Thread: Pricing Transparency

Came across this on the Land Rover (AU) web site this morning. Toyota's has something similar and Nissan's says to "Contact a Delear"

NOTICE TO CUSTOMERS
Thank you for your inquiry. Due to new legislation that came into effect on 25 May 2009, Land Rover Australia is currently unable to provide you with previously published price lists.
The new legislation is intended to ensure that the price advertised for motor vehicles includes the ‘on road costs’ which are “quantifiable” that a customer will incur, when purchasing a new vehicle.
The ‘on road costs’ typically include the vehicle registration fee, compulsory third party insurance, State stamp duty and the dealer delivery costs. These components are not always a fixed or constant value, meaning the ‘on road costs’ vary according to individual circumstances.
Land Rover Australia supports pricing transparency for our customers and is endeavouring to achieve pricing on our website without breaching this new legislation.
In the meantime, we kindly ask that you refer any price related inquiries to your local Land Rover retailer.

I'm all for pricing transparency, but this must be a nightmare for the car industry given each state and territory has different stamp duty, rego fees, CTP costs etc, that are all controlled by the individual state governments. Just another reason why we need one Australia wide vehicle registration system.

Here's the story.

The ACCC wants to make all prices advertised the price you'd actually pay to collect the goods. For example all retail goods are advertised with GST. Contrast that to the nightmare in the USA where you have no idea how much it'll cost you. The amount-you-pay pricing is a Good Thing.

The ACCC has now mandated that advertised costs for vehicles must be driveaway costs. The auto industry has a problem with this because the extra costs of a vehicle beyond RRP are made up of factors outside their control such as dealer charges, and even worse, some of those factors vary from state to state such as taxes -- stamp duty, road tax etc. Thus, the only way they could do it is to have different prices for each state, and come to some arrangement with the dealers so all delivery charges are the same. The dealers are independent businesses so some negotiaiton is required.

The industry would have received this a lot better had the government surcharges been standardised along the way. IMHO it is another example of where Australia is pointlessly over-governed.

In the meantime, call your local dealers for pricing. Preferably more than one.

The media has been given an exemption to print pricing information however.

Watch this space, it's not over yet. In the end it'll be better for the consumer.