You’ll never get parts for it!

Well it’s the age old rhetoric the constantly plagues Australians when it comes to the pursuit of owning Foreign cars. I’ve never really given the topic much thought recently, unitl it was brought to the fore once again the other day. You see a friend of mine had his VW van broken into, and when he enquired about getting a few spares, the response was “ it will have to come from Germany……. And that’s a very long way away!” Guess this maneuver backfired in his face a little bit, given that my friend is German!

But this is not new. Another friend of mine snapped the accessory belt in his Peugeot – sensibly enough he managed to get the car to a garage in the country. The owner’s response “oh we have all makes and models” – super my friend thought. Wrong – upon telling the man that he had a Peugeot, he was met with the usual response “you’ll never get parts for one of those” .

But the attitude does not stop or end there. Say you were interested in actually buying something European to drive. A typical conversation down the pub goes a little like this “yeah I reckon they go alright, but they would be a nightmare to fix, and you would never get parts for them!”. Well ive come to wonder if there is actually any substance behind this. Sure parts are at times a little more difficult to get a hold of, and things are a little ‘different’. under the bonnet. But is all this “difficulty” simply perpetuated by the classic aussie attitude of tall poppy syndrome? Of course, we should refuse European products, simply on the basis that they are more advanced than ours! On the other hand maybe its perpetuated by the fact that Australians are simply too lazy to understand concepts that are not straight forward, or passed on in an apprenticeship done on a VN commodore.

Well the next argument commonly put forward (once the parts argument has worn out that is) is that “these cars are not designed for Australian conditions”. But what exactly are Australian conditions. And seriously are you going to be driving your car in the desert everyday.? Taking a closer look, say at a the car I currently drive - a Peugeot 405 – against the humble Aussie classic - the commodore. While it was designed and built in France / the UK respectively - I suspect a vehicle such as this; with a lager design budget, production run, and larger company backing, and more stringent design laws (emissions and safety) IS going to somehow come out on top when compared with the commodore as far as a successful design is concerned. And as far as Australian conditions are concerned – have a look where the 405 is still being built and used today – yep in Iran and Egypt – pretty similar to your stereotype “Australian conditions” if you ask me. So back to the commodore – and to the much reviled VE – lets take a closer look at where this thing comes from – yep the new found handling ability in the commodore comes from the last generation (E39) 5- series BMW! Not so much Australian design there to be proud of!

If I’m to progress beyond the design bigotry stage and take two steps back to the parts section again; we come back to the age old sourcing problem. Its my guess, that while parts are a bit more difficult to get a hold of, its simply a case of the well perpetuated ‘parts myth’ working in the flavor of wreckers and dealers alike; If for example you couldn’t source the part here, you might be faced with ordering from overseas, just like my German friend, and paying some sky high fictitious price that the guy wants to name. Interestingly this attitude is not something that’s just limited to cars. – its part of a wider import problem in Australia it would seem. The thing is, when something is imported by only one company, the market is closed – everyone who has a lick In it is happy 10% here 10% there - everyone has a slice of pie, and RRP – what’s that you say? Gone. One of the better examples I am familiar with lies in the high-end bike market –not so long ago it took a mere 600 buck purchase price to off set the full-freight shipping from the UK. But that’s because places like the UK and the US support competition between businesses – and they say we are capitalist!

So I guess the point is this; just because people do things differently, doesn’t mean its wrong – its time Australia started to pull its head out of its arse on a lot of things (climate change anyone?) and see what the rest of the developed world is up to. On that note I’m going to keep driving my 405, despite the parts being “difficult to source” and despite the fact that being French means according to Clarkson “it’s made with all the care of a 3rd world plumbing system” - He isn’t wrong, and while all the electric switches have long since given up, the significantly larger design budget is still shining through.