we study the assortment at dealers – Autoreview

Mercedes-Benz turned out to be one of the few automakers that not only froze work in Russia, but announced his retirement from our market. And this despite the fact that Mercedes supplied new cars back in the USSR, and in Moscow of those years there was even an official service station. But you must admit that it is difficult to imagine the Russian market without Mercedes, so dealers do not close, but gradually move to new working conditions. We studied the range in car dealerships.

Surprisingly, even at the end of December, at Moscow official Mercedes dealers, you can find almost any model from the official range, moreover, imported “in a white way”, which means that it is fully certified and provided with a company warranty. The bins of the motherland they were still rich. The range ranges from A-class hatchbacks and CLA sedans to expensive Maybachs, and the larger the dealer, the wider the choice. Up to the purchase of suitable cars from car dealerships in other cities and delivery.

Of course, the officials already have “parallel” cars. They are imported mainly from Europe through Belarus, Kazakhstan or Armenia. According to managers, such Mercedes are almost no different from legal ones: on-board electronics speak Russian, the equipment is plus or minus the same (naked cars are simply not brought to us). But most of these cars are issued to private owners, so VAT refunds for legal entities are excluded. Moreover, many “parallel” machines were imported privately and only then delivered to the showroom for commission sales. That is, the car dealership in these transactions acts only as an intermediary and de jure does not bear any obligations.

It is interesting that almost all the managers with whom we managed to talk assured that the world warranty for Mercedes cars (two years without mileage limit) is still working in Russia – and it even extends to “parallel” cars! True, in rules Mercedes-Benz itself has a note on this subject: “For vehicles manufactured for other countries, warranty support in the Russian Federation applies only to those model types of cars, the analogues of which (including components for them) are officially supplied for sale on the Russian market.” But for an additional two years to the basic guarantee that the Russian office provided, in the case of unofficial cars, you definitely can’t count.