Malaysia halted new Chery Omoda 5 registrations after viral rear-axle failures

Malaysia’s Road Transport Department, known as JPJ, suspended the vehicle type approval for the Chery Omoda 5 on October 11, 2026, a step that blocks new registrations of the compact SUV until a technical investigation is finished. The move followed photos and video of an Omoda 5 stranded on a road with its rear axle and wheels detached, images that spread widely on social media.

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Chery Malaysia has since put its recall at 8,878 vehicles and promised free inspection and parts replacement. Singapore, which also sells the model, says its cars are not affected. The episode has become a test of how quickly a Chinese brand can contain a safety problem in a market it is trying to grow.

JPJ’s suspension of the type approval

According to Paultan’s report on the JPJ announcement, the suspension is narrower than a blanket sales ban. “This action will be implemented in a targeted manner, focusing on the potentially affected models and variants,” JPJ said. Chery Malaysia must identify at-risk vehicles using part numbers, production batches, chassis numbers and technical parameters, and JPJ requires a recall of every vehicle it flags for inspection and corrective action. The department will also audit the production and assembly line and the axle component supplier, covering good manufacturing practice, quality control, weld joint inspection and component safety standards.

JPJ will lift the suspension only after all corrective and preventive actions are complete and it has verified that the safety risk is resolved. In practice, Autoblog reported on October 16 that dealers cannot process new registrations or deliver showroom vehicles while the audit runs.

The trigger was the roadside failure itself. Paultan said the incident reportedly happened in Johor Bahru the week before the announcement, and Autoblog described a relatively new Omoda 5 left on a busy road with its rear wheels no longer attached to the chassis after no collision at all. That detail is what turned a single breakdown into a regulatory case: the failure occurred under normal driving, which points at a manufacturing or design weakness rather than at damage.

Chery’s recall and the weld problem

The recall is large. CnEVPost reported that it covers 8,878 Omoda 5 SUVs in the C and H variants, after a 2023 car lost its rear axle and wheels while being driven in Johor Bahru on October 6. No injuries were reported. Chery said some welds on the rear axle trailing arms “may lack sufficient strength,” creating a risk of weld rupture under extreme conditions, and noted that models with this design have been discontinued.

Chery’s parent company went further in a statement summarized by Soya Cincau. It blamed “insufficient welding strength localized at the rear axle trailing arm,” said it coordinated the recall with JPJ, and began a risk screening of the same production batch in China and other markets, with results to be published. Affected owners get a free inspection and replacement at any authorised Chery service centre in Malaysia, and the first shipment of replacement parts has already been dispatched. Owners can check a vehicle identification number on Chery’s product update page.

This is not the first time. Chery recalled 600 Omoda 5 units in Malaysia in April 2024 after a rear axle detached, blaming improperly calibrated welding equipment and replacing axles on 60 vehicles built on August 15, 2023. Chery Malaysia has not said whether the new failure has the same cause, and neither JPJ nor Chery has published a count of how many axles have actually failed on the road. Without that figure, the scale of the real-world risk remains unclear, which is why the audit of the supplier and the production line carries so much weight.

Singapore’s cars and the export question

Autoblog reported that Singapore’s transport authorities checked their local Omoda 5 fleet and confirmed the vehicles are unaffected because they come from a different regional supply chain. The article does not name the authority or an official, so the claim rests on that single report. Malaysia’s cars are locally assembled, and the Omoda 5 has since been discontinued there, replaced in September 2025 by the Chery O5, which uses a multi-link rear suspension instead of a torsion beam. Chery says the recall does not touch models now on sale.

The timing matters for a company with global ambitions. As Autoblog reported in May, Chery is China’s largest car exporter, sold more than 2.8 million vehicles worldwide in 2025, and its international president Zhang Guibing said it hopes to enter the United States when the time is right. Tariffs and connected-car concerns still stand in the way. A rear axle that separates on a public road is exactly the sort of failure that regulators in any new market will ask about, and Malaysia’s targeted, audit-driven response offers a template for how they might respond.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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