The news made the headlines in certain media: according to the SRA organization, it costs nearly €10,000 to replace the LED strip at the front of the latest Hyundai Kona. Since then, the brand has reportedly reduced its price internally.
It’s the sales! Rather than paying a bill of almost €10,000, you will “only” have to pay half as much if the long LED strip on the latest Hyundai Kona breaks. A few months ago, the SRA (Automobile Safety and Repair) organization announced in its monthly bulletin a compilation of repair costs on the front ends of certain recent vehicles. Among them, the Hyundai Kona and its impressive LED strip running across the entire width of the front bumper. An element which very strongly marks the identity of the Korean SUV but which is expensive: according to the SRA, exactly €9,257 including tax. But this value, which recently made the headlines in many automotive media, has evolved.
More than €5000 for the LED strip
An LED is a very basic electronic element now used in every way by car manufacturers. The unit cost of an LED, even a high-power one, is not supposed to ruin you, but the sum of these LEDs added to the substantial margins that some brands make in after-sales explains the price of daytime running lights.
“After discussions with Hyundai Motor France contacts, particularly regarding a disagreement over the indicated price of this part and several checks of this price with the brand’s network and in the pricing software, we recently noted the application of a new price on the reference concerned and the integration into the pricing tool of the reference mentioned by the manufacturer.“.
The new price of the light strip? €5,941! That’s €3,316 less in Hyundai’s internal pricing. A sign that the manufacturer was gorging itself on margins and that it corrected its course after the publication of the SRA? Hard to say. But the organization adds: “Comparison with similar elements present on models of other general brands indicates that this new price remains relatively high.“. The Kona would be one of the most expensive to repair, but other models are also expensive: count around €1,500 for a single Volkswagen ID.4 front headlight unit.
Recent studies by the SRA on the accident rate of vehicles in front collisions are a reminder of how expensive current models are to replace. The raw bumper without fittings and lights is even more expensive when the daytime running lights are offset. But vehicles that have LED daytime running lights integrated into the front headlights also have particularly expensive headlight units due to the technology of the element and the impossibility of having it repaired by the network.
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