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Athit Perawongmetha / Reuters
Vehicles are seen after floodwaters receded at the Honda factory in Ayutthaya province on Nov. 26. Thailand's worst floods in 50 years have killed 610 people and devastated industry, but the situation is slowly improving, with water receding in many affected areas.
Apichart Weerawong / AP
Workers walk amidst Honda cars that were damaged by the flood before the destruction demonstration at Honda automobile plant in Ayutthaya province, central Thailand on Dec. 27. The 1,055 unit of Honda cars, mostly Brio eco-cars and City subcompacts, were destroyed in an action to assure to customers that the flood-damaged cars will not be repaired and sold.
In an effort to prove that no flood damaged vehicles will be sold to customers, the Honda factory in Thailand's Ayutthaya province began destroying over 1,000 cars. The factory was one of the hardest hit by the several months of record flooding, which only receded a few weeks ago. The devastating floods were the worst the country experienced in 50 years and left over 700 people dead. According to AFP, the scrapping process is expected to take one month.
Honda's production was disrupted from the floods and only recently returned to normal. According to AP, American Honda Executive Vice President John Mendel says it will not be until March that dealers will be fully restocked.
Aerial images of the submerged cars in the Honda lot provided powerful visuals of the effects of the severe flooding on businesses. (One of the images made it into our selection of the Year in Pictures: 2011.) The area is home to large production centers for global car and computer industries. According to Bloomberg, Toyota had to suspend local production of its Camry and Prius lines, and Apple faced delays in parts used for Mac computers. Western Digital shares hit a year low in October and is now working to regain their losses, according to Reuters.
See more images of the severe flooding in Thailand on PhotoBlog.
Pornchai Kittiwongsakul / AFP - Getty Images
A Honda worker lifts a flood damaged car at the Honda factory in Ayutthaya province on December 27, 2011. Japanese car assembler Honda automobile (Thailand) started to scrap 1,055 cars which were damaged by the recent floods in Thailand, ensuring that damaged parts would not be sold, the company said in statement.
Pornchai Kittiwongsakul / AFP - Getty Images
A flood damaged Honda car is destroyed at the Honda factory in Ayutthaya province on Dec 27. Japanese car assembler Honda automobile (Thailand) started to scrap 1,055 cars which were damaged by the recent floods in Thailand, ensuring that damaged parts would not be sold, the company said in statement.
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It's too labor intensive (costly) to refurbish these cars as the water damages all the wiring as well as electronics and interiors. They could have sold off different hard parts but that would ruin their tax write off. Seems like a waste.
They could of donated the cars to people there who can't afford a car, but maybe able to afford to repair a car.
I repaired vehicles over twenty years old, not great looking but good transportation still.
mike277....Allowing them to be put on the road would cause damage to the reputation of the company. These are not golf balls that can be marked X-Out.
I had a friend who owned several doughnut shops, for years he donated day old doughnuts to the local senior homes. One day he heard someone outside the store discussing with a friend whether to go into one of his shops. She commented that " I don't like the dougnuts from here, we get them at the senior home and they are often stale". From that day on he dumped all of the day old doughnuts into the trash because what he thought was a generous idea was ruining his reputation for quality. Same would hold true for these flood damaged cars. Five years from now people would forget the origin, but would notice that " Hondas seem to get very rusty early".
I'm just glad they aren't Mustangs....that would be sad.
Oh, you mean Rust-angs.....don't worry, nothing would have been left. Kidding....I like Mustangs, had to get that jab in there.
Ford would've hosed off the cars and sold them as slightly used.
There's plenty of swamp folk down here in Florida that never owner a car as clean as the ones that Honda deemed fit for disposal. Too bad that their collective discount value was probably exceeded by their shipping costs to Jacksonville.
They look like my beater pickup. It hasnt been washed since the late '80s.
This page must be assigned as the idoits journal
We hear of flood damaged cars in the U.S. being "cleaned up" and shipped hundreds of miles to unsuspecting buyers who then inherit a "flood" of continuing problems needing repair.
Fortunately, Honda chose to do the morally right thing and scrap the cars instead of pawining them off on someone. Good for Honda!
That was dealers and insurance companies, NOT OEMs doing that crap. But, there are a ton of parts that could be salvaged off these vehicles and sold to the service or salvage market. It's a total waste not to salvage drivetrain, glass, and body components.
I don't know if I'd salvage out head and tail lights - and all electronics are obviously nonsalvage items due to potential liability, but many if not most of these cars can be reclaimed.
B.Roy....It is insurance companies allowing these cars to be put back on the road. They auction them to salvage dealers who then "wash" the titles through states with loose title laws. It is simple greed on the part of insurance companies who are trying to recover dollars from vehicles that should be crushed or parted out. ( Hint, don't ever buy a used car with a Tennessee title ).
"In an effort to prove that no flood damaged vehicles will not be sold to customers..."
Here's a concept: Edit the copy before it goes up on the Web.
Check your reading glasses. The Photo caption states; "were destroyed in an action to assure to customers that the flood-damaged cars will not be repaired and sold.". The Article states;"In an effort to prove that no flood damaged vehicles will be sold to customers,"
This is stupid. Having worked in automotive service/repair and later as an engineer @ Ford, there are a TON of parts on these vehicles that could be reclaimed. Windows, weather stripping, hard components (engine, transmission, driveline) could easily be salvaged and sold. It's a right-off for Honda as an insurance loss, but there is salvage value. A door, fender, hood could all be resold on the market. A flood doesn't hurt sheet metal or tires/wheels. Absolute waste.
Yeah but if you glut the market with parts you can’t keep the price high, they will claim it on insurance and taxes and make plenty of money especially when they have shortage.
B-Roy......not so sure about the sheet metal, but the plastic, glass and rubber certainly could be salvaged. I assume they are being recycled, but photos did not show that. From Honda's point of view, the labor to remove, store , ship and resell the parts may be more than the cost of manufacturing new parts. Remember the cost of the materials in cars is actually quite a small percentage of the cost, it is the design, tooling, administration and othe overhead that makes up the bulk of the cost of producing a vehicle.
They could've used those cars in movies where cars are continually crashed, blown up, mangled, etc.
If you look at the picture of the car being lifted by the crane, you can see that the wheels have been removed along with the engine/transmission. I assume they were taken off for reuse. I guess they figured it wasn't worth the time & money to take the cars apart & sell the pieces. Too bad. They should have cleaned them up and shipped them to New Jersey. They could have sold them there & no one would have known the difference.
Catzenjammer,
Wheels, axles, engine blocks and transmissions don't shred as easily as sheet metal. The only part of the vehicle really worth salvaging is probably the wheel and tire. Everything else will take to much effort, especially since it may have to be sold as delisted salvage rather than new.
i liked the "used those cars in movies" comment... could have easily sold to movie sets.
"In an effort to prove that no flood damaged vehicles will not be sold to customers, the Honda factory in Thailand's Ayutthaya province began destroying over 1,000 cars."
Hmm. Sounds like flood damaged cars are going to be sold to customers. Maybe a good copy editor would improve the sentence. But MSNBC is too cheap to hire one apparently.
yea, I hope no english teachers point their kids here for "real world writing examples."
noting wrong with Obama... BUt my thing is wow, soo many cars! they should at least have salvaged the parts that wouldn't have been negatively effected by the floods o.o
we need one of those machines in every entry port in America, buy American
Why in the world didn't they have employees drive these cars to higher ground...the flood approached slowly with PLENTY of warning? What a waste.
Sell them to people who think there is nothing wrong with a flood car.
No need to do anything with the flooded cars, just put them back in the dealer's lot and people will buy them. That has been the story of Honda since those who shop for Honda are not car savy and lack automobile intelligence and will buy any junk. In a few years, Hyndai and Kia will push Honda back to its motorcycle business. Toyota, Nissan and Mazda deservedly will thrive on. Honda's practice of copy cat design and falling decades behind technology curve should serve them well.