Why the new SsangYong Musso was launched prematurely

Has SsangYong blown it by launching its Musso ute before adding crucial safety gear, a suspension retune and a higher load-capacity, long-wheelbase version in a few months?

Predictably, the company’s managing director Tim Smith says no, but at the same time he admits the decision to launch the new SsangYong Musso alongside the Tivoli, Tivoli XLV and Rexton SUVs was in part driven by head office in Korea.

“As an officer of the company I serve and I deliver on the overall objectives of my masters,” Smith told carsales.com.au at this week’s local brand relaunch and first drive of SsangYong Musso, Tivoli and Rexton.

“We are aware there are a couple of nuances particularly with the Musso that we will iron out as we go.”

You can read our first drive of Musso here, where we detail the omissions that detract from the promising ladder-frame, turbo-diesel 4x4 twin-cab ute.

They include the absence of driver-assist systems including autonomous emergency braking, the retuning of the suspension for Australian conditions, the introduction of an LWB version with a longer tray, leaf spring instead of coil rear suspension and a full one-tonne payload capacity.

AEB should be standard across the range by late January and the suspension retune and the LWB models on sale by April. SsangYong Australia is even investigating if the retune can be retro-fitted to Mussos already on the roads.

However, AEB can’t be retro-fitted and nor can other driver-assist systems on the way early next year, including lane departure warning and -- for all but the entry-level EX 2WD petrol auto -- lane-keeping, blind-spot monitoring and rear cross-traffic alert.

And at this stage there is no compensation planned for the 50-70 initial owners expected to miss out on the feature.

Another safety issue SsangYong is seeking to rectify is the fitment of a lap-only seatbelt in the middle rear seat.

Musso has launched without an ANCAP safety rating and while SsangYong wants five stars that can’t be achieved until the safety issues are fixed.

Another improvement under investigation is a locally-sourced off-road pack as the Musso does not come with tow hooks or significant underbody protection.

“We took into consideration all those different product nuances that we have got that we just need to tidy up,” Smith confirmed of the relaunch plans.

“I actually gave them [SsangYong] nine [relaunch] scenarios, so we did a bunch of planning and basically the strategy was dictated that we would have a full launch in November.”

Smith admitted those nine different scenarios included launching Tivoli, XLV and Rexton now and holding Musso until early in 2019 when most of its issues would be resolved.

“We have done an extensive amount of planning around when to launch and when not to launch and the short answer is I was employed on June 11 to launch the brand in November.”

The car industry tends to avoid launching cars close to the end of the year as the message can get lost in the Christmas clutter and January snooze.

But Smith explained launch timing was dictated by the end of the distributor agreement with former SsangYong importer Ateco Automotive. Although the independent company stopped selling SsangYongs a couple of years ago, its service agreement only ran out in November.

SsangYong chose to press ahead with the relaunch via its own newly established factory-owned local distributor.

“The alternative would have been to continue with the distributor and that would legally complicate things as well,” explained Smith.

“We had a dealer network that was sitting here screaming for the brand to come back. There were a lot of factors that went into when we should launch the brand.”

Smith argued that SsangYong Australia had tried to compensate for issues such as the temporary absence of AEB by making a strong value offering to customers.

All SsangYongs come with drive-away pricing, a seven-year/unlimited-km warranty, seven-year capped-price servicing and seven-year roadside assistance.

Read a review of the 2018 SsangYong Musso