Poor quality materials’ is no longer just some random allegation, perhaps unfairly targeting an emerging brand, like some smear campaign. It’s a fact now. A precedent has been set.
They go together, LDV and ‘poor quality materials’, Great Wall and asbestos brake pads, Volkswagen and Dieselgate, Holden and failure. It’s an official court ruling, which has reputational costs for an emerging carmaker. More than $38k in refunds, certainly. But in future, I’d suggest we could see sales figures stagnate.
See, this is like suing someone for defamation, and losing - it opens the floodgates, and now everyone else is free to say what you said, with complete impunity. It gets amplified, delightfully enough.
This ‘win at all costs’ attitude. It’s corporate tunnel vision. Maybe it’s just exciting to be a scumbag corporate sociopath because of the imbalance of power. But they could have offered Tim $40,000 and a new T60 out of court, made him sign an NDA, and swept the whole ugly affair under the rug. Less cost with no reputational damage.
People email me all the time about buying an emerging brand from China. My off-the-rack response is: The price is awesome, but we don’t know a great deal about resale, or reliability or customer support, so it’s a roll of the dice on those things, at best.
In the case of LDV, off the back of this September 15 ruling, I think I’m on pretty safe ground to upgrade that advice to a high risk of ‘unreliable rust-bucket comprised of poor quality materials’ and also ‘likely to offer customer support from hell’.
What other responsible determination is there?
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