JAN 29 — Recently my wife’s three-year-old Toyota Camry suffered sudden engine shutdown (while in motion) and it was sent back to UMW Toyota for diagnosis and repair.

A couple of weeks later, UMW Toyota called to ask us to collect the car from their workshop, but the car wasn’t fixed.

They couldn’t pinpoint the fault.

When asked if the car is safe to be driven, the answer was “no”.

So we refused to collect the car.

Now more than three months after we sent the car in, it is still not fixed, and my wife is driving a company Camry (the company owns six units of Toyota Camry).

The Toyota Camry is a great value-for-money car but it comes with inexcusably lousy after-sales service. Such is the sad state of affairs.

With the company now deciding not to buy any more Toyota products in the future, we have been shopping around for alternatives and came upon the VW Passat.

Since the 2012 Passat has yet to be introduced in Malaysia, my research has been based on the American 2.5-litre model, priced at the equivalent of about RM60,000.

The 2011 Passat 1.8-litre model is sold in Malaysia for RM185,000. That’s about three times the selling price of the newer, much larger (engine displacement) American model.

How do we square that?

The answer is Proton, of course. We need to protect Proton.

Sure, but Proton is no longer a “national undertaking”. It is now a private enterprise belonging to Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary.

Will Proton still receive the annual RM200 million for “R&D”?

Do we still need to pay through our nose to protect Syed Mokhtar Al Bukhary?

I certainly don’t feel the obligation to “protect” the interests of a multi-billionaire.

For as long as Proton has been existing, Malaysian car buyers have been stripped of a very large chunk of their otherwise disposable income that could have gone towards supporting a very wide array of businesses. We could have spent the money on education, on healthcare insurance, on better food, on home-improvement, etc.

Imagine how the market would come alive with all this money floating around.

So how do we move on from here?

Currently, hybrid cars are exempted from import and excise duties and that has made them relatively affordable.

The same should apply to advance diesel cars, and at the same time, our default diesel standard should be upgraded to that of the environment-friendly EURO-5.

While promoting the use of these “greener” cars, the government could reduce the subsidy for petrol and use the savings for other things, and eventually cease subsidising petrol altogether.

When petrol becomes more expensive, more people will see the advantages of buying non-petrol cars.

And we will have more money in our pocket.

So what would happen to Proton?

Like I care?

* You Tiup reads The Malaysian Insider. He can be found on Twitter at @YouTiup.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.