Mazdas from ship that rolled over will not be sold as new
Irvine, California - Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) has announced that Mazda vehicles aboard the Cougar Ace ship, which ran into trouble on July 23, 2006 off the Alaskan coast and listed over 60 degrees, will not be sold as new vehicles.
"While we do not, at this time, know the full extent of the damage to vehicles on board, none of the Mazdas will be sold as new," said Jim O'Sullivan, president and CEO of MNAO. "It is possible that those vehicles which are undamaged or repairable will be made available for sale as used cars through Mazda's dealer network in the U.S. and Canada. We will only be in a position to decide on any used car sales once the vessel has been unloaded and each unit comprehensively inspected. Those beyond repair will be immediately scrapped."
The company says that in the interest of transparency and customer peace of mind, it will post the vehicle identification numbers (VINs) of vehicles destined for sale on its consumer Web sites, at
www.mazda.ca and
www.MazdaUSA.com, to avoid any confusion as to which vehicles were on the ship. Slightly more than half the cars involved are Mazda3s, and about one-quarter are CX-7s. The vehicles were headed to the ports of Vancouver, and to Tacoma and Hueneme in the U.S.
The Cougar Ace sailed from Japan to North America with just over 4,700 Mazda vehicles aboard; an issue during a routine ballast-water change caused her to list. All 23 crew members were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.
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