Luis Ceriotto
12/04/2020 6:00 AM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 12/04/2020 6:00 AM
Throughout the year, as the
turnstile
became
more visible
to car imports, the delivery times between the moment the customer makes the reservation and the unit is available for patenting were stretched: one month or two, when the dollar gap shot up in early May.
Two months minimum, starting in July.
In some models that are not manufactured in Mercosur
, there were no
zero kilometer
units
available.
Now, on the edge of the year, there are models that are manufactured in Argentina
with an official waiting list of five months
.
It was confirmed to Clarín by one of the main
Toyota
dealerships
, one of the best-selling brands.
"There is a sustained demand and at the same time there are the logistical difficulties that we all know," said the owner of the concessionaire, referring to the government's requirement to authorize each imported unit through the
Import Monitoring System
(SIMIs).
"And within the local production we have the
reluctance of the plant personnel to work overtime
, due to the punishment that
the withholdings of the Income Tax
imply
, added to the next holidays in January, during which the plant will be closed."
Conclusion?
Bad news for buyers.
"In this context, it is difficult to shorten the waiting list, which
today is around 150 days,
" said the owner of the Toyota dealership.
So far this year
more than 320,000 units have
been patented
and by the end of December the number could exceed
345,000
, according to estimates by the Association of Automotive Dealers (ACARA).
They are almost 60,000 vehicles above the market of
290,000 vehicles
that the Government and the Automotive Manufacturers Association (ADEFA) had estimated for all of 2020, when they agreed on an import limit of 96,000 units, between August and December.
Sources from the Ministry of Industry assured Clarín that imports "remain within the limits that we agreed with ADEFA", in the order of 96,000 units.
"Everything that was sold above that figure, either were cars
that were in stock before the pandemic
, or they were
nationally manufactured units
that were dispatched in recent months," added official sources.
The dollar gap was a powerful driver for sales throughout the year, as the zero kilometer list price follows the official dollar.
Instead, measured in "blue" dollars, those same models
end up being the cheapest in the region
.
During the last days of October and beginning of November, when the price of "blue" touched 190 pesos, it generated even more activity within the concessionaires.
But there was also room for claims that border on the unusual.
"When the blue cost 190 pesos, I had people who were about to buy and backed down, because they thought the price was going to skyrocket even more. Days later they came back, but with the demand that I lower the dollar price of the unity. They told me that the blue had fallen to 160 pesos and now it was not enough. "
As each time there are more buyers than available vehicles, they begin to carve the
markups
.
"We
were able to make a difference
with models that we had in stock, and we could deliver in less than a week," said the general manager of one of the top selling "generalist" brands.
"But we can apply these situations with a maximum of five or ten units.
We don't have a deadline
for the rest of the operations
: we have to sit and wait with the client, to see when the terminal assigns us the car."
How much are the premiums?
A visit to the Mercado Libre page, without going any further, shows a wide range of 2019 or 2018 model vehicles offered above the zero kilometer list price.
"The usual thing is a 10% surcharge on the list price, from
200,000 to 300,000 pesos, with many operations that are agreed half a million pesos above the list price
. The account is simple: at a nominal increase rate of the price of between 3% and 4% per month, the dealership offers the buyer to pay the price at which that car will be within three months, between 10% and 15% above, but being able to take it now ", said a seller of one of the three French brands that are marketed in the country.
Ricardo Mastrángelo, a salesman of high-end used cars, said that it is
thus impossible to find the high-end imported classics "4x4"
in the 0km version
on the market
.
"There are imported used, 2018 or 2019 models, which
today are sold more expensive than the zero kilometer
, because in any case the zero kilometer is
not achieved,
" he said.
At a
Fiat
dealership
, whose
Cronos
model
today leads the sales ranking, they said that the internal system they have to order cars from the automaker is no longer a reliable tool.
"Before the pandemic, you knew that if the vehicle was in Customs, they would deliver it to you within 15 days. Now, even if internally they tell us that the vehicle was assigned to us,
we have no certainty
. There were units that appeared in the system, which were listed as dispatched from Mexico, and then directly disappeared. What happened? Simple: as Argentina was complicated, they
ended up being shipped to another destination
. "
