Tata Daewoo's mixer trucks alleged to have defective braking system

Members of the Korean Construction Workers’ Union (KCWU) chant during a press conference held in front of the Government Complex Seoul, Tuesday, to urge the authorities to inspect Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle's ready-mixed concrete trucks for defects. Courtesy of KCWU

Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle CEO Kim Bang-shin / Newsis

Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle, a North Jeolla Province-based truck manufacturing subsidiary of India’s Tata Group, has come into conflict with unionized construction workers here, who claim that defects in the company’s concrete mixer trucks have caused several accidents, including a 13-car pileup in Seoul, which killed one driver and left 16 people injured on March 29.

The Korean Construction Workers’ Union (KCWU) held a press conference, Tuesday, urging the government to inspect Tata Daewoo’s mixer trucks for defects and to prevent further tragic accidents.

“The accident in March was attributed by many news outlets to the trucker’s presumable driving while drowsy or his mistake in braking,” the union said. “However, the driver told us that he had no choice but to turn the steering wheel to overturn his vehicle, as the brakes did not work when the vehicle was going downhill near Seokgye Station.”

According to the KCWU, the vehicle was a Maxen mixer truck produced earlier this year.

The union added that another driver of Tata Daewoo’s Novus mixer truck, manufactured in 2021, had to crash into a wall to stop his accelerating vehicle last month at a factory in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, due to its malfunctioning braking system.

“We visited Tata Daewoo’s service center to talk about the defects, but the center denied any defects in the vehicles and refused to compensate the truckers,” the KCWU said.

Vehicle debris is seen at a crash site near Seokgye Station in Seoul in this March 29 file photo. Yonhap

Tata Daewoo said that a police investigation into the accident in March has already finished.

“It was also concluded that further analysis of the truck was impossible as the vehicle was badly damaged,” a Tata Daewoo spokeswoman said.

This is not the first time that the company has faced controversy over the quality of its trucks.

A driver of Tata Daewoo’s Prima truck, who was injured in a 2021 accident on a road in Incheon, claimed that the vehicle’s brakes were defective.

Other drivers of the company’s trucks have also complained about their vehicles’ excessive consumption of engine oil and low engine output over the past few years.

A group of hundreds of owners of Tata Daewoo vehicles even boycotted the company’s products in 2018 and 2020, in protest of its refusal to compensate them for the alleged defects.

Tata Daewoo was previously the truck manufacturing unit of the now-defunct Daewoo Motors.

After the Asian financial crisis in 1998, the Korean carmaker’s passenger vehicle business was sold to General Motors, while its bus business was sold to Young An Hat. The hat maker shut down the bus business in 2022.

The truck business remained an independent entity until Tata Group’s acquisition in 2004.