David Buxton is satisfied with distributor’s response, but wonders if his is a familiar story.

WHILE pleased BYD’s national distributor has spent what he believes was thousands in a rust repair to his Atto 3 electric car, a Northland man is wondering how many others have the same issue.

David Buxton, pictured, says feedback from other owners of the budget compact sports utility suggests the issue could be more than a one-off, and he would appreciate the national distributor being more open about it.

In the meantime, he intends to keep BYD New Zealand on its toes in respect to any further issues he has with the highly-popular type, which launched BYD here and within months of introduction in 2022 was named New Zealand Car of the Year.

“Fundamentally, I'm not here to trash BYD and tell people don't buy BYD … but at the same time I’m saying there's some unanswered questions and the onus is on BYD to answer the questions,” he said.

“They have the choice. They know people have had these issues. They have a choice of controlling the narrative themselves or if they don't, they can expect someone else to take the narrative away from them. And I'm quite happy to.”

In the 18 months since it hit the road as a brand-new buy, Buxton’s own car has clocked up 50,000 kilometres - and also struck problems.

The list spans a failing 12-volt battery, a coolant leak, broken front door handles, sun-faded plastic seat belt releases - which BYD NZ continues to dispute - degraded plastic wheel trim finishing and the widely reported sudden fogging issue that required a software update. 

More serious is corrosion, mainly resulting from paintwork being damaged by stone chips, an inevitability he says of his local road conditions, but also showing on two door panels that seemed undamaged by road debris.

Buxton involved BYD NZ when paint around 15 impact areas began to bubble, and he felt the dealer in his area was not treating the issue with enough seriousness.

In a social media post, which included the photo of damage above, Buxton explained: “I posted a photo and a question asking how to treat it on the official BYD Facebook page. 

“The response from BYD then became very prompt, with BYD contacting myself and the dealer to action a warranty claim.”

The Auckland-based operation organised a paint and panel shop in his town to strip down the bonnet, front wings, a door, windscreen surround and A-pillars to bare metal. Most of the car was then repainted.

When BYD would not tell him how much the job cost, he spoke to the repairer and believes it was a $6000 to $7000 job.

Said Buxton: “The paint shop did note that BYD didn’t quibble on the scope and let them do the job properly.”

The distributor’s involvement, which extended to country manager Warren Willmot making direct contact, has been appreciated. 

Willmot, pictured below at time of receiving the NZ Motoring Writers’ Guild COTY trophy, was approached for comment about questions raised by Buxton. He replied with a written statement, delivered in full at conclusion of this story.

Buxton maintains BYD is a good brand and that he has bought the right car.

However, he also wonders if the Chinese make, which briefly topped Tesla as the world’s biggest seller of electric vehicles, could learn from what has gone on.

He’s disappointed BYD NZ has not taken up his suggestion to go public with owners about the rust situation, not simply because others are relating problems but also now he’s learned Atto 3 corrosion has previously been raised in March, 2023.

A spate of social media comment then - which triggered the editor of a EV-dedicated publication, also an Atto 3 driver, to dismiss expressed concerns as ‘click bait’ - led BYD NZ to offer comment Buxton said was familiar to what he heard recently.

This was that BYD cars are manufactured to the highest global quality standards and that the process undertaken when rustproofing during production was of the highest global standards utilising the latest technological processes.

BYD uses electro-galvanising, which produces a thin, uniform layer of zinc coating that provides corrosion resistance to the underlying metal.

Buxton says on asking Willmot why his car had a corrosion issue, he was told it was from an early consignment whose panels were not prepared as well they might have been. 

Because of this, he said, he was advised BYD NZ would “stand behind my car and fix any issues. 

“And I said, ‘that’s great, but what about other people? Are you going to let other people know that you're aware there's some quality issues with your cars, that you're going to need some repair work or other things?’”

He this week decided to share his story on two EV owner Facebook pages.

“It didn't sound like they were going to proactively tell anyone about it, so I did.”

Several respondents to the post on the Atto 3 owner site also cited rust as having become an issue.

Buxton says as keen as he still is on his car, he is also committed to ensuring the make stands by its warranty and Fair Trading Act obligations.

“There are anti EV people and there's anti-Chinese car people and I'm neither of those … these are great cars. There's some awesome things about ‘em.

“(But) it seems to me there's obviously still some quality issues to sort and I'm an advocate of people knowing what you're getting. People should have that information to make their minds up.”

In response to question put about whether rust is an issue with the Atto 3 or any other BYD product, and if a specific batch of Atto 3s is considered susceptible, Willmot replied:

“I cannot comment on any individual's specific cars. BYD New Zealand and BYD Global stand behind all our products. 

“Customers can have confidence in our fully transferrable six year /150,000km bumper-to-bumper warranty.”

Willmot said should anyone have concerns about any aspects of their vehicle, they should contact one of BYD NZ’s 16 authorised dealers or one of the 20 authorised BYD collision repairers. 

“BYD drivers are among NZ’s most satisfied owners, as evidenced by the latest Consumer NZ report,” Willmot said.

“All BYD cars are inspected thoroughly by BYD factory-trained technicians during the regular service schedule (20,000kms or 12 months), where issues of any nature requiring remedial work are addressed.”