Take care going grey
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• Trucks coming into the country as grey imports may not be the bargains they appear to be at first sight, warns Mike Mudie, chairman of the Retail Motor Industry Federation National Truck Council. He points out that they're not sold with the extended warranties provided with vehicles delivered through official channels, and he believes that suppliers are unlikely to be able to offer buyers the technical advice that a UK franchised dealer can.
British dealers won't refuse to service such vehicles, says Mudie, who is a Mercedes dealer, but they are likely to adhere to the strict letter of their obligations and do no more than that.
"Put it this way," he says. "I don't discriminate against people who don't buy from us—I discriminate in favour of those who do."
The whole system of manufacturer truck franchises could be thrown into disarray come 2002 with the possible ending of Block
Exemption. This exempts the motor industry's franchising system from some provisions in European Union competition legislation, and its scrapping could mean that anybody would be able to sell new, unregistered cars, vans and trucks regardless of whether they hold a franchise.
"If it is abolished then the impact on the car industry could be significant, but I really don't see it having quite the same impact on the truck side of things," says Mudie. "Is anybody really going to want to buy up large numbers of new chassis, park them in a field somewhere, then wait for someone to buy them? "I think it's also worth noting that agricultural tractors aren't covered by Block Exemption, yet tractor manufacturers still run networks of franchised dealers successfully."