by Miguelito » Mon Jun 25, 2018 9:20 am
epidemiks wrote:Khmer car dealers make good coin importing all sorts of shit from the US. The market is such here that a 5-10 year old car in the US can sell for profit here, after shipping, and local buyers love Wisconsin plates. Local buyer pays the ~100%+ import tax to register it, but gets a car that hasn't been touched by a local mechanic for the same price as a car that's been here 5 years and has the blinkers wired up to the seat adjuster and has wood screws holding the trim in place.
Test drove a fresh import CRV when I was in the market. Ran well, straight, clean, good paint, a bit of paint work had been resprayed but overall seemed like a decent car. Ran the VIN and found at least some part of the vehicle I drove had been involved in a 60mph head on crash in the US, written off. Cut and shut and a respray and exported. If they thought keeping the half that had a 60mph head on, hate to think what happened to the other half of the car they welded it to.
No one would be paying the ~100%+ (more like 150%+) percentage tax for a used grey market import. That's why it's called "the grey market".
Luxury grey market cars flood the market here, but are oftentimes insurance write offs in the U.S. where they've been "totaled" in a crash, had flood damage, etc, or have an obscene number of miles on them and the odometer rolled back. I've talked with the guys at Audi and they always get a good laugh when a customer with a grey market car is curious why the transmission is going with only 15k km on the car, and then they put the key into the system and inform the customer it's actually 115k km. As epidemiks says about the head on crash that car suffered, the reason it is "totaled" is because of the structural damage down to the frame that is irreparable. This helps explain why we see luxury SUVs that have been involved in minor crashes here look like they were a discarded sardine tin run over by a semi.
Another common issue with luxury grey market imports are that oftentimes they are designed for the U.S. or Europe, not here. So you'll have a Porsche that requires Euro 6 diesel; however, that fuel quality is unavailable here. So they're pumping Euro 3 into an engine built for Euro 6, and probably not even doing the regular maintenance and filter checks as necessary. You don't have to be a mechanic to guess what happens there.
A great business model if you have zero ethics and some cash would be to go to some of the insurance auctions in the U.S. and load up on junked cars (after a large flood would be a good time to do it), and then ship a container of those cars over, import them "used/for parts" to avoid the heavy taxes, make them look shiny, and sell. Obviously, that is already happening.
[quote="epidemiks"]Khmer car dealers make good coin importing all sorts of shit from the US. The market is such here that a 5-10 year old car in the US can sell for profit here, after shipping, and local buyers love Wisconsin plates. Local buyer pays the ~100%+ import tax to register it, but gets a car that hasn't been touched by a local mechanic for the same price as a car that's been here 5 years and has the blinkers wired up to the seat adjuster and has wood screws holding the trim in place.
Test drove a fresh import CRV when I was in the market. Ran well, straight, clean, good paint, a bit of paint work had been resprayed but overall seemed like a decent car. Ran the VIN and found at least some part of the vehicle I drove had been involved in a 60mph head on crash in the US, written off. Cut and shut and a respray and exported. If they thought keeping the half that had a 60mph head on, hate to think what happened to the other half of the car they welded it to.[/quote]
No one would be paying the ~100%+ (more like 150%+) percentage tax for a used grey market import. That's why it's called "the grey market".
Luxury grey market cars flood the market here, but are oftentimes insurance write offs in the U.S. where they've been "totaled" in a crash, had flood damage, etc, or have an obscene number of miles on them and the odometer rolled back. I've talked with the guys at Audi and they always get a good laugh when a customer with a grey market car is curious why the transmission is going with only 15k km on the car, and then they put the key into the system and inform the customer it's actually 115k km. As epidemiks says about the head on crash that car suffered, the reason it is "totaled" is because of the structural damage down to the frame that is irreparable. This helps explain why we see luxury SUVs that have been involved in minor crashes here look like they were a discarded sardine tin run over by a semi.
Another common issue with luxury grey market imports are that oftentimes they are designed for the U.S. or Europe, not here. So you'll have a Porsche that requires Euro 6 diesel; however, that fuel quality is unavailable here. So they're pumping Euro 3 into an engine built for Euro 6, and probably not even doing the regular maintenance and filter checks as necessary. You don't have to be a mechanic to guess what happens there.
A great business model if you have zero ethics and some cash would be to go to some of the insurance auctions in the U.S. and load up on junked cars (after a large flood would be a good time to do it), and then ship a container of those cars over, import them "used/for parts" to avoid the heavy taxes, make them look shiny, and sell. Obviously, that is already happening.