3 ms·

I agree with you. I simply have no words for how much this pisses me off. I'm seriously considering importing my next car from Russia or India or some country

by gyulai 4y ago

I agree with you. I simply have no words for how much this pisses me off. I'm seriously considering importing my next car from Russia or India or some country where consumers aren't as easy to abuse and defraud as they are in the west. But getting it certified for the road might be difficult, and I'd basically be on my own regarding maintenance. I live in rural Germany with close to zero repair shops close by that are capable of servicing non-German cars. (Okay, maybe there's a Ford dealership here somewhere, but that's just about it). Wasn't "consumer protection" something that governments were supposed to be doing? Where are they right now, as they're watching this shitshow? The way it worked in the software industry was that the move from purchase-prices to subscription prices was a huge structural change that made it difficult for consumers to compare prices and lead to a drastic price increase. Consider Toggl track, a time-tracking software that I like to use and that, at $9/month without any predatory subscription tactics, I consider very reasonably-priced. ...but at the same time, I can still recall a day when you'd pick up small software utilities like that from a Radio Shack. They came on floppy discs (later CDs) in cardboard boxes that would cost you maybe $20-$30. This was to own the software and you could use it for the rest of the hardware's lifetime if you didn't do any OS upgrades. (often they would even survive an OS upgrade or change of hardware). That was so much better value for money.

2143 4y ago
> I'm seriously considering importing my next car from Russia or India I'm highly familiar with India. So, keep the following in mind: (All of this is w.r.t European cars in India; situation is different for Indian, Japanese, Korean, and American car companies) 1. Cars manufactured in India (including Mercedes/BMW/VW/Skoda etc) are set up for right hand drive (steering wheel is on the right, and cars are driven on the left side of the road). 2. For high end brands you don't get as much configuration options as in Germany; limited choices with interior materials and colour. The flip side is, the time from booking a car to its delivery is relatively short, provided you buy a model that's relatively widely sold. ie., a Mercedes C200 shouldn't take too long to deliver. But the AMG models might take longer. 3. German cars are crazy expensive in India. 4. For most German brands, the parts are imported from Europe and assembled in their plants in India (this is called the "CKD - completely knocked down" route). Would be inefficient to then move that car back to Germany. 5. Higher end German cars (like, BMW M models, Mercedes AMG models etc) are directly imported into India from Europe. Direct imports have extremely high taxes. Again, would be inefficient to ship it back to Germany.
- gyulai 4y ago
  I wasn't contemplating a re-import of a car from a German manufacturer as sold in India back into Germany. I also wasn't thinking "luxury". I was rather thinking of getting a Tata or Lada or whatever the locals drive in India or Russia or some country where manufacturers are still more or less forced to serve the needs of the less-well-off consumer. It would have to be something of much lesser complexity than a German luxury car. There are still lots of car mechanics around whose shops are not under contract by any particular brand who are more than happy to fix just about any car for you. ...provided the car manufacturer hasn't gone out of their way to make that difficult for them to do. Which all the modern brands with any presence in the West actually have done. For example, usually only a VW dealership will have proper VW diagnostic software to read out error codes. If I ask them to fix my Honda Civic, I'm shit out of luck. If the only dealerships close by are VW dealerships, as is the case in rural Germany, then I'm basically forced to buy/drive a VW. Now, that would be a different story if I had a Lada Taiga and had it serviced by the guy around the corner who fixes cars in his shed on weekends and who only takes cash.

by gyulai 4y ago

2143 4y ago

> I'm seriously considering importing my next car from Russia or India I'm highly familiar with India. So, keep the following in mind: (All of this is w.r.t European cars in India; situation is different for Indian, Japanese, Korean, and American car companies) 1. Cars manufactured in India (including Mercedes/BMW/VW/Skoda etc) are set up for right hand drive (steering wheel is on the right, and cars are driven on the left side of the road). 2. For high end brands you don't get as much configuration options as in Germany; limited choices with interior materials and colour. The flip side is, the time from booking a car to its delivery is relatively short, provided you buy a model that's relatively widely sold. ie., a Mercedes C200 shouldn't take too long to deliver. But the AMG models might take longer. 3. German cars are crazy expensive in India. 4. For most German brands, the parts are imported from Europe and assembled in their plants in India (this is called the "CKD - completely knocked down" route). Would be inefficient to then move that car back to Germany. 5. Higher end German cars (like, BMW M models, Mercedes AMG models etc) are directly imported into India from Europe. Direct imports have extremely high taxes. Again, would be inefficient to ship it back to Germany.

gyulai 4y ago
I wasn't contemplating a re-import of a car from a German manufacturer as sold in India back into Germany. I also wasn't thinking "luxury". I was rather thinking of getting a Tata or Lada or whatever the locals drive in India or Russia or some country where manufacturers are still more or less forced to serve the needs of the less-well-off consumer. It would have to be something of much lesser complexity than a German luxury car. There are still lots of car mechanics around whose shops are not under contract by any particular brand who are more than happy to fix just about any car for you. ...provided the car manufacturer hasn't gone out of their way to make that difficult for them to do. Which all the modern brands with any presence in the West actually have done. For example, usually only a VW dealership will have proper VW diagnostic software to read out error codes. If I ask them to fix my Honda Civic, I'm shit out of luck. If the only dealerships close by are VW dealerships, as is the case in rural Germany, then I'm basically forced to buy/drive a VW. Now, that would be a different story if I had a Lada Taiga and had it serviced by the guy around the corner who fixes cars in his shed on weekends and who only takes cash.