South Korean imported car sales jump 24% on new models in Oct.
South Korea’s imported vehicle sales jumped 24 percent in October from a year earlier on high demand for new models, industry data showed on Monday.
The total number of newly registered foreign vehicles climbed to 20,813 last month from 16,833 a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement, according to Yonhap.
“Customers chose Mercedes-benz and Lexus models over BMW cars, which are still regarded as fire-prone vehicles due to faulty (exhaust gas recirculation, or EGR,) components,” a KAIDA spokeswoman said.
In October, BMW vehicle sales plunged 52 percent to 2,131 units from 4,400 in the previous year. In contrast, Mercedes-benz vehicle sales jumped 40 percent to 6,371 from 4,539 during the same period, the statement said.
BMW has yet to complete the recall of about 106,000 models with fire-prone EGR coolers and pipes by the end of this year. The German carmaker has been plagued by dozens of engine fires, mainly its best-selling 520d sedan. BMW identified the EGR parts as the ‘root cause’ of the fire incidents.
The three best-selling models for the one-month period were the Mercedes-benz E 300 sedan, Lexus ES300H sedan and Mercedes-benz E 300 4MATIC sedan, the statement said.
In the January-october period, the total number of imported cars sold in the country stood at 217,868, up 14 percent from 190,394 units a year ago, KAIDA said.