So often can see people bashing Proton on the internet.... Not sure whether most of these people really have a bad experience with Proton themselves or they are just repeating what their friends or other people told them about Proton...
For example, I have a lecturer who mentioned many times that Proton cars are not reliable and Wira is often used as an example. She often say things like "Cars like Proton Wira cannot last more than 5 years, sure break down on the road." Oh really? The Wira that I am using is currently 15 years old this year and has clocked 194 thousand kilometers with no major failure or faults. Even the power window still works although it is a bit clunky at times.
I think one of the reason why people often say Proton cars are not reliable could be due to this. First of all, majority of the cars in Malaysian roads are made out of Proton. Let's say for example, the failure rate of both Proton and BMW/Merc is 10%. If there are 1000 Protons on the road versus 10 BMW on the roads, then the amount of Proton cars broke down would be 100 VS BMW at 1. Of course the chances of those 100 Proton owners complaining to their friends and family are higher than the single BMW owner. I guess that's how rumors spread.
Second reason would probably be the way Proton owners take care of their cars. Some Proton owners might think like "Ai ya, just a Proton only, no need spend so much money on maintenance la" or "Spareparts buy replica/fake one enough lorh, original so expensive. Some more it is just a Proton only". Alternatively, if this person is having a BMW or Merc, I'm quite sure the owner won't say such things or neglect the car's maintenance. So, you can conclude that, certain Proton owners neglect their cars and when it gets spoiled, the first thing they'll do is blame Proton.
*I know that Proton had many issues over the years regarding their qualities like power window failures. But these are rather small issues isn't it? At least not as major as DSG failures which struck VW cars. Yet, people can praise and buy VW cars while bashing Proton for small issues like power window failures. Besides, the power window failure rate in Proton cars are not as high as over 50% or 90% are they?