Translated material
Peugeot 307 may catch fire
The French are recalling cars in Scandinavia, Poland and Russia
The French group PSA Peugeot Citroen announced a recall of the Peugeot 307 in a number of European countries, including Russia. The reason is a fire hazard. The Russian representative office of the concern clarifies that this is not a recall, but a preventative measure to take care of customers, and assures that the action will affect a “small number of cars.”Initially, the recall of Peugeot 307 cars produced before May 2003 was planned to be announced in the Scandinavian countries and Poland. “The purpose of this campaign,” explains a press release issued yesterday by the Russian representative office of Peugeot, “is to eliminate the risk of contaminated water getting into the connector of the electric power steering unit, which in some cases can cause a short circuit with the ensuing consequences. This phenomenon is associated with the climate and specific operating conditions of cars in these countries.” The press release states that the automaker will bear all costs entirely.
Russia, as Konstantin Obukhov, head of the Peugeot Rus Auto press department, explained to Vremya Novostey yesterday, was included by the concern voluntarily in the list of regions subject to car recalls for preventive purposes. According to him, unlike European countries, we have not recorded a single case of fire. However, in Russia, he noted, there are similar climatic features - high humidity, strong temperature changes, long winters; In addition, the same road reagents are used that are used in countries where Peugeot 307 owners have already had problems.
Peugeot Rus Auto yesterday could not name the exact number of cars whose owners will be invited to service stations for routine inspection, either in Russia or in Europe. According to the managing director of AG-Capital, Alexander Agibalov, we are talking about about 6 thousand cars. In Russia, sales of the Peugeot 307 began in 2001, when, according to the expert, 765 cars were sold, in 2002 - 2597, and in 2003 - 3976. In his opinion, against the backdrop of negative sales dynamics following the first half a year, such a “preventive action” can negatively affect the company’s image.
In the first six months of this year, 4,067 Peugeot cars were sold in Russia (4,335 in the first half of 2004). The company explains the decline in sales by the fact that the Peugeot representative office opened only last year. The most popular in our country, along with the 206th model, was the Peugeot 307.
A little more than a million Peugeot cars were sold on the world market this year. And if overall the group’s sales growth was 0.6%, then in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe the sales volume decreased. In Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia, the total market volume fell in the first half of this year by 14.4% compared to the same period last year, while the group's market share was 11.7%. Peugeot sales in Western Europe in the first half of the year amounted to 687 thousand cars, while the company occupied 7.8% of this market.