Pasar Mobil Kemayoran bids good prices for used cars

JAKARTA (JP): One of the most popular used-car markets in the city is Pasar Mobil Kemayoran at the Jakarta Fairground complex, at the now defunct Kemayoran Airport, in Central Jakarta.

Founded three years ago, the three-hectare market currently boasts 40 showrooms with a capacity to hold 100 cars each.

They offer a wide selection of secondhand cars, which are mixed together with brand-new vehicles, with prices ranging between Rp 25 million and Rp 200 million per vehicle.

About 1,000 new and used cars of different popular brands such as Toyota, Daihatsu, Suzuki, Isuzu, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and BMW are on display at the area every day.

Dozens of stores selling new and used spare parts and accessories, ranging from expensive audio systems and rims to exclusive seats, are also there.

In short, visitors can view the market as a rare one-stop shopping place for automobiles.

Johnnie Sjam, director of PT Sasamu Artaganda, the operator of the market, guaranteed that visitors were always free from brokers, which often buzz around car seekers at most markets.

Therefore, those who intend to buy or sell used cars should put Pasar Mobil Kemayoran at the top of their itinerary list, he said.

"Moreover, the quality and prices are fiercely competitive here as all of the stores always offer their best," Johnnie told The Jakarta Post recently.

For instance, a used Honda Accord sedan which was still in pretty good condition was about Rp 70 million, compared to Rp 100 million for a new one, he said.

Instead of buying new expensive parts which might hike the price, he said, technicians sometimes used truck lights to replace broken lights of the used vehicles.

"It's a classic rebuilding process, indeed," said Johnnie, smiling.

Then how do customers feel about Pasar Mobil Kemayoran?

A customer, Saif Azhari, said while examining used cars at Citra Mandiri Motors, that the large number of showrooms in Kamayoran had given a lot of opportunity to prospective buyers and sellers to find out good prices.

"You can go around first to check the prices before making a deal," said Saif.

Johnnie, however, admitted that sales of used cars in the market had been slightly affected by the ongoing monetary crisis.

Dealers had suffered plummeting sales, with transactions solely being made by regular customers, he said.

"The drop of the rupiah (against the U.S. dollar) has led to a rush on banks by people. With high interest rates, they would rather save and make money than spend it. When you buy a car in installments, interest rates are high, so a potential buyer would rather postpone buying a car," he said.

Car dealer Santoso of PT Olympindo Cemerlang elaborated: "Sales have gone down by 50 percent. We've usually been selling between 40 and 45 vehicles a month since we opened our office here three years ago. But in September we only sold 20 cars."

"Most of the transactions were made by our regular customers, who bought our used cars and sold them back to us after a year or so," he said.

Sidharta Bodhi of PT Bogha Jaya Mobil shared the same market sentiment.

"We could only sell 12 cars in September, compared to the average of 15 cars per month," he said.

Sidharta added quickly: "I guess customers nowadays would rather buy dollars than cars."

An exception would be PT Puri Citra Asia Mobil, whose director Wito claimed to be hardly affected by the monetary situation due to the increasing number of customers regularly turning up on his doorstep.

"We've been selling 30 cars per month, including in August and September. Things are quite stable for us at the moment," he said. (02)