Not fair, why why why?

[Navara_noob]

Build Your Nissan | Nissan USA

The new V6 plant, and under 30k, the same base model, 17k. Why the heck do we pay so much for the same cars in Australia?

almost makes it worth while to go over, buy one and import it back and convert them. so biased.


the new F150 in the states. 46k over here and second hand 125k

 

[KraftyPg]

Just think yourself lucky cars and "Build your own" and you had to buy each part from a dealer and make it yourself, it would cost 3 times as much doing it that way.

 

[Dave]

Probably the same reason everything else in the country is overpriced.

ARB make stuff here and youy can buy it in the US at 50% of the price here.

Watch Today Tonight and ACA. They uncover that shit all the time.

There's nothing they cant uncover. Lol.

 

[KraftyPg]

20 million people versus 300 million or something has quite a bit to do with it.

 

[Gonzo]

20 million people versus 300 million or something has quite a bit to do with it.

Yup Yup I think thats it !!!

 

[Navara_noob]

Still BS when its the same product and our $$ is so strong.

 

[KraftyPg]

Might well be BS is part but it's got very little to do with the strength of the dollar.

 

[Aussie Frontier]

Add the fact we dont get anywhere near the choices of other countries
Vehicles are dumbed down for Aus
Nissan in Spain must have the poverty line to build the trucks bound for Aus
Taxed up the yingyang to keep our beloved Holden and Ford afloat.
D40 Frontier 4x2 in 2007 was $17500 fully optioned with sunroof and leather interior
D40 Navara 4x2 in 2007 was $37900 in the ST-X model , no leather no sunroof
Essentially the same truck but the Navara was lower optioned.

 

[terryc]

ARB make stuff here and you can buy it in the US at 50% of the price here.

Is everything they sell made here?

 

[Dion]

Is everything they sell made here?

Not everything. Air lockers are made here though.

 

[terryc]

20 million people versus 300 million or something has quite a bit to do with it.

Umm, aren't we way over the 20million now?

Anyways, I know in the 70's, the bicycle trade couldn't get enough orders to buy directly from Taiwain, so they had to wait for the stuff to be shipped to the USa, then get their gear and ship it out here.

4WD stuff to here would probably be in the same boat these days.

 

[Old.Tony]

We can get things cheaply here, but the importers have to order quantity to get the prices.

Years ago, I was contacted by a Taiwanese company offering RS-232 cards for the princely sum of about $1.50 each. The same card could be had in the shops for around $30. The caveat? I had to buy them by the container load, and a minimum order of 100,000. I could have sold them for $5 each and made a fortune, but didn't think I'd get the things sold - I couldn't see 100,000 people flocking to my door to buy serial port cards since computers of the day came with 2, usually a DB9 and a DB25.

We COULD get stuff cheap, but we have to buy in such bulk that it'd be wasted.

Then there's import duty. As someone's already pointed out, Ford and Holden need to be protected. Not because they're Aussie car makers - they're both American - but because they employ Aussie workers, and if production is cut to meet a lowering demand, those workers are now standing in Centrelink queues. Import duty makes the imported vehicle at least stand on parity with the competing vehicle offered by the company employing Australians.

Subsidies in the USA also make a difference. Those buggers get their fuel at reduced prices and I'm sure - because they definitely have a love of the automobile that MUST impact on decisions about manufacturing, importing etc - there's gotta be some assistance provided there too.

No matter what our dollar does, we'll always have disparity with the USA simply because of the other factors involved in motor vehicle production and the fundamental attitude towards motoring.

If Australia adopted the same attitude, we'd have 10-lane super highways, half-price fuel, and every city would have a car maker with an Indianapolis-style raceway nearby with parking for 50,000 cars so that people could attend the races on a weekly basis.

 

[Geoff3DMN]

As someone's already pointed out, Ford and Holden need to be protected. Not because they're Aussie car makers - they're both American - but because they employ Aussie workers, and if production is cut to meet a lowering demand, those workers are now standing in Centrelink queues.

Yeah now that's where I've got a problem with all of this. They don't need to be protected (sure they want to be protected but that's not the same thing).

A business needs to stand on it's own and be internationally competitive and if that means Holden and Ford close and some people lose their jobs then that's what it means.

As for the centreline queues the simple solution to that is to make unemployment benefits time limited (and related to how long people have been working).

Something like 4 weeks of benefits accrued for each year worked would be about right, so the old guy who's been at Holden for 35 years will have years to re organise his life but we wouldn't be paying for the young guys who can get other jobs for long at all.

So yeah... close those factories if that means we can buy cars at world competitive prices!

 

[Old.Tony]

Geoff, I'm not going to disagree with you there, but we have one other fundamental difference to the USA which makes it much more difficult to achieve that goal.

In the USA, the base wage is about half of what it is over here. Australians enjoy a nice high wage. Because of the cost of employing a person, the manufacturing costs are going to be higher - so we're way, way behind the 8-ball.

We could manufacture stuff here just like they can overseas, there are motor companies here that make vehicles from the ground up (Bushmaster and its lighter cousin the HawkeI are just two examples). These companies just can't sell to the general public because although Joe Public earns more than their counterpart in the USA, they don't want to part with that income. Stuffin' it in a one-armed bandit is ok, or screaming at an equine event is perfectly acceptable, but shelling out a decent price for something that's locally made doesn't seem to cut it.

I am not sure how - or even if it is possible - to turn all that around, although I wouldn't mind starting a company to manufacture cars here in Australia - I'd certainly change the way things got done.

 

[LLadnar]

People in the US might not get payed as much as us but things dont cost as much there either they pay nearly half as much as we do for almost everything, housing-cars-food you name it, so to be on par with them really our dollar would have to be closer to $2US. Every industry in the US is protected by there government, remember the massive up raw when Australia wanted to export beef to the states. Plus they have a thing called patriotism, it embeded into them from the moment their born and japaness car companies have fought hard to crack that shell.

 

[nakedape]

People in the US might not get payed as much as us but things dont cost as much there...

Spot on bloke. The relative cost of living combined with average incomes influences the 'capacity to pay' which is factored into all pricing models. Essentially, we pay more because we can (and more importantly, we will pay more). The Spanish economy on the other hand has tanked - so the capacity to pay is less which is reflected in prices.

 

[KraftyPg]

Umm, aren't we way over the 20million now?

Maybe about 23 or something now but for every million over I bet the US has gone double that so the idea is still the same, they have shit loads more buyers and therefore offer prices that are lower, it's simple economics.

If a company wants to buy 100 pcs off me of course they are going to get them cheaper than someone buying one, selling to such a huge market like there is over seas is no different.

 

[terryc]

The only other aspect that might be behind the build your own is that V8 sales in the USA have taken an absolute battering. That was why GMC & Ford took a real hammering in the GFC.

The yanks had not been buying the traditional yank gas guzzler which GMC & Ford just kept on producing, so Toyota was taking market share with smaller cars. No patriotism there folks.

Seems Nissan USA has been just as stupid.