Rip off? SA car prices vs overseas

August 11 2011 at 08:10am
By Jason Woosey

Audi A1 1.2 TFSI: R219 900 in South Africa, but can be yours for R150 975 if you move to the UK.

South African car prices. I bet that phrase does anything but fill your heart with warm and fuzzy feelings, judging by the avalanche of heated comments that we find at the end of some articles.

Well, we've decided to investigate the state of car prices in South Africa by taking a wide sample of cars and comparing our prices with those in the UK and Germany.

Let's start off with a little disclaimer here as there are many factors that determine what we pay for our cars. Import duties are a huge factor and CO2 taxes must be considered too. Currently new cars imported into South Africa are slapped with a 36 percent customs duty and even the ones that are built here use imported components, which are also taxed.

In Europe, import duties do not apply to cars that are imported from within the European Union, but the sales tax imposed on new cars is still rather steep in the two countries that we sampled. Britons, for instance, pay 20 percent VAT while the German tax is pegged at 19 percent - in South Africa we get away with just 14 percent.

You'll find our full list of car price comparisons below the article but there are some that really warrant mentioning here. The biggest price discrepancy we came across was the Porsche 911 Turbo, which costs R2 033 000 in South Africa - very steep considering that buyers in the UK can have one for R1 240 110. Others, like the Audi A1, Lexus CT200h, Mini One and Renault Twingo RS Gordini also seem comparatively expensive on our shores.

Also disappointing is that the locally-made Mercedes-Benz C180 costs between R40K and R70K more than it does overseas and there's also an uncomfortable discrepancy with the other local product, the VW Polo GTI. The general feeling we're left with is that South African cars are still too expensive in most cases.

There is good news on some fronts, however, with the Indian-built Nissan Micra 1.2 Visia actually being marginally cheaper than it is in the UK, while Kia's new Picanto is not far off the mark.

When converting these international prices into rands, we decided not to use the latest exchange rate as the market crashes of the past few days has sent our currency into a flat spin and the figures would seem rather skewed. Instead, we used the exchange rate of the previous Friday, 5 August, as those numbers will be far closer to the figures that the car companies used when determining the current car prices.

On that note, if the current market volatility continues and the rand does not recover in the short term we can all expect some rather steep car price rises before the end of the year. Think South African cars are expensive now? This could be just the beginning.

For the record, the prices below were calculated at an exchange rate of R11.25 to the Pound and R9.78 to the Euro and all prices have been converted into rands. It's also worth noting that although we did our best to find the overseas models that most closely match the specification levels of the local cars in question, there are slight discrepancies in some cases. Many of our prices also include service plans, which is not often the case overseas.

INTERNATIONAL CAR PRICE COMPARISION:

AUDI A1 1.2 ATTRACTION:

SA - R219 900

UK - R150 975

GE - R154 524

BMW 1 SERIES M COUPE:

SA - R546 392

UK - R450 225

GE - R493 890

CHEVROLET CRUZE 1.6 LS:

SA - R198 565

UK - R160 987

GE - R175 942

FORD FIESTA 1.6 TREND:

SA - R178 020

UK - R140 062

GE - R147 678

HONDA JAZZ HYBRID:

SA - R244 698

UK - R210 768

GE - R228 754

KIA PICANTO 1.0:

SA - R99 995

UK - R89 381

GE - R91 834

LEXUS CT200h S:

SA - R343 300

UK - R283 500

GE - R290 955

MAZDA2 1.3 ACTIVE:

SA - R164 520

UK - R119 868

GE - R143 668

MERCEDES-BENZ C180:

SA - R359 000

UK - R287 043

GE - R319 757

MINI ONE:

SA - R198 000

UK - R150 750

GE - R152 079

NISSAN MICRA 1.2 VISIA:

SA - R108 400

UK - R108 562

GE - R105 037

PORSCHE 911 TURBO:

SA - R2 033 000

UK - R1 240 110

GE - R1 468 515

RENAULT TWINGO RS GORDINI:

SA - R214 900

UK - R165 487

GE - R166 162

TOYOTA AURIS X:

SA - R185 600

UK - R167 332

GE - R170 172

VOLKSWAGEN POLO GTI:

SA - R261 600

UK - R218 418

GE - R223 228

Comment Guidelines

Please read our comment guidelines.
Login and register, if you haven’ t already.
Write your comment in the block below and click (Post As)
Has a comment offended you? Hover your mouse over the comment and wait until a small triangle appears on the right-hand side. Click triangle () and select "Flag as inappropriate". Our moderators will take action if need be.

Anonymous, wrote

12:42pm on 13 August 2011

why is it that in SA a plain "workhorse" bakkie costs more that the average car?