Unofficial service stations offer to solve the problem
Russian car dealers have encountered problems servicing Chinese cars imported into Russia through parallel imports, as reported by Izvestia, citing information from the Union of Automotive Services.
The problems mainly affected the Geely, Exeed and Li Auto brands. The main difficulty of maintenance is that official diagnostic equipment does not recognize cars imported as parallel imports.
Geely representatives in Russia explained that control units in cars for other markets differ from those installed on cars for the Russian market. This leads to the fact that the equipment cannot connect to them, and, in addition, to «parallel» Chinese cars are not covered by the factory warranty.
Some owners of Chinese cars that were imported illegally and faced with the impossibility of repairs from official dealers turned to independent service stations for help. Problems with access to diagnostic systems of Russian dealers also affected the Li Auto brand.
«The owner of a Geely Monjaro contacted us because his trunk release button was broken. Dealers in St. Petersburg refused to solve the problem, citing the fact that the software does not see «gray» cars», — said Ilya Plisov, member of the board of the Union of Automotive Services.
In the event of a breakdown of a parallel imported car, owners have to choose between service at independent service stations or the service of an official dealer, but without a guarantee. The second option is usually more expensive, as it requires the use of original spare parts, in contrast to independent car services, where analogues can be used.
However, it is claimed that many independent service stations have universal diagnostic equipment that allows them to carry out maintenance of any cars, including those that were imported as parallel imports.