Imported Cars: More service centers and

Rationalized billing standard for repair cost are needed

Although sales of imported cars are skyrocketing, the number of service center for those is insufficient and a different calculation standard for repair cost is used by a repair company or an insurer. Urgent measures are needed in this regard.

The Korea Consumer Agency (President: Young-seen Kim, www.kca.go.kr) conducted an investigation on seven representative imported car brands and found that Mercedes-Benz was the majority with 3,672 cars in terms of the number of registered vehicle per a service center.

※ No. of Registered vehicle per a service center: Mercedes-Benz (3,672 cars) > BMW (3,306) > Volkswagen (2,677) > Honda (2,625) > Audi (2,589) > Lexus (2,519) > Toyota (1,794)

In terms of hourly labor, another important factor determining repair cost, Mercedes-Benz stood the highest again with US$59, followed by BMW, Audi & Volkswagen, Lexus, Honda, and Toyota at $52, $47, $43, $38, and $36, respectively.

Meanwhile, as there is no credible repair cost calculation standard in place, that could be commonly used in the industry (insurance and repair), such as the ARECCOM Online System (AOS) for domestic cars.

Based on these findings, the Agency plans to make a recommendation for improvement to the relevant Ministry as follows: 1) establishing nation-wide repair network for imported car companies; 2) introducing global estimate program, which could be commonly used for imported car and non-life insurance industries; 3) inducing a price reduction by revitalizing parallel import of parts for imported cars.