Honda Jazz, just under RM100k is a lot more within reach, slightly better fuel consumption than the Countryman and slightly more overall storage, although much less stylo than the Countryman. Named Honda Fit in the US, it cost around USD15k. Nissan Juke (US name) is the crossover category like the Countryman, cheaper, but not sold here.

I’ve had enough of local cars, so many foreign cars are so clearly better, the international market clearly is an indication, where else is our local car brands popular? No where.

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1. Mini Countryman is assembled in Germany. It’s the only Mini to be assembled there.

2. Also, the Mini Countryman sold here is the Cooper or Cooper S. Not the Mini One Countryman. There is a price difference.

3. Yeah, I miscalculated. Should be 115% tax and duties, not 125% on top. But I can still attribute it to warehouse costs and dealer profit, which I never noted down.

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Mini car never manufactured and assembled in Germany…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini

UK price – sterling 17,565 auto
http://www.mini.co.uk/html/model_range/mini_one_countryman/home.html

17,565 – 10% Mini’s profit – 10% dealer profit = sterling 14,052

sterling 14,052 x 4.8762 = RM 68,520
25 March 2011 rate on http://www.bnm.gov.my/

After tax and AP
RM 68,520 + 68,520 * 115% tax + 20,000 AP = RM 147,318
Tax reference – http://www.maa.org.my/info_duty.htm

After shipping and miscellaneous fee
RM 147,318 + 4,000(mass shipping cost per car + warehouse) + 2,000 (Miscellaneous fee) = RM153,318

BMW + Dealer’s running cost + profit
RM248,888 – RM 153,318 = RM95,570

No point to sell only 300 mini cooper per year with this high price tag lar.

BMW Malaysia need a new sales & marketing genius like me in order to sell more than 4,000 Mini cooper per year and make huge profit with bigger market share hahaha

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The Mini Cooper Countryman in Germany (country of assembly) costs 22,500 Euros, retail with VAT (19% tax on top of retail). Okay, so let’s convert this to MYR- it’s roughly RM95,000 ringgit.

Now let’s deduct VAT. RM95,000/1.19 = RM79,831 ringgit. Let’s round it up to RM80,000.

Assume that retail has around.. 10% profit on top of actual cost. So RM80,000/1.1 = roughly RM73,000.

So we’ve got a cost of roughly RM73,000 per Mini Cooper Countryman. Let’s bring it to Malaysia- factor in import/excise duty – 125% on top of that price.

RM73,000 x 2.25 = RM164,000 ringgit.

Now let’s toss in the cost of the AP, another RM20,000 – this brings the price up to RM184,000 ringgit.

Now let’s factor in how much it costs to ship… should take it to a nice RM190,000 ringgit.

That’s a very, very sketchy idea of how much it would cost if they were to cut all their profits.

But you know, we haven’t even factored in other things, like how low volume would affect the cost. See, you can’t just take a Countryman out of Germany and try to run it here, you need tropical-spec radiators and other pieces of kit so the car can actually run in these warm conditions. And how many Countrymen can they sell here, if they sell barely over 220 Minis in total last year? Such a low volume of these specific Malaysian Countrymen means the price pushes up even more. I’m really not surprised about the pricing- if you want to complain about it, b!tch about the duties and taxes.

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Our import and excise duty here totals to around 125% for a car imported CBU from Germany. So now you’ve got a car that costs around RM225,000, and that’s not even with AP considered. Factor in the AP, and you’ve got a car that costs around RM245,000.

Your argument fails. Even if they were to make 0 profit on this car, it would still cost more than RM200,000.

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For that money of a cooper S, there’s 323 , c250, Passat CC, and upcoming Golf R even…

Obviously only makes sense for the pompous

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This is what I mean –
yes, the price is high, we all know that,
but
compare it to the other cars in the market,
then compare it to other CBU imports,
and then consider who the car is aimed at.

The pricing is not totally irrational- the car is popular overseas and is cheaper too for a reason. It just takes a bit of thinking to understand why. If they could make it cheaper here and still maintain a decent profit margin, of course they would. It’s not like they don’t know it’s considerably pricier than its rivals in this market.

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That pretty much sums it up as to why the price is so high. Don’t think they’re making a huge profit off these cars. Every car company suffers here. It’s one of the worst markets to do automotive business in, besides China about 20 years ago.

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“Also included in the MINI Connected package is a Harman/Kardon HiFi 10-loudspeaker system and Radio MINI Visual Boost, which features a 6.5-inch high-resolution colour LCD screen. The MINI Connected package adds RM14,988 to the total price of the car.” (from article)

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Can you point out anywhere in my statement where I say the car is worth the price? I said it’s a niche product, which by inference means very few people will actually want it.

I’m annoyed at people pointing out that it’s expensive, when it was never meant to be cheap. For cars like this, you can’t consider value-for-money. If you want that, go buy a viva- it gets you from point a to point b. Why buy a 320i when you can buy a fully specced Camry and still have some left over? It’s simple- because there are things you can’t read off paper and attribute to the price.

Why would anyone buy a Golf GTI when you can buy a Golf TSI? They’re the same size, shape and function You pay over 40k more for a bigger engine and a better suspension. But why do you need it? No, you don’t need it- you want it. There’s no rationale for driving pleasure.

As for the insult part, good, I hope it’s an insult to people here. I was likening it to a slap in yo faces. You should all learn to grow up and study the market at which the car is aimed at. I see some promise here- the few people that, instead of bashing every expensive car that comes up here, have actually bothered to understand why said cars are expensive.

Of course, I expect your reply will be something along the lines of “what makes you so qualified to comment” or “what makes your opinion right”. The answer is nothing. This is the internet, it’s an open playing field. Get used to it.

I’m happy with my Ford. In fact, I’m getting a second Ford soon. Sure, its not the quickest out there, but it handles far better than a lot of things on the market, even now. (this is just to disprove the eventual comments that will come up saying that I’m a BMW person)

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