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Message: <blockquote data-quote="funfer_fahrer" data-source="post: 328265" data-attributes="member: 2733">To me, parallel imports are great because 1. Most Malaysians especially in this forum can afford to maintain a BMW (or a Ferrari for that matter) but not willing to pay the ridiculous price of a brand new BMW. Those who buy from grey importers are not the ordinary tom, dick or harry. They could be smart tom, dick and harry. 2. Some Malaysians still feel proud of paying RM400K (in the name of prestige) for a car without realising people outside this country are laughing at them.  3. The risk is worth taking because even if you buy a brand new BMW from an approved dealer there is no guarantee that the car will be trouble free. And also, how sure are you that the customer service and after sales service are top notch? Conversely, the grey car importer also will try to con their way but their chances are getting slimmer nowadays. Last week, I went to visit a car dealer looking for a 2005 X5. The car looked very nice, good paint job, and nice interior. After I plugged in my diagnostic tool at the OBD slot, I discovered some serious messages. The on-board self test module was faulty. It was going to cost me a bomb to replace the module. Well, too bad for him that I discovered the fault. His final remark was "you kerja sama BMW ka?". I told him that I wanted to be a BMW technician but ended up doing something else because I never listened to my mother when I was young. Ha ha..  4. Buying a car is never a prestige thing. I call that 'keeping up with the Joneses' or 'renewing debt'. 'Prestige' means having a high net worth. Doesn't matter which car one drives. In this country, people still equate high net worth with owning a BMW, which is not usually the case. Some people just love to pay extra taxes to the Government. In Australia, the maximum import duty for cars is only 16% and an X6 is only AUD110K. And the Aussies still call the X6 expensive! The import duty for a brand new E60 525 is at least RM200K in Malaysia (thanks to D.S Anwar Ibrahim when he was the finance minister). The profit margin is around RM90K and the rest is the actual price of the car. The price of a five-year-old E60 in Japan is only US10K to US15K. What exclusivity?</blockquote>

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