The model, cheap indeed, yet reliable as far as buyers are concerned, has managed to impress in countries where usually low-cost doesn't have much of a saying in determining the behavior of customers. France, and even Germany, witnessed Logan sales explode last year, when the crisis in the automotive sector was at its peak and big names like BMW or Mercedes were suffering.
Now, the German Technical Expertise Unit (TUV) is trying to do what other organizations, mostly German, have tried to do over the past few years: crush the Logan, not literally, but in a manner which could hurt the sales of the brand.
In the annual report published in German magazine Auto Bild, the Logan is slammed by the organization with the words like “cheap” and “not very reliable.” To be more precise, the model is categorized as “no more than a cheap car.”
Now, what the TUV fails to do is understand that in the current economic situation, cheap equals desirable, and not unworthy. Germans have already proved it when they dropped their proverbial sympathy for BMWs and Mercs last year (compared to the sales levels the two were used to, of course), buying the Romanian built vehicle in bulk.
Sure, the model is well behind any German built machines in pretty much all the categories you can think of. TUV says the model has issues with alignment, oil losses, comes with a noisy engine and badly arranged far beam. The lateral airbags are missing and the fact that the car comes with no ESP is a big no-no for Germans.
For 135,000 of their countrymen, however, all of the above meant little when they decided to buy a Logan. For them, the low price of the car is a perfect fit for what the car has to offer. And, considering that it was pretty much built from scrap somewhere in rural Romania and climbed the ladder to success faster than models with a pedigree, we reckon the model is worth at least a big round of applause.
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