The price of cars just keep going up

This is my experience with Mercedes ,however this applies to all car manufactures. I fully understand that any business has to make a profit in oder to keep its doors open, but when one gets charged these astronomical prices then end users are getting **********. I purchased a globe from Mecedes for my rear number plate, the pricethat small plastic i was charge was R 185.60 this came packed in a small pach with the following descriptio Mercedes Benz approved product. I then went to a local motor spare shop and purchase exact the same globes made by Osram for R 10.00 a piece installed them and they are working fine this is now 2 years, later. Osram make most globes for the majority of the cars, plus Mercedes Benz has a much bigger purchasing power than a smaller spare parts dealer. The company that sold me the globes he is also making a fair profit nothing wrong with that.

The same situation has happened to me with car batteries, alternators and disk brake pads, where the same product can be purchased at a much lower price this being 3-5 times cheaper.

I have a friend that purchased a new BMW that the sun-roof exploded went flying into the road the i was in the car and experience the situation. Car still under motorplan/Warranty, BMW refused to replace the sun roof, they come out with a feeble excuse that it was a stone that hit the bonet of the car and then smashed into the sun roof, when i heard this i though that Pythagoras had risen from the dead.If it had been a stone that hit the sun roof the glass fragments should be in the car not on the road. I then did further investigation, just to find out that in American there is a law suite taking place for the same thing, the stories are the same from other car manufactures, they just refuse to take ownership of the problem the end user must foot the bill. Another situation that i experience, while offloading new cars off a truck at a dealer a car was knocked and damaged the dealer repaired the car and put the car on the showroom floor as a new car. Just imagine you go and purchase a new car thinking that its spanking new car from the factory, little knowing that the car has been in the panel-beaters prior to you recieving it.

Motor plans is a big selling point in South Africa, well marketed. Panic generally gets into users when they expire, so they go out and get into debt and purchase a new car. Have they ever asked themselves how do the people manage when they purchase a car that the motor plan has expired. Many car dealers overseas do not have a motoplan,yes they have warranties on the cars that they sell, nothing is for free in this world so these motor plans must be built into the purchase price.

In conclusion buyers need to be more alert and not take things at face value, the internet gives us the opportunities to research, make use of it and try and avoid these astronomical prices that one gets charged for exactly the same products without the deal approved label.