chopnaira:
Prices have spiralled out control since invasion of Ukraine as market struggles to adapt.

Eldah Gadzhiev’s heart sank when he heard the sputtering from the engine of his Skoda one day in April. Gadzhiev, who owns a fleet of four cars that he leases as taxicabs in Moscow, knew it was a terrible and expensive time for a breakdown.

Prices for spare parts, if you even could find them, had spiralled out of control since Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two months earlier. “I understood that I was in a bad situation,” he said. “I thought: the repairs are going to cost as much as the car.”

Dealerships were useless, he said. His car parts shop told him that the waiting list was months long, time he could not wait to repair his vehicle.

So he tried posting on a public chat. That’s when his phone began to “explode”, he said. He received tens of calls, some from rough-sounding “dealers” offering to meet or giving him vague promises to get the parts he needed.

“It’s full-on speculation,” he said. “There are no more spare parts. So the prices are either way too high, you could almost [throw away] the car, or you think: is this illegal?”

He suspected that many of the parts he was offered had been stolen. “It’s the return of banditry,” he added.

Few sectors of the Russian economy are feeling the strain of the country’s near total isolation more than the automotive industry, where parts for new and used vehicles are in short supply.

Gadzhiev said he ended up paying eight times the old rate for his repairs. Others say prices have jumped tenfold.

Aleksei Atapov, the owner of a car repair firm, said: “We are in a pretty sad situation in terms of car repair and maintenance in Moscow. The central warehouses closed at the end of February, and even the custom parts that arrived were not given to us. They returned the money and took all the parts back abroad.

But at the moment, market players say stockpiles have reached exhaustion. “All the substitutes ran out very quickly,” said Atapov.

The shortages are affecting new cars as well. Avtovaz, Russia’s largest carmaker, announced an extra week of furloughs for workers owing to a shortage of foreign parts. Car sales in Russia plunged 83.5% in May, the Association of European Businesses (AEB) said on Monday, and new car prices have risen by an average of 50%.

The situation may be even more worrisome in Russia’s aviation industry, where airlines are cannibalising their fleets for parts while seeking out whatever new sources for imports they can find.

“The main problem is that service companies, firms that service and certify the Airbuses and Boeings and hand out papers that allow the planes to fly to Europe, are not allowed to give out these papers any more,” said a senior executive for Sukhoi Superjet. “We have started cannibalising some planes, using parts of a few older ones to keep the new ones going.”

One pilot who regularly covered midhaul flights to the UK and other European destinations for his airline wrote that the situation was “bleeped”, adding that he felt his company was ignoring safety concerns brought up by pilots on a regular basis.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/11/the-return-of-banditry-russian-car-industry-buckles-under-sanctions

Kingsnairaland:


https://www.just-auto.com/news/avtovaz-planning-production-restart-report/

leofab:
Gradually they can get those from China

mojounited:

Exactly what I wanted to type. Russia should just inform China of the different years and models of cars and boom! the parts (copies) will become available in the Russian market...

There's now a road border crossing between both nations, so shipment of goods will be pretty easy..

leofab:
but it’s detrimental to Russia cos every country want an advantage for themselves..

mojounited:

True, to some extent. Renault (vehicles and) parts that were produced in Russia would now be sourced in China and open markets. Add that to other western commodities and that becomes a huge capital flight.

But, with the situation/position Russia is in now due to sanctions, it could be a temporary fix until such a time manufacturers of other brands set-up their plants in Russia.