You won’t believe how much a new Honda costs post-GST – not an April Fool’s joke

Putting down our collective signatures before entering the event hall underlines the importance of the announcement that was to be. It was understandable since it what the announcement was big enough to disrupt the automotive market – the impact of GST on Honda’s car prices.

Ever since it was made known that the new Goods and Services Tax will be imposed on car prices as well, many – including yours truly – could only speculate on the car prices after 1 April 2015. We knew that GST’s 6% will be replacing the Sales and Services Tax’s 10% but what was not made clear was how tax would be implemented across the supply chain. Fearing the worst, we assume that price will increase. While our collective fears are yet to be realised, there are slivers of good news; from Honda, at least.

Walk into any Honda dealer (or if your invoice is dated 1 April 2015 onwards), then you’ll notice a good drop on all of their CKD models, except the imported Odyssey which prices will increase between RM513.00 to RM1007.60 depending on variant. So here’s a handy table detailing the new prices.

Model	Average Reduction (RM) depending on variant	New OTR Price (RM) depending on variant
Jazz	827.80 - 1056.70	71,774.80 - 86,985.70
City	1345.70 - 1806.00	74,007.50 - 89,467.80
HR-V	586.20 - 1124.90	98,690.40 - 118,229.10
Civic	604.60 - 1035.00	113,198.70 - 132,210.70
CR-V	1662.90 - 1929.30	138,069.70 - 167,887.80
Accord	1447.60 - 2528.70	137,301.90 - 173,386.60

Nice? We agree, but that is not the end of the story. Despite GST will be factored into labour charges, prices of spare parts will be reduced by an average of 3.7%. Honda estimates that the total maintenance cost will drop between 2% to 4%, depending on the model. All of which is very pleasing to read.

Now here’s the wet towel. The new prices may not remain this way. All of the numbers you see are subject to the Ringgit’s performance against the Dollar. So if the Ringgit weakens, well, you can draw your own conclusions.

Is this news good or bad? We’d like to hear your views. Comment below.