Were Sales Halted After the Axle Breakage in the Omoda 5?

Following footage of a moving Omoda 5 in Malaysia losing its rear axle along with both wheels, Chery has decided to recall 8,878 units of the Omoda 5 in the country due to the risk of rear axle detachment. As part of the campaign, the vehicles will undergo a free inspection, and any parts deemed necessary will be replaced. Although some news headlines state that sales and registration processes have been temporarily suspended, no detailed official announcement to that effect has yet been released. Whether the vehicles sold in Türkiye are included in the scope has not been clarified separately.

Were sales halted after the axle detachment on the Omoda 5?

The clear answer to the question consists of two parts. On the recall side, the situation is definite: Chery has recalled 8,878 Omoda 5 vehicles in Malaysia due to the risk of rear axle detachment, and will inspect the affected components and repair or replace them free of charge where necessary. On the sales and registration side, the picture is murkier. Some headlines in the Turkish press claim that sales were halted following the recall; there are also indications that registration processes have been temporarily suspended until the technical inspection is completed. However, it would not be right to present these claims as definitive information, because the company has not published a detailed, separate official announcement regarding the suspension of sales or registration. The known certainty is that the production of models using the affected design had already ended, and this production in Malaysia has been halted since 2025.

After spending more than thirty years in this profession, I can say with ease: recall news requires looking at the text as much as the headline. In the past, a recall was seen as a defect the manufacturer was forced to accept at the last minute; now it is a routine procedure presented as a safety campaign. Distinguishing between the two benefits the reader.

How the incident unfolded: The axle detachment in Johor Bahru

On October 6, 2026, in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, a 2023 model Chery Omoda 5 completely lost its rear axle and both wheels while driving. The footage shows the rear section of the vehicle collapsing, with the axle beam left on the road along with both wheels. According to the statement the company promptly released, no injuries occurred in the incident; the footage reaching a wide audience took only a few days, and it received extensive coverage in the international automotive press.

One nuance about the course of events should be noted. Some assessments are discussing the possibility that the vehicle got into this condition after a side impact; the Johor police have not made an official statement at this stage. Therefore, rushing to declare the model chronically problematic or unsafe based on a single incident video would be haste that does not square with my three decades of habits either. However, the manufacturer's own review is not entirely reassuring either; I will touch on the detail below.

A recall covering 8,878 vehicles: scope and technical reason

Chery's recall decision covers the C and H variants of the Omoda 5; the company did not clearly specify the affected production years. The technical basis of the campaign is this finding that emerged in the first reviews: some weld points on the rear axle swing arms of vehicles in the affected production batch may lack sufficient strength and durability, carrying a risk of breaking under harsh driving conditions. A weld point is a critical joint where two metal parts are joined together and which carries the entire load of the structure; a lack of strength there affects the entire geometry of the axle beam.

The implementation side follows the standard recall procedure: the affected components will be inspected at authorized service centers, and parts will be repaired or replaced free of charge in vehicles where necessary. The company also announced that it has started additional risk assessments and inspections in countries outside Malaysia for 2023-production vehicles in the same production group. This is the first sign that the campaign may not remain geographically limited to Malaysia; time will tell whether it expands.

Is this the first one? Connection with the 2024 inspection campaign

No, not the first. A similar axle breakage also occurred on April 28, 2024, and Chery Malaysia had included 600 Omoda 5s with rear axles produced between August 14-17, 2023 in an inspection campaign. At the time, it was announced that the problem was linked to the calibration of an automatic welding machine at the supplier, and the number of directly affected vehicles was 60.

Now the critical question: Is the 2026 incident caused by the same technical reason as the 2024 campaign? There is no official statement confirming this connection. Presenting the two incidents as the same fault would be misleading; the dates, production batches and technical details differ. Still, two similar incidents occurring back to back send a pattern signal that, from an industry perspective, would not count as a coincidence - and the manufacturer raising the scope to 8,878 vehicles this time shows the matter is being handled far more broadly than the narrow sweep of 60 vehicles in 2024.

As a separate note, at the beginning of last year, another campaign reported to the official recall service in global markets on behalf of the Chery group had also come to the agenda; that campaign covered 2025-built petrol Omoda 5 and electric models and was a process independent of the axle incident in Malaysia. The three campaigns should not be lumped together.

What should Omoda 5 owners in Türkiye do?

It has not been announced whether Omoda 5 models sold in Türkiye are included in this campaign; there is no official announcement that the recall covers Türkiye. Still, it is known that Chery has launched additional checks in markets outside Malaysia, so owners in Türkiye have a sensible path to follow rather than panicking:

• Ask the brand's Türkiye operation or an authorized service center to check whether your vehicle falls within scope via its chassis number (VIN).
• Check campaigns relating to your vehicle through the voluntary automotive recall service offered via e-Devlet; in the 2024 inspection campaign as well, affected vehicles could be identified through VIN-based queries.
• If you notice noise from the rear axle, abnormal movement in the suspension, or a change in road handling, contact an authorized service center without delay.
• Most of the claims about chronic problems circulating on internet forums are user-generated content and carry no official verification; make your decision based on verified information.

The company itself emphasizes that the newest Omoda 5 models currently on the market are not affected by this process; production of the affected design has already been discontinued. In other words, the issue mainly concerns vehicles from certain production periods.

The picture in terms of the market: what is certain, and what is not?

To separate the information that has become jumbled in the news flow, it is useful to summarize it by level of certainty:

A small note of scale regarding the recall figure: some publications refer to approximately 9,000 vehicles; this is the rounded value of 8,878, not two different campaigns.

Assessment: one image, broad conclusions

A car losing its axle while driving is an incident that must be treated seriously, whatever the brand; there is no disputing that. But it is equally true that: presenting a video of a single incident as a safety verdict on a brand's entire product lineup is the kind of generalization the automotive press has opposed for years. The cautious stance - that it is wrong to declare Chinese-origin vehicles unsafe based on a single image of the incident, while the footage should still be examined seriously - is a position shared by the author of these lines.

The real point to watch is the outcome of the manufacturer's additional risk assessments. If the assessment turns into a campaign covering Türkiye, an official announcement and VIN-based lookup will appear sooner or later; if it does not, the limits of the current information will also become clear. In such processes, rather than rushing to judgment, waiting for the procedure to be completed is the most sensible strategy for both the reader and the owner.

In summary: the recall is certain and broad; the sales and registration suspension is still an unverified claim; the Türkiye scope is unclear but a trackable situation. If you own an Omoda 5, the only thing you need to do is run a VIN lookup and stay in contact with the authorized service center. Ten or thirty years ago, finding someone to talk to about such an incident would have taken weeks; today, a campaign check can be done in a few minutes via e-Devlet. That is one of the good sides of our time.

Sources

• Official statement on Chery whose rear axle broke off while driving - DonanımHaber
• Chery recalled 8,878 Omoda 5 models in Malaysia due to the risk of the rear axle breaking - Webtekno
• Critical decision for the Chery Omoda 5 whose rear axle broke off: sales suspended - Haber7
• Recall decision for the Chery model whose axle broke while driving - Ensonhaber
• Chery Omoda 5 Rear Axle Problem: Is It Linked to the 2024 Recall? - Yerliotomobil
• Chery group (Chery, Omoda and Jaecoo) official recall in global markets - Automobile Magazine
• Automotive Voluntary Recall - e-Devlet