Quote:
Originally Posted by Gforce
Cost recovery versus sales volume. Their makers have to earn a profit on each unit sold or they will stop making them. Believe me, if they could lower the price they would.
Either of these Japanese sportscars is a bargain compared to any of the alternatives.
Canada will always pay through the nose for cars since we insist on each manufacturer complying with our own special set of car making regulations and testing process. You can find out how stupidly expensive that is when you try to import a car from the USA. Even cars made in Canada for export to the USA are priced up to 20% less when sold there than when sold here. Exact same car.
Canada needs its own car regulations and testing facilities? I think not. If our government actually cared about consumer pricing we would open our markets to cars complying with either the US or EU regulations and simply abandonment our own redundant system of regulation. Many other consumer products suffer from the same idiotic bureaucracy.
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I don't recall the details but Canada has recently done some of what you ask for. The safety requirements have been brought in line with US standards (for example Canada no longer has more stringent bumper damage standards).
I don't think Canada does run its own crash tests anyway IIRC - they use the US results - can anyone confirm?
There is a wide disparity in the price differentials different auto makers set for Canadian customers. In some instances after allowing for exchange rates and content differences Canadians get a better deal by a not insignificant percentage - for example the Focus RS and the Golf R, both of which are several thousand more (CAD) in the US when comparably equipped.
Mazda though, as someone mentioned above, gives Canadians the third finger salute. Upper end Miatas and Fiat 124s cost comparably more here, to the point were a fully loaded RF is notably north of $40k CAD.