Importing from the UK - worth it?

quarryman

I've been reading through the sticky above on importing from the UK and considering it.

The main reason would be for the increased choice over cars available in Ireland rather than the money saved.

Has anyone bought from the UK or NI and would recommend it?

setanta

Hi Quarryman,

I would definitely recommend buying in the UK.

Even though it was against the advice of the people on boards I bought my wife an '02 Land Rover Freelander 1.8 ES 5 DR with 30,000 miles on the clock - Full loaded, leather, heated seats, 17" Alloys, 6CD player, sun roof, FLRSH etc.

I bought privately but HP checked it and had the AA / DEKRA do a full test (I would recommend the DEKRA test - very professional, excellent service, called me before the test to ask if I wanted anything specific tested so I gave him a list of potential Freelander faults and he checked as many as he could - DEKRA then called seller and organised a time that suited them).

The guy I was buying the car off collected us from the airport, brought us back to the house to sign the papers, his wife gave us tea and biscuits and they stood at the door and waved us off as we took the car - lovely people !!

Total cost for me of car + HP check + AA check + flights costs + ferry costs + petrol costs + VRT was €19,000

To buy the equivelant car / mileage / spec in Ireland from a dealer would have been €25,000 - might have got one privately for €22 - 23,000 but the choice wasn't as good.

To date I am delighted with the car - I have had it serviced and checked by Land Rover in Ireland and the car is in perfect nick.

The whole process was so easy and worth it I will probably do the same again when I change my own car

If you have any other questions just let me know

Cheers

Setanta

quarryman

Great Setanta, thanks for the reply.

That's a nice svaing you made but as you said, it was more for the increased choice you get.

Private sales will probably get you a better deal but warranty from a dealer would probably have minimal benefit since it would be so expensive to bring the car back.

Also can you tell me where you shopped around, online?

I'm looking at autotrader at the moment.

setanta

AFAIK a dealer warranty from the UK is worthless the minute you officially export the car - a number of dealers in the UK told me that as I was shopping around. This means the extra you pay the dealer for a warranty and "piece of mind" is wasted money. So there is little difference between buying from a dealer and buying privately - I would still have done a HP check and an inspection if I was buying from a dealer.

So the only warranty worth looking at is a manufacturers warranty - manufacturers warranties are transferable across borders - EU ruling on this last year I think. However, most of these are three year and so may be a moot point.

All of the dealers I spoke to (I'd say I spoke to about 10 - 15 over the course of 6 weeks) were willing to negotiate on price; some were better than others. Some of them gave excellent discounts for taking the car on a "trade" basis ie no warranty and "as is" but alot of the time it will depend on the price they paid out on the car on trade in.

I found www.parkers.co.uk an excellent site for used car valuations, coupled with the AA www.theaa.com for road test and running costs, with www.honestjohn.co.uk and excellent starting point for all info.

The best source for cars by far and away is Autotrader - any cars I found by searching anywhere else were all on Autotrader anyway - I put in the post code for Holyhead terminal as my search criteria and this told me approx how far I would have to drive to get the car back to the ferry; remembering that it's much easier to drive 250 - 300 miles in the UK as the roads are so much better.

I also did the whole thing in a day, flew out in the morning and was back in Dublin by 8:00pm

Hope this helps - any more questions just ask.

Cheers

Setanta

De Hipster

I recently bought my 95 Toyota Celica in N.I., having sourced potential purchases through the autotrader mag. I saved in the region of €2000 (based on comparative R.O.I. prices at the time). Well worth the extra hassles of importing, sterling costs etc.

Bluehair

quarryman wrote:

That's a nice saving you made but as you said, it was more for the increased choice you get.

I'm finding this is def the case myself. Am looking out for a 3/4 year old fully loaded Rover 75 CDT and the choice is infinately better in the UK and even NI plus you're saving a few grand in the process.

Sure it's some hassle but imho it's worth it.

ondafly

@Quarryman - logon to autotrader.co.uk - do the full registration with them. Also don't forget www.ros.ie for the VRT calculator.

I bought my M3 this year in the UK, for the simple reason that there were only 2 for sale in Ireland at the time, one was not worth the money, the other was a bit dodge. Surfed through the autotrader for a couple of weeks, fired off a few emails for high quality pics of the cars. Dealers were only too happy to reduce the price, if I mentioned I wanted no warranty. Ended up buying private from a BMW mechanic, saved myself 3K, if I compare to the prices that exist now in Irish adverts for M3s. Long drive back to Holyhead, but as already mentioned, the roads are A1.

so in other words - go for it, its a great adventure

kdevitt

ondafly wrote:

Ended up buying private from a BMW mechanic, saved myself 3K, if I compare to the prices that exist now in Irish adverts for M3s.

And also ended up with a car which you'd never find over here - condition and specification were better than any Irish equivalent. (I went over on the shopping trip) You'll generally save a bit of cash once everything is accounted for, you'll have a much better choice too - its nowhere near as much hassle as people make out.

commited

I'm planning to import a car this weeked

quarryman

Great. Let us know how you get on. I'm definately thinking of doing it now.

Are you going over to get it yourself? What kind of car etc?

commited

Looking for a Mini - old school one of course
Budget is about £2k, which should buy me alot more than I can get over here considering rusty 91 city's go for €3000k+

I'm going over on Saturday, will luckily have use of a car whilst im over there to view various cars. I have a list of cars I want to see - all sourced through the internet.

I know exactly what I'm looking for, so I'm not worried about buying privately over there, and I'm only looking at cars that have recently gone through the MOT and have next to no rust.
I've costed it roughly and it should come to about €3750 to have it reg'd, taxed & nct'd on my drive if all goes to plan. If I dont find the right one I wont rush buy, as the trip is costing me nothing

SouperComputer

any idea what the insurance implications are as you drive the car home?

daveg

In my experience it depends on the car your importing. I've been looking for a 2002 Audi A4 Tdi since last Xmas. Was convinced I was going to bring one in from the UK. I checked the autotrader on a regular basis sending emails off to potential sellers. In the end I bought one here (collecting today !!). I'm paying €20,115. It's a UK car (VRT cleared) with 80K miles and is in mint condition. Has full Audi service history, serviced every 20K.

I estimated it would cost me at least £9-10Kstg for a good A4 in the UK (going through garages in the autotrader - not Audi garages though). I had to go through a garage as I know feck all about cars so wouldn't trust to buy private. By the time I got it here, cleared VRT and paid for expenses I rekoned I'd have paid €20K.


I think the second hand market for A4's in Ireland has plummeted over the past year due to the amount of UK imports. Therefore I decided it was better to pick one up here.

But again, imo, it depends on the car.

setanta

For insurance I knew the reg of the car I was going to buy, so I told my insurance company and they covered me to drive the car until I got it re-registered in Ireland - even sent me an insurance disc with the UK reg on it!

SouperComputer

setanta wrote:

For insurance I knew the reg of the car I was going to buy, so I told my insurance company and they covered me to drive the car until I got it re-registered in Ireland - even sent me an insurance disc with the UK reg on it!

savage! hmmm now all I need is money to buy a new car!

commited

setanta wrote:

For insurance I knew the reg of the car I was going to buy, so I told my insurance company and they covered me to drive the car until I got it re-registered in Ireland - even sent me an insurance disc with the UK reg on it!

Yeah - I dont know the exact reg yet, but it's just a matter of ringing them when you've bought the car and arranging your insurance to be transferred.
If you dont have insurance, I was talking to Quinn Direct and they will insure you on a UK reg car straight off!

yop

Nearly bought a 2001 Audi for 15500 cleared at the weekend but my hesitancy lost me it!
But he is going to source me another for near the same money.

quarryman

were/are you not looking something around the 9k range?

yop

It was advertised for 8500 sterling but he agreed to let it go for 7500 so with VRT and exchange rate It was looking in at roughly 15500 euro

quarryman

ahh, sterling..

got ya

yop

umm that fekin currency!! It all seems so cheap until u convert!