No price ceiling for new cars in Qatar yet

Qatar, being a free market, has no plans to put price ceilings on new cars despite increasing public complaints about cars being expensive as compared to other GCC states.

There are 21 automobile dealers in the country that retail various brands of imported vehicles in different price ranges.

So people are free to buy cars that suit their pocket as Qatar is an open market that encourages competition among suppliers, said Youssef Al Suwaidi, a senior official from the state consumer rights’ watchdog.

“We keep receiving complaints from the people that cars in Qatar are quite expensive as compared to the neighbouring countries,” he said.

“We tell the people that there are various brands of cars available in Qatar and they have varying price ranges, so they should buy the cars that suit their budget.”

Qatar is an open market so it encourages competition among suppliers, said Al Suwaidi, from the Consumer Protection Department (CPD).

He said the CPD has already set up its cells at the main service centres of a few major automobile dealers to monitor customers’ grievances.

These dealers are Al Jaidah, Al Mannai and dealers of Toyota cars. “There are plans to set up our cells at the main service centres of the remaining dealers.”

Al Suwaidi said that a CPD official with judicial powers will be stationed at each of these cells in the morning hours.

He will track complaints filed by car owners about delays being made by dealers in providing after-sale service and spare parts.

The idea is to help car owners access required spare parts and after-sale service in time, he added.

Al Suwaidi said the monitoring being done by his department of car prices and after-sale service had by now covered about 80 percent of car dealers and soon the reach would be 100 percent.

On the Toyota cars being recalled in Qatar for fixing a technical defect in their brake override system (which is based on smart stop technology), Al Suwaidi said 44,000 cars were to be fixed.

The Ministry of Economy and Commerce (where the CPD is based) has launched the third phase of a campaign to ensure all the cars concerned are recalled and their defect is fixed.

The dealers of Toyota cars in Qatar, Abdullah Abdul Ghani Brothers, have the database of all the cars concerned with their chassis number and names of their owners (people who have bought these cars).

These people will be informed by the dealers in batches and told which service centre of theirs they must go to with their cars to fix the defect.

Fixing the defect takes about 45 minutes to an hour, said Al Suwaidi. 

“No car owner will be left out. We are following up. We have access to the database so we will make sure that each and every car concerned is recalled and its defect corrected.”

The complaint against these cars is that while it is being driven it gathers speed on its own and the driver loses control.

“When we came to know of the problem we immediately contacted the dealers and they welcomed us,” he added.

According to Al Suwaidi (pictured), there has been no untoward incident in Qatar due to the defect in the cars, while in a neighbouring country there has been one.

“We called up the authorities concerned in that country and they confirmed there was an incident. We then approached the dealers here.”

Al Suwaidi said that Qatar was the second country after the US to closely follow up on the defective Toyota cars.

The Peninsula