702, Wednesday evening

The Money Show. 20 19 minutes now after seven. I mean, every time I switch on the TV, I see the National Consumer Commission announcing another vehicle recall. And they're big names. You know, it's Volkswagen or Audi or Hyundai or Toyota or Mercedes-Benz. I mean, some of them are very posh brands. Just one Chinese-owned brand has been recalled.

Called this year. And that was an issue which emerged in a crash test, despite the huge growth we've seen in those brands. You'll consume a ninja. Wendy Nola is looking at this, which means someone is about to get very scared. Wendy, good evening. So, when we have so many of the legacy brands having recalls, what does that mean about how good they are compared to how good the newer Chinese brands are? Hi, Stephen. It doesn't necessarily mean that.

The legacy brands are more problematic than the Chinese brands, which now make up 19% of all new vehicle sales in this country, by the way. So you'd expect to see those names coming through because recalls are normal in all markets. They're not a sort of scandalous thing. It's actually the sign of consumer protection working as it should. So I spent some time researching this issue.

Upshot was that the National Consumer Commission confirmed to me that one of the biggest Chinese brands in the country has effectively been running what they call silent recalls, including a brake recall on more than three almost 3,500 cars that was never announced to the public. And the Commission didn't know about it. And the Consumer Protection Act requires all suppliers, manufacturers, to inform the Commission of any recall so that the Commission can then.

How it lands up on your TV screen, Stephen. The Commission then puts out media statements far and wide, and all the media tend to publish the recalls. So, yeah, quite an interesting development there, I thought, that in some cases, one in particular, the manufacturer was choosing not to tell the NCC, the Commission, about a recall. Can the NCC do?

Anything about that, then? I mean, acquired recall. Legally, no such thing should exist. Are they able to take action? I noticed you didn't tell us the brand, and I'm sure you've been very careful with that, Wendy. No, no, I can tell you that it was Cherry, with the biggest Chinese player in our local market. Yeah, they say that they are investigating because more than, but you know, ultimately, there are sanctions and pretty hefty ones that they can take. But at this stage, they're investigating.

Investigating. Just to give, before we go on, just a bit of context about are we having more recalls in other markets? Well, the answer is no. So in South Africa, the Commission announced, if you look at the most recent full year, 2025 last year, the Commission announced a total of 57 individual vehicle recalls. In Australia, 2025, 135 models were recalled. So almost two and a half times more than here, but their new car market.