Korean cars topped up with dangerous Chinese AC coolant
From Joon Gang Daily:
A Mercedes-Benz owner named Heo drove to a repair shop in June and complained about problems with his luxury sedan’s air conditioning. Heo told the repairman that he had replaced his refrigerant two months earlier. When they popped the Mercedes’ hood, they found the compressor covered in orange rust.
A police inspection revealed that the new refrigerant was a cheap and dangerous type imported from China that contained flammable chemicals.
Police believe about 60,000 cars being driven in Korea contain the faulty refrigerant.
“If the leaked refrigerant comes into contact with a cigarette butt or anything of the sort, it will explode,” said a police officer investigating the case.
“The refrigerant was sold in car centers in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon and Busan. Car drivers who replaced their refrigerant between April and June should check their products at the closest car center to prevent accidents,” the police said.
“Our test results show that chloromethane can cause an explosion, even if it comes into contact with air,” an officer said.
The police investigation showed that the imported refrigerant contains chloromethane, a highly toxic and extremely flammable colorless gas, as well as other flammable chemicals.
Heo’s car was the first of four other cars seen at the auto shop in the following weeks, and all of the owners complained of similar problems.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency yesterday applied for an arrest warrant for the head of an importing company, surnamed Lee, 32, for bringing in the faulty auto refrigerant from China.
The police are also investigating 11 dealers who bought the refrigerant from Lee. The police believe Lee imported the cheap refrigerant because refrigerant prices doubled in price in Korea as the weather got hotter.
Lee sold 41 tons of the 50 tons brought in from China, which were 40 to 60 percent cheaper than legitimate brands, authorities believe.
The chemicals found in the faulty refrigerant can lead to the corrosion of iron and aluminum. They can also weaken rubber materials, which can result in leaks.
The police have confiscated 13 tons of the illegal refrigerant, but 28 tons are still missing – inside those 60,000 cars.
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OK, this is truly getting disgusting. First it was melamine tainted milk powder, then lead in the paint of children’s toys and jewelry, now this. However, here is the irony – all of these are examples of profit (the greed of it) taking priority over safety (as in customer’s lives)…….I wonder where these profit driven scumbags learned that from??? Gee, maybe…….BP? Goldman Sachs? Toyota? Ford (remember the Pinto debacle of the 1970′s)? Greed (profit) over safety was well established in the western world well before all these chinese incidents – a point to remember. I am NOT condoning or supporting their actions in any way, just reminding people that it’s not just a chinese problem, ok? Let’s NOT start another useless round of China bashing – and DON’T forget that there are millions and millions of chiense citizens that are as disgusted by these actions as people from other countries are. I like to call it ‘capitalism run amok’ – kind of scary but true. It’s taken the western world hundreds of years to have the maturity to earn profit wisely, and it’ still far from perfect – can we really expect the chinese to have that same maturity after only 20 years or so of a market economy?
Since our good old Korean friends have yet started firing, let me pull the trigger first. Jon, you live in China and should know what is actually happening. It is the Chinese governmnent and system fail to stop those scumbags. They are backed by powerful officials and they think they are above the law. Well, as I told you all before, anything can happen in China and there is actually NO LAW !!!
No system is perfect, and there are always good and bad people in every system. I believe there is a sincere effort at the Beijing level to see the system improve – it’s the people at the provincial, county and city levels that still cause most of the problems. The next question needs to be whether this faulty coolant is being used widespread in China – how many cars (and people) might be in danger on chinese roads????
The culprit here who deserves to be dragged over the coals is the guy named Lee. Regardless of if the coolant came from China or not he is the one who purchased and on-sold 40 Tonnes of the stuff onto his own people so he could make a buck. The police believe this to be the case as well as they have applied for an arrest warrant for Lee.
One interesting thing to know would be if the regular coolant available was Korean made or imported as well (from China or elsewhere). Being able to sell so much of the substandard one shows that Lee is connected enough in the industry to move such a large quantity of it. 31 Tonne is approx 30-35,000 liters( best guess without knowing the real weights etc)…. that’s a lot of liquid regardless of what it is.
Korean customs should also be asking themselves questions as to how so much of this chemical was bought into Korea and no questions were really asked or checks made to see if it was safe. The coolant would have been shipped with an MSDS so there should be relevant standards and procedures when buying, importing and selling toxic chemicals. If there are not then WHY THE F*** NOT??
Obviously if the police are involved they have felt that there is a genuine risk for all the consumers who purchased it or had it unknowingly installed in their vehicles. The original article just says the same as CCT has posted so how it progressed from one guy in a merc to charges being laid would be quite an interesting story.
For sure the factory is not innocent in all of this but until the full story is known then it’s premature to put all the blame on them or other manufacturers. Maybe Lee ordered such a substandard product or maybe the factory shafted him… That’s for the Korean authorities to decide and lay charges against Lee or take the matter further against the factory involved.
@CCT
You probably mean to say Joong Ang Daily not Joon Gang Daily.
“The culprit here who deserves to be dragged over the coals is the guy named Lee. Regardless of if the coolant came from China”
Yes, the blame should go to the Korean low life who brought this dangerous product and the custom system not detecting & subsequently allowing these products into Korea (the inferior & dangerous nature of Chinese products doesn’t surprise me).
Only solution is for the Korean government to step up…waiting for Chinese quality to improve and be safe is highly unlikely.
There you go, you want cheap, you get cheap.
“There you go, you want cheap, you get cheap.”
yea that’s usually the case, but with Chinese products it’s “if you want cheap, you get cheap…and danger!”
Korean guy, which is worse….
Chinese factory fulfilling an order for 40 Tonne of air conditioning fluid from a customer to THEIR requirements who in this case happen to be Korean.
OR
Korean trading company looking to take advantage of the fact that locally available air conditioning fluid is expensive so decides to source a cheaper product offshore (in this case China) so he could make more money.
The first one is a buyer-seller relationship and happens millions of times a day all over the world.
The second one has potential put thousands of lives at risk and cause millions of dollars in damage.
@woxihuanpijiu
again let’s not muddy the issue: if there is a buyer or a demand for cheaper products then it’s perfectly legal & understandable for a supplier/producer to manufacture the product. And most people understand the notion of “you get what you pay for”, and most, if not all customers, won’t be surprise if the product doesn’t last or taste or performs as well as the expensive counterpart.
I also agree we can equally blame both parties for participating in the supply-demand of inferior products. even in the U.S. there are choices between premium products and cheaper lower quality products. I believe this helps out in the open market economy. the choice of the consumers are priceless.
A product, no matter how cheaply it is produced, should not be blatantly dangerous to the end user. there are cases of unforeseeable accidents or tragedy that a product is involved in and warrant changes in design. and I am not coolant expert by any stretch, but i would have to say an extremely flammable coolant for the automobile is blatantly dangerous and enough care & thought was not put into.
I don’t doubt the ability of the Chinese to produce quality products. But I am weary of their mentality and short sightedness and their justification of doing things under “Chinese Characteristics”. I believe it’s lack of ethics and morals in the general population of Chinese that are attributing to these behaviors.
Oh and yeah we should find the low life Koreans who were responsible and reprimand them so shit like this won’t ever happen again.
“Korean trading company looking to take advantage of the fact that locally available air conditioning fluid is expensive so decides to source a cheaper product offshore (in this case China) so he could make more money.”
yeah but no one expected that by using cheaper fluid that it had the potential to blow up cars and fry the passengers. no matter how cheap it is that is not acceptable.
so disgusting fucking Korean guy who are stiring up the mutual relationship between us.
@Big China, actually, this is pretty disgusting itself.
“No system is perfect, and there are always good and bad people in every system. I believe there is a sincere effort at the Beijing level to see the system improve”
joninchina, I am glad you still have faith in the central government but the reality is cruel. Every scumbag is backed by powerful local officials who can be traced up to the top and linked to those 9 members in central committee. Melamine tainted milk powder is a typical example, the confiscated milk powder can then be sold to other milk product makers and leaked to the public AGAIN. If you call this a sincere effort, then I have nothing to say. Do take care of what you put into your mouth in China.
“First there was melamine”??? You need to pay attention to the world around you. This has been going on for decades.
Your ideas about hundreds of years of capitalism in the west are utter nonsense and your attack on big corporations is absurd.
Do you think that BP was putting profit before safety? How much do you think they have and will continue to loose as a consequence of carelessness?
There is no intentional neglect of safety in any of the examples you give. The kind of capitalism you are imagining is totally self destructive and doesn’t exist. Companies aren’t intentionally destroying themselves to make a few bucks.
These kinds of issues have nothing to do with market maturity or capitalist profiteering. You need to stop reading the communist manifesto and start thinking for yourself.
Governments need to enforce laws! That’s the bottom line.