Locally Buying Or Importing A Vehicle?

[ellamulla]

I heard few people saying under new tax structure it is cheaper to import vehicle rather than buying vehicle from locally.

What are YOUR COMMENTS? (your vehical importing experience)

Any risks or consideration, when importing vehicle (ex, from Japan)?

PERSONNELY OR though LOCAL VEHICAL IMPORTOR?

Kumara

[isurujosh]

I heard few people saying under new tax structure it is cheaper to import vehicle rather than buying vehicle from locally.

What are YOUR COMMENTS? (your vehical importing experience)

Any risks or consideration, when importing vehicle (ex, from Japan)?

PERSONNELY OR though LOCAL VEHICAL IMPORTOR?

Kumara

importing through a faithful contact is the cheapest by quite a margin. as in the case of axio X (talking of personal experience) the advantage can be as much as 700k when you compare with well known car dealers who do retail sales in and around kohuwala.

[xXx]

importing through a faithful contact is the cheapest by quite a margin.

Spot on. This way there's a person locally you can confront if there's any dissatisfaction over the import instead of trying to reach someone half way across the world. Furthermore you can cut down the risk of having to transfer money to an unknown party.

Before people start declaring war on importers or hatching conspiracy theory let me explain the theory behind the saving when importing a car personally. When an importer brings down a car they pay an additional amount of around 15% of the whole value of the car (after tax and duty) on top of the duty/tax amount. The reason for this is if a buyer is using a leasing facility to finance the buy then the additional amount paid by the importer is used as a VAT rebate and the buyer will not pay Interest on the VAT amount. Since leasing is the most popular financing method most of the importers pay this additional fee to pass the VAT advantage to the end buyer.

If someone bringing down a car for their own use (not for resale) and if that person is not using a lease to finance the purchase then there's no need to pay that addition amount.

A fine example of this process is the LC200 advertised in the classified section. That has been imported personally hence there's no option for VAT refund thus making the car 3 - 4 million cheaper than the market price but much more unattractive to the target consumers due to restrictions in financing.

So my advice is if you have cash at hand or if you are have aces to a personal loan facility best way to do is to approach an importer and get a car personally imported. If anyone need more info or contact details please PM me.

as in the case of axio X (talking of personal experience) the advantage can be as much as 700k when you compare with well known car dealers who do retail sales in and around kohuwala.

Isuru now you know why there's such a big difference between the quote you got for your car and the ones up for sale. Plus the CIF values have gone up significantly across the board on all models due to excessive demand thus the local prices have increased sharply contrary to the previous predictions that the market will stabilize or prices would even drop due to the sheer number of imports. To simply put it, do not expect to pay the same price your friend paid a month back for his car if you are to order/buy one in the very near future.

Edited August 2, 2010 by xXx

[isurujosh]

Isuru now you know why there's such a big difference between the quote you got for your car and the ones up for sale. Plus the CIF values have gone up significantly across the board on all models due to excessive demand thus the local prices have increased sharply contrary to the previous predictions that the market will stabilize or prices would even drop due to the sheer number of imports. To simply put it, do not expect to pay the same price your friend paid a month back for his car if you are to order/buy one in the very near future.

i understand that the axio X price that we got and the axio g price that my friend got are not realistic for the current market climate. we had put down our money some time ago, to get those good offers. but i suppose the market should cool down in the future and then people should have no trouble getting down cars for said prices again.