BEWARE – Cougar Ace Mazdas
- September 19, 2006
- Automobile Cool News, The Car Biz
- Posted by George Peterson
- 3 Comments
On Tuesday September 12, the Cougar Ace finally made it to the Port of Portland (Oregon) after having rolled 60-degrees in the Pacific on July 23 while shifting ballast. Operator error, you see.
The Cougar Ace, owned by Japan’s Mitsui OSK and flying the Singapore flag, is a gargantuan car carrier. On its fateful voyage, it was carrying about 4,800 cars. Most of these cars were Mazda3s and Mazda CX-7s. There were a few RX-8 and MX-5 Miatas on board as well. The Mazda3 is Mazda’s hottest model at the moment and the newly-introduced CX-7 SUV is just beginning to catch on.
While the ship did not sink, and the vehicles were lashed to the deck, the 60-degree list made a shake-and-bake bag out of the fourteen decks on which the cars were strapped.
Mazda says that the cars will be evaluated for damage. Our guess is that the condition of vehicles in transit will range from totalled to being saleable units. The cars won’t be sold as new, but will be repaired if possible and carry full new car warranties.
Warning from Your Friends at VehicleVoice
The caution here is, be sure where your new Mazda3 or CX-7 has come from and verify if it was on the Cougar Ace or not.
3 Comments
Buy cars made in the USA (or at least in North America).
Im a longshoreman and I worked on the cougar ace. I got to see the damage first hand. The degree of the list caused a bath of salt water, battery acid, coolant and AFT throughout most of the ship. You could smell the corrosive materials on the ship. They clean up nice, but the battery acid and the sea water got in the engine department. So you are possibly looking at electrical damage that you cannot see and will be a future problem as corrosion works its way through. The list even allowed the fluids to get in the door panels and other compartments. Sounds like it could lead to future rust problems. Good luck to anyone looking to buy one. I hope you get one of the good ones. Buyer beware.
Interested in purchasing possibly a few AWD CX-7s …How can we see these cars ?
Ed: I’m guessing that it will take a few weeks for Mazda to sort out what it has from the Cougar Ace. Since the Cougar Ace has docked at Portland, Oregon it is likely that the Northwest will see the first bunch of saleable CX-7s from the Cougar Ace.
Be sure to check them out thoroughly.