Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, March 3:

The automobile spare parts market in Nepal is dominated by the informal sector. Small shops that deal in spare parts of automobiles are conspicuous due to their ubiquitous presence.

Identical, fake and subsidiary spare parts, which copy the genuine articles admirably in looks at least, are predominant in the Nepali market and customers are lured mainly towards these by their low price factor. Also, due to the lack of awareness about the advantages of genuine parts, the majority of vehicle owners use of spurious parts.

Service engineers of various automobile dealers are feel that a customer should avoid using unauthorised products. Though they may be cheap and abundantly available in the market, such products may damage vehicles in the long run. “Ready availability and cheap price attract customers towards unauthorised products. People should be aware of the consequences of using fake parts, on their automobiles in the long run,” said Akash Golcha, executive director, Golchha Organisation.

Only few people know about the maintenance cost caused by the use of fake spare parts and their negative impact on the vehicle, Golcha said. “If fake spare parts are used, they might damage other functioning parts in a vehicle as well. Also, genuine spare parts are more durable than subsidiary parts and it certainly reduces the maintenance cost,” said Golcha.

Long Life and durability of vehicles, emission control, hazard reduction, environment friendly, operational economy, downtime reduction, quality assurance and safety are the advantages that a vehicle owner can have by using genuine spare parts,” said an engineer at Sipradi Trading Pvt Ltd.

Sipradi has started differentiating genuine parts by sticking a logo sticker on all spare part packages sold over the counter, thus ensuring customers of the right purchase, added the engineer. Primary maintenance can help prevent secondary maintenance, while the use of duplicate and unauthorised products can cause problems, said Binod Aryal, deputy general manager at Continental Trading Enterprises Pvt Ltd. Whatever the problem be, I suggest a customer should always visit the authorised service station. This, in one hand will bring the customer to trained mechanics and on the other, leads to a place where customers can find genuine parts.

“Moreover when maintenance is done at unauthorised places and parts are replaced randomly, a company cannot provide warranty in case of another relative parts of a vehicle fails,” said Aryal. “Almost in all cities there are authorised service stations who sell genuine spare parts. So I urge customers to visit such places to avoid the use of spurious spare parts,” Aryal added. Customers must recognise the value of genuine spare parts and be able to differentiate them from spurious parts, which becomes difficult when look-alike spurious products are flooding the market. Though manufacturers have made efforts to help consumers differentiate genuine spare parts from the fake ones by putting hologram stickers and specific identification marks, these are easily imitated. The best bet, given the present scenario, is to buy spare pats from authorised dealers or authorised representative.