October 19, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 6, 1428

KARACHI, Oct 18: Counterfeiting of auto parts is rampant in major cities of the country.

High technology auto parts, like brake discs, brake pads, brake fluid and tie-rods, are target of counterfeiting due to their high value in the market.

The substandard parts lead to failure of brakes of fast speeding vehicles resulting in fatal accidents. Similarly, spurious brake fluids lead to melting of rubber parts in the brake system.

The counterfeiters even do not spare engine oil made by reputed companies, like PSO, Shell and Caltex.

Under a cautious estimate, counterfeiting rate is 60 per cent

in low technology auto parts, especially in rubber parts whereas there is 80 per cent imitation in auto parts, like oil filter.

The counterfeiting of auto parts manufactured by renowned auto assemblers and marketing companies is carried out on a large scale in numerous small units known as cottage industry.

The spurious parts are sold in the market with seal of Toyota, Honda, and Suzuki, and people buy these parts to save money.

Col (retd) Faiz of Pakistan Intellectual Property Rights Solution (PIPS) told Dawn on Thursday that the customers in lust of saving money buy spurious products and risk their lives and vehicles.

The main centres of producing and packing counterfeit engine oil are situated at bus and trucks stands at Badami Bagh, Lahore and Shershah in Karachi. Used oil is collected from these places and sent for processing in factories where it is repacked in old company tins and sold in the market.

Another major flourishing counterfeit industry is manufacturing of tie-rods and bearings used in vital engine parts.

The used and rejected bearings are collected by lathe machine operators who replace the original iron balls with the locally made balls and send them to market for sale.