The Outrageous and Unjustified Car Prices in Pakistan -Part 3
Thursday, December 1st, 2011 6:40:05 by Syed Hassan Bokhari
The Outrageous and Unjustified Car Prices in Pakistan -Part 3
Last time, we talked about how outrageously the Suzuki Mehran was priced with Pak-Suzuki making at least Rs.200, 000 in unjustified profits on each model as compared to the model offered by Maruti Suzuki in India.
While the Cultus is not offered in India and according to my knowledge, not anywhere else at the moment, the Alto is a car that we can compare with our neighbouring country as well.
Sadly, the Cultus and Alto both do not offer any air bags in their cars, so no problem because a lot of cars in Pakistan do not except for one air bag in the high-end Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic’s. Letting that slide, we come to see that for Rs. 700,000
and above, these two cars do not even have seatbelts in the back!
It is a huge surprise that Pak-Suzuki does not even offer seatbelts in the back seats, something which is of the outmost necessity when it comes to safety while driving. I can easily imagine a foreigners mouth dropping somewhere in the West upon hearing
such a statement.
To start it off, the Indian made Alto offers great mileage (19.73 KM/L), which is a huge difference compared to our model along with computerized fuel injection, something which is now being introduced in Pakistan.
The high-end Indian model of the Suzuki Alto is being offered for Rs. 334,510 while in Pakistan the same car without a number of key features is being offered for Rs. 771,000! What a huge difference!
Even if we convert the price according to the latest difference in currency, the Indian Alto should cost only Rs. 566,655, which means that over Rs. 200,000 is in unjustified profits that Pak-Suzuki are sucking out of the option-less consumers.
Looking at the other models offered by Pak-Suzuki like the highly overpriced Suzuki Swift and Liana; we can see that these cars are those types which are offering nothing for what they are worth here.
The Liana is renowned for being a car that became defunct throughout the world and when it was rejected in other countries, it was brought to Pakistan and offered as a luxury car to the consumers here.
Pakistanis are hopeful of the day when such cars, which are affordable throughout the world, will be the same in their country, when cars of the lowest range will not be considered to be luxury and rather something that everyone can easily own.
In the next part, we will move on to Toyota and Honda, who are in a class of their own when it comes to dominating the market and raking up huge profits on every model along with offering close to nothing but a car.
Tags: Car Market, cars, honda, overpriced, Pak Suzuki, price difference, Suzuki, toyotaShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=5290
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