To make matters worse the vehicle manufacturers obviously bribed government to get legislation in place to prevent people from importing cars to South Africa.
I cannot understand why the competition commission cannot do anything about this. If we are allowed to import vehicles to South Africa, then the local manufacturers will have real competition that will force them to bring down their prices.
To give you an example of how we get ripped of. If you go to http://www.toyota.com and look what a new Cruiser 100 will cost you. Today it is $56,215 which is about R393,505. Go to http://www.toyota.co.za and see that the same vehicle will cost you R687,700. The difference is almost R300,000. Now that cannot be what it cost to transport such a vehicle by ship, can it. I know they also have to make a profit, but bear in mind that the dealer in the US also make a profit on his R393,000 Cruiser.
Another example, not something you will get here, but you all will agree that paying R53,000 for the Land Cruiser below is nothing compared to what we pay in South Africa. Land Cruiser, Auto 145,838 Kms, Green 3000 cc Turbo Diesel 5 Door RHD, 1994 model.
This vehicle I can get now. It is standing in Durban but unfortunately I cannot buy it because it is against the Vehicle manufacturer protecting law to buy it in South Africa. I can buy it and import it to Namibia, Swaziland or any other neighboring country, but just not my own country.
My questions are:
1. Why are the law protecting the vehicle manufacturers and enabling them to create a monopoly?
2. Why have the competition commission not done anything about this yet?
I know some people recon that it is to keep sub-standard vehicle from our roads. Well, I doubt that a Land Cruiser built in Japan will be inferior to the quality of one built here. Most of them are imported anyway. But just because the vehicle manufacturer imported them themselves, now all of the sudden they are supposedly more safe. They also say that the SABS first have to approve it, well I will not lift my opinion about the SABS openly here. But if you look at vehicles like the Chana and so on, I would rather drive an imported Cruiser or Surf before I just look at a Chana.
Enough for now, I would like to hear your input. One of my favorite quotes is one of Ghandi, he said "YOU must be the change you would like to see in the world"
I would like to have your input, perhaps we can change the world.
