Have you imported your car?

Type 17

Tails142 wrote: »

Quoted for the truth!!

Ok, at the end of the day you get what you pay for; I'm sure you can go over to the UK and buy a poor condition car; but for the same money you spend in Ireland you can get a much higher spec and better cared for car that has been driven its whole life on motorways rather than rattled about on pot-holed bog roads.

I too would be interested to know the reason anyone would by an Irish car over a UK import??? Particularily if you dont have any motor industry contacts and cant get a discount easily... eh Junkyard?

All four cars that I've ever bought were UK cars - Irish cars have appalling specs with flat colours, no curtain (side) airbags, wind-up windows, no aircon, no sunroof, etc. I know that many newer Irish cars have many of these options, but the choice is much smaller, so it is much harder to find the spec you want in the colour you want, with your own county's reg (if you find this important).

I don't import my cars to save money (although it usually saves me a few grand, even with ferry, etc), I do it to get a good choice of colour, spec, body-type, engine size, etc without hunting for months and having to compromise on something that I don't really want.

Don't forget, there are 2.3 million vehicles registered in the RoI but, at any time, there are 1.3 million vehicles for sale in the UK...

yop

Tails142 wrote: »

Quoted for the truth!!

The whole truth and nothing but

Come you beee utches tell us why u wont by UK

Only messing, but really am curious as to why you would buy Irish above UK.

Type 17

Some of the reason that people don't want to buy UK cars is that UK cars were always more rusty than their Irish equivalents, due to salt being used on roads in winter in the UK.

Since the mid-nineties, this has been much less of an issue, as cars made since around then have fully galvanised bodyshells, so any rust is confined to cosmetic rust (not dangerous) on suspension and brake parts, and perhaps the odd seized bolt in those parts (easily shifted with a pneumatic wrench).

However, the memory of rusty MkIII Ford Escorts and MkII Fiestas lives on in (some) people's memory

yop

Type 17 wrote: »

Some of the reason that people don't want to buy UK cars is that UK cars were always more rusty than their Irish equivalents, due to salt being used on roads in winter in the UK.

Since the mid-nineties, this has been much less of an issue, as cars made since around then have fully galvanised bodyshells, so any rust is confined to cosmetic rust (not dangerous) on suspension and brake parts, and perhaps the odd seized bolt in those parts (easily shifted with a pneumatic wrench).

However, the memory of rusty MkIII Ford Escorts and MkII Fiestas lives on in (some) people's memory

Rust, I remember my Dad had a 1980 Corrola, chocloate brown (puke!)

He had to replace the 4 doors, bonnet and boot, 3 different colors until he got a full respray LOL Retro :cool:

Type 17

IMO, there are two ages to car ownership, something like the BC/AD eras in Christianity - BG & AG: Before Galvanisation and After Galvanisation.

My first two cars were Mk1 Golfs, and both had to be retired (not scrapped, I still have them) due to rust, even though the mechanicals and interior were pretty good. The car I replaced them with was a '93 Audi 80 - similar engine and mechanicals, cheap to buy (10 years old at the time), easy to service, but above all, fully galvanised body, which means that the whole body is still fine with no welding at all, and with perfect engine & interior as well, even though it has 169,000 miles on it.

Import a (galvanised) car from the UK, you know it makes sense

blastman

Just wanted to agree with what yop and others said, anyone who would prefer to buy one car over another just because it is Irish obviously knows nothing about cars (and probably very little about Ireland!)