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RobW, one of our members contributed this excellent post on the Forum this  week, it pretty well sums up what we are all about!….fighting ignorance and providing Canadians with options to make well informed purchasing decisions.

Quote:

At work, I have a large printout of the CarsWithoutBorders logo on my cube wall and I try to educate my co-workers about the issue whenever they ask about the logo. It’s amazing how many Canadians simply accept higher car prices here as a fact of life. “It’s the price of being Canadian”, they tell me. It seems we’ve just always been used to having a lower valued currency and only a small percentage of us have gone through the effort of a reality check when shopping for a vehicle in this new era of dollar parity.

The manufacturers were pretty clever, ever since the dollar parity hit the news last Fall, they’ve announced price adjustments and such to make it seem as though they’ve done their part. Some Canadians have accepted this but others, like members of this site, see that huge price gaps still exist.

People are always shocked to hear when I tell them that back in 2002, the situation was reversed as Canada had lower prices and Americans were importing vehicles. So, it’s not:

- the price of being Canadian
- the cost of translating brochures to French
- because we have universal healthcare
- because we have cold winters

It’s simply because we are willing to pay more. Slowly, but surely, we are willing to pay less and eventually we’ll pay the same. Unfortunately, those currently buying at Canadian prices will be in for an unpleasant surprise when they go to trade-in or re-sell in a few years if the dollars remain at par.

My wish would be for all Canadians that are in the market for a new vehicle to leverage the power of the Internet and do a proper Canadian vs U.S. price comparison. This includes make, model, and features because some companies are sneaky and have cut the Canadian MSRP but also stripped out standard features thereby negating the price cut. Can’t forget to include the destination / PDI charges in the comparison too. If the price difference is not close then refrain from buying that vehicle. Unquote.

As Serge indicated ” Thanks for contributing - that’s what we do - educate, inform, explain, argue, enable change. With the end goal to have lower prices at the corner dealer. “