Dealers, trying to survive, began importing equipment on a gray scheme – without the permission of trademark owners.
Although these are only timid attempts, car dealers are looking for a way out of the difficult situation they find themselves in. At the same time, it has not been learned that they have been deprived of official dealership for this. However, car manufacturers understand that it is now pointless to make claims against dealers.
But cars imported from third countries without the consent of brand owners have a significant “minus”.
Expert opinion
Maxim Kadakovyeditor-in-chief of the oldest and authoritative magazine “Behind the wheel”:
– Everyone survives as best they can. Most likely they will not interfere, but no one will help the dealers at the same time. Anything imported through parallel imports has no manufacturer’s warranty and the buyer should understand that. If previously the car dealer’s customer trusted the “conditional” Mazda, Mercedes or Volkswagen and rarely read the terms of the contract, now these documents must be read to the last letter. The dealer can promise its warranty support, but what does it mean, what are the conditions, which units have a very short warranty there?
Now even some insurance companies try not to insure ‘parallel’ cars under all sorts of pretexts. For example, because the owner of the Chinese Bora or Mazda CX4 has an accident, there is a need for OSAGO repairs, but where can I get a fender, a headlight, a radiator grille, a bumper for this car? They are not in the parts warehouse! Maybe dealers who commit to import a thousand cars and bring some spare parts, but as a distributor they will not “freeze” money, because this is a lot of money.
How do you order these parts? Via Ali Express, somehow different? Wait a month, six months? There are many questions. That is why I do not call this arrangement parallel import, but alternative import.
Yes, it’s good that it exists: interesting cars have appeared that were not there before. But this only partially solves the scarcity problem. And it is clear that these imports cannot compensate for the losses that the market suffers from the withdrawal of producers.
Photo: Yuri Smityuk/TASS
Source: Z R
