Import duty drops 5% from 1 Jan 2010

[pologti18t]

That's right, import duty on passenger cars drops TO 5% from 1 JAN 2010.

That, with the rise in the Oz dollar should see some nice price drops or equipments upgrades on models released next year.

It would also mean that maybe people shouldn't be doing deals now on cars that will be delivered next year.....

[team_v]

I doubt we will see any flow through for customers.
This will probably only benefit individual import products from ebay etc.

Just because the Australian dollar has gone up doesn't mean everyone drops prices accordingly.

[pinzvidz]

I doubt we will see any flow through for customers.

Dunno about VW, but Mazda have done price drops for most of their vehicle range already ahead of the tariff change in January. Their MPS3 has dropped by about $1K in both variants. C'mon VW, price reduction on GTI? Yeah, I'm dreamin'...

[KWICKS]

IJust because the Australian dollar has gone up doesn't mean everyone drops prices accordingly.

WTF? This has absolutely nothing to do with a change in import duty on passenger vehicles.

Currently 4WD's get 5% import duty under the pretence they are commercial vehicles and the passenger vehicles get 10%. This becomes 5% on 1 Jan so the duty charged on vehicle imports will be 5% less, a saving manufacturers should either pass on to consumers or offset with increased spec from the factory at the same price point. Savings of around $1000 on a $30000 RRP car, $2000 per $60000 RRP car, etc.

[gerhard]

The cost to which import duty is applied would be about half retail price, so on a $40,000rrp car price would drop by $1000, and GST should reduce by $100 and Stamp Duty would reduce by about 4% or $40.

Drive-away price reduction should therefore be around $1140

Importers passing on the changes due to the $ - dream on - most of the importers will be cashing in on this big time, after the prices were all adjusted when the dollar crashed to 60c. Petrol price is a major one where the fleecing is happening. A year ago diesel was 15c dearer than petrol, now it's cheaper by 10c, meaning were getting ripped on petrol to the tune of 25c or more.

[Psyk]

Consumers would be lucky to see any major follow through. Firstly, it's only those in the industry that would probably know about it. Secondly the dealerships and VW Aust. would use it to offset slow sales growth while everyone hunkered down with the Global Financial Crisis. Hopefully, they'll use it to put a bigger business case to VW Corporate to bring in the Scirocco, open more dealer accessories/options to us locally and make servicing costs more competitive.

[pologti18t]

Consumers would be lucky to see any major follow through. Firstly, it's only those in the industry that would probably know about it. Secondly the dealerships and VW Aust. would use it to offset slow sales growth while everyone hunkered down with the Global Financial Crisis. Hopefully, they'll use it to put a bigger business case to VW Corporate to bring in the Scirocco, open more dealer accessories/options to us locally and make servicing costs more competitive.

Of course the ACCC could force them to pass it on. Otherwise the manufacturer has to announce a RRP price rise. Hard to do with the market fairly ho-hum

[Corey_R]

Hey guys. I think we're all forgetting something here. VW did not put up their prices when the dollar sunk. They motoroed through it. So now that the dollar has gone back up, well, it just means we're back to where we were when they set the prices. So VW doesn't owe us anything there.

As for the drop in import duty... VW should pass that on to the computers, or increase specs, as has been mentioned.

[pologti18t]

I think manufacturers and their retail arms manage currency fluctuations by hedging.