UK cars in Romania

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anomaly

Original Poster:

459 posts

172 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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I have spent the day driving across Romania from the Bulgarian border to the Hungarian. This is my first time in Romania and I am astonished to see loads of RHD cars with UK plates on transporters heading south. They are all typically ten years old plus, run of the mill stuff (VWs etc).

Presumably they are MOT failures etc that are bought cheap to be fixed up. The RHD is clearly not an issue. The numbers of them are astonishing, we'll have no used cars left soon!

Saleen836

11,061 posts

208 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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A lot of insurance write offs are being shipped over there from here and the USA, repaired and imported back to here to be sold to unsuspecting buyers

Meridius

1,608 posts

151 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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UK 2nd hand car market is also a lot cheaper than in Europe as we are the only RHD market, so for people in Eastern Europe earning a lot less it might work out cheaper to buy a UK car and just live with the RHD.

Cold

15,207 posts

89 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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I doubt if any of them are stolen cars. I doubt that very much.

r11co

6,244 posts

229 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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Going by the amount of good used parts on ebay and the like coming from Eastern Europe I suspect it is cheaper to ship MOT failures over there to be stripped and sold back in pieces rather than be done in the UK in accordance with the latest environmental, health and safety and minimum wage regulations.

Saleen836 said:
A lot of insurance write offs are being shipped over there from here and the USA, repaired and imported back to here to be sold to unsuspecting buyers
Probably being repaired to a better standard at a cheaper price than the domestic output though.

It certainly seems to suit the Germans to exploit take advantage of the wages and conditions afforded to their eastern cousins when setting up component manufacturing facilities.....

Edited by r11co on Tuesday 19th September 20:19

CooperS

4,500 posts

218 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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r11co said:
Saleen836 said:
A lot of insurance write offs are being shipped over there from here and the USA, repaired and imported back to here to be sold to unsuspecting buyers
Probably being repaired to a better standard at a cheaper price than the domestic output though.
How do you figure that? Because the labour is cheaper and therefore they can spend more time on the repairs or because they are better at it than UK mechanic.

I dont know which one btw but i know they aint doing it for charity and theres some money to be made to go to that much effort....

r11co

6,244 posts

229 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
quotequote all
CooperS said:
or because they are better at it than UK mechanic.
Essentially this. If you haven't already read The Crack Fox's novel on his experiences selling QA measuring gear to the motoring industry you might want to avail yourself of his opinion of workers in the old Skoda factories.

Also, if you want a good LPG conversion done, send your car to Poland.

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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A few years back the Romanians were buying up damaged repairables in bulk loading them / piling them onto curtain side trucks and taking them back to strip.

I sold a very clean cheap M3 E36 Evo it got driven back to Romania and all the parts stripped off and then rebuilt into a left hand drive local shell - uk M3 was £5k, M3 over there was 4 times the value.

J4CKO

41,287 posts

199 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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I sold a pickup last year and it ended up in Bulgaria.

williamp

19,213 posts

272 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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top gear showed this when they took the merc, royce and bentley through romaina...

sjj84

2,390 posts

218 months

Tuesday 19th September 2017
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Funny timing seeing this thread, I was going to start a very similar one myself. I keep seeing lorries and transporters heading to dover on Romanian plates, wondered why, this thread answers it.

The cars must be massively cheaper though as the curtain siders only had two possibly three cars on them, must cost a bit to drive an artic that far. Not even as if they're nice cars, as already mention they're 10+ year old normal cars. Always seem to have one poking right out the back too, hope their straps are tight!!

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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Meridius said:
UK 2nd hand car market is also a lot cheaper than in Europe as we are the only RHD market
No... One of four RHD EU countries, with about a third of the world in total being RHD...

It's very unlikely Romania is their final destination, though. I suspect they'll be going further east or south, and probably donating parts and/or IDs to nicked/bent LHD equivalents.

GiveItSomeWellie

3,006 posts

195 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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Just sold my 1999 Discovery Td5 to a chap who was exporting it to Romania. Needed quite a bit of work to be road worthy and safe to use here, I'm guessing their rules aren't anything like as strict. Price probably helped, too (just over £600).

A nicer chap you couldn't wish to meet, won the car on eBay, called me straight up and asked when he could collect it. Sent me the money, then collected it later in the week.

TooMany2cvs

29,008 posts

125 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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GiveItSomeWellie said:
Just sold my 1999 Discovery Td5 to a chap who was exporting it to Romania. Needed quite a bit of work to be road worthy and safe to use here, I'm guessing their rules aren't anything like as strict.
EU, so the same roadworthiness directives apply there as here.

While the baseline for what must be included in a test isn't that strict at the moment, it's tightening constantly, bringing the baseline closer to the majority.

Annex 1 gives the bare minimum that any EU country can test for, at least every two years...
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML...

GiveItSomeWellie

3,006 posts

195 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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TooMany2cvs said:
EU, so the same roadworthiness directives apply there as here.

While the baseline for what must be included in a test isn't that strict at the moment, it's tightening constantly, bringing the baseline closer to the majority.

Annex 1 gives the bare minimum that any EU country can test for, at least every two years...
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML...
Interesting, thanks smile

arguti

1,772 posts

185 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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r11co said:
CooperS said:
or because they are better at it than UK mechanic.
Essentially this. If you haven't already read The Crack Fox's novel on his experiences selling QA measuring gear to the motoring industry you might want to avail yourself of his opinion of workers in the old Skoda factories.

Also, if you want a good LPG conversion done, send your car to Poland.
Even main dealer parts are cheaper....when lost master key for a fiat a while back, Polish dealer could supply and program for around a 1/3 of local UK quotes.

Their LPG conversions are top notch...have seen a few and again, less than 1/2 UK prices.

i knew a local Polish mechanic who worked in a main dealer locally and was told off for doing the work too quickly and therefore putting undue pressure on his UK colleagues....go figure!

Having lived in the UK for 25 years, our ability to generate polices and non-jobs because people have forgotten how to do the jobs has left us in a position where we are doing more checking, supervising and calibration/quality control than the actual work.



Edited by arguti on Wednesday 20th September 09:05

Triumph Man

8,670 posts

167 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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My old Passat is probably over there somewhere, still chugging away

hairyben

8,516 posts

182 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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r11co said:
CooperS said:
or because they are better at it than UK mechanic.
Essentially this. If you haven't already read The Crack Fox's novel on his experiences selling QA measuring gear to the motoring industry you might want to avail yourself of his opinion of workers in the old Skoda factories.
I'm not sure you can summarise a speculative back street car repair concern in romania using somewhat anecdotal experiences of the working practices of a division of a vast czech manufacturing concern. Even likening the two countries as being eastern europe is a bit ignorant, any more than you'd use swiss watch making to summarise the spanish tourism industry.

I'd say theres probably a wide range of standards, but a serious risk of similarities with what I deal with in my day job, which is addressing the dangers left behind by builders who were cheap and readily avaliable, but were primarily intersted in making something look good enough while lacking skills, interest or willingness to spend the money to complete a job to a reasonable standard. Some of the "pennies saved" bodges I regularly see might amaze you.

maffski

1,866 posts

158 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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sjj84 said:
The cars must be massively cheaper though as the curtain siders only had two possibly three cars on them, must cost a bit to drive an artic that far.
They're making their money on the load they bring here, if there isn't anything booked for them to take back then why drive back empty if you can take a couple of cars?

anonymous-user

53 months

Wednesday 20th September 2017
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The RO govt recently dropped any import taxes on overseas registered cars due to the numbers coming back post brexit.