In Singapore, you can buy cars from
secret, unauthorized dealers. And it’s perfectly
legal. “Uh, parallel importers aren’t secret or unauthorized.
They’re just not the official distributor”. Oh yeah? Next you’ll
tell me they don’t sell cars in dark alleys, or while lurking
outside the men’s room. “You bought from an unlicensed importer
didn’t you?” Hah, yes. 20 % off and no bumper, windscreen, or
engine. SAVINGS. Or, uh…maybe you should check out *licensed*
parallel importers instead:
When it comes to cars, distributorships are a pain to get. Dealers
need to impress the car company, get a great showroom, have minimum
paid up capital, and otherwise complete a range of epic quests.
At some point, some car dealers decided “Stuff this, our
customers could rear and train horses by the time we’re
licensed“. So they cleverly bought the cars themselves, and
re-sold them to their customers (at profit).
Problem solved, and no distributorship needed.
Thus began the grand tradition of parallel importing: PIs are
car re-sellers rather than distributors. They’re the
cowboys of the car dealership world, and they have some major
differences from authorized dealers:
Yes, I’m uh, selling these cheap because they’re parallel
imports. And you open the door with this brick.
As mentioned before, authorized dealers have a lot of expensive
requirements. They need stunning showrooms, a huge staff, marketing
activities, etc. The cost of those overheads is factored into their
car prices.
I spoke to a sales manager from a parallel import company, who only
wanted to be known as Anton:
“When you go through the authorized dealer, you are paying for
brand. You are paying for the nice showroom, for the official
warranty, and so on. We all can’t offer that. But because we
provide our own warranty, and we are less fancy, we can charge less
for the car. Overall, you will pay maybe $8k to $10k
less.”
I couldn’t be given a price list, because model prices aren’t
fixed. Yes, even the ones listed
online are subject to regular revisions. But Anton
mentioned that, whatever an authorized dealer wants to charge, they
can work out a lower price.
To be honest, fixing cars is really more of our side job…
With ADs (authorized dealers), you usually get at least a three
year warranty. You also get a servicing deal (e.g. free servicing
for the first 10,000 miles).
With PIs, after-sales support is whatever the PI feels like.
Depending on what you paid for the car, this can range from a
proper warranty to “Lol, good luck” scribbled on a Post-It. Alfred
Cheng, who bought his Audi A5 from a PI, gave me a earful about
it:
“When I bought the car, I was promised servicing and warranty.
First time I sent for servicing, they did nothing. I actually sent
it for servicing with the heat exchanger spoiled, and got it back
the same way. I sent it back, they dilly-dallied, took two
more days to fix.
Okay, never mind.
About half a year later there was an engine leak, I sent it
back. They told me the warranty was no longer valid, because the
company (the PI -ed.) was bought over, new
management, I don’t know what cock-and-bull story. No more
warranty.”
I asked Anton for an opinion:
“I cannot speak for everybody. I cannot claim that there are no
black sheep; every industry also has a few. But it’s in our best
interest to look after the customer. We cheat you, we
suffer.”
So be aware: A PI issues its own warranties. You’re taking that
risk when it comes to after-sales support.
Yeah, I have your replacement parts on my shelf.
PIs sell cars from a range of different manufacturers. That makes
stocking replacement parts a logistics nightmare. It also explains
why PI showrooms all resemble a scene from The
Day After Tomorrow.
It must be more efficient at ADs, right? Because when you only have
a few specific models, the parts must be easier to stock. I don’t
know…getting quotes from ADs was like pulling teeth. But I got one
employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity:
“Servicing might be faster and more efficient from us, because
our workshop always has the right parts. Also, there
is some risk that certain parts may no longer be produced. Without
being an authorized distributor, how will your dealer get those
parts?”
However, Anton retorts that this is a risk with “very old
models” only. Most of us aren’t going to keep our cars for 10
or 20 years, so the risk of unavailable replacement parts is
slim.
Availability is based on model, season, and whether the alarm in
the dealership next door is working.
If you want to buy from PIs, you may need to wait a few extra
weeks. As I mentioned, PIs are car re-sellers. They don’t get
regular, predictable stock. Anton tells me that:
“BMW and Mercedes are the favourite brands, these you
can always get. Also, when COE goes up, luxury cars
tend to be more in demand than, say, Toyota or Honda. So we bring
in less.”
In addition to the PIs’ buying strategies, there’s the issue of
location:
“An authorized dealer can get cars from regional factories. So
for example, the authorized dealer can give you a Honda that was
made in Thailand…around 80% of Hondas in Australia are
made in Thailand. For parallel import, we must
buy from the original factory in Japan. So we are slower.”
And perhaps a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, while we re-torque
the tires?
PIs are disparate, individual businesses; they’re less uniform than
a Chingay parade. It’s hard to predict which give good service, and
which need body armour when getting customer feedback.
If there’s one thing they have in common, it’s that PIs
don’t allow you to test drive cars. Anton says this is related
to insurance issues.For everything else, betting on a PI’s service
is just that: A bet. They may
provide better servicing than ADs, or they might
provide next to no after-sales support.
You have nothing except word-of-mouth and customer reviews to count
on. But if you need to save that $8k – $10k, and you don’t want a
second-hand car, it might be worth considering, especially now with
COE prices slated drop in the later half of 2015.
