Thoughts on buying an import

[Mr Noble]

Still hunting for my new car for work.

I've found a garage with a new delivery of 12 well specced Golf GTi DSG 5 door models.

I'm interested in one that would list for £27k here and they only weant £19995 for it. Its unregistered and they say it'll have a UK VW warranty with it.

They are also happy to give me "at least" £30k for my X5 which makes me even more interested.


Whats the crack with buying an import. I used to have a 330ci import which I bought from a BMW dealer! VW also have loads of "import" marked cars on their own used site so it can't be that bigger deal.


Help please going to see it tomorrow)

Greg

[Mr Noble]

Here's the car in question.

[alex s]

Greg, maybe you should ask the question in the VW forum, rather than the Noble forum...

[Mr Noble]

Don't want to alert them all to this great deal in case they beat me to it!!

[AMG Merc]

From which country Greg?

It is fine so long as you import from within the EU. I once imported from Germany and so long as you go through the paperwork hoops, get a COC, pay the UK VAT, order a UK drive pack, etc., etc. you should be fine. The UK dealer channel will treat you like a UK customer (they have to) and tell them billox if they tell you that your car will be worth less in the UK (also tell Brussels). Go for it!

[gizard]

I had an import MKiv Golf V6 4motion all uk spec etc. Only difference was it came with a 2 year warranty rather than uk style 3 year, however I just part exec'd it at BMW dealership at 5 years old and they didn't care that it was an import considering that the warranty had expired and would have done so if it had a 3 year too.

Aside that they told me it's book was 7k and I convinced them to pay 8k!!!!

[m12_nathan]

UK VW's come with a 2 year warrenty from the factory, the 3rd year is from the dealer anyway (or at least was on our 4 year old R32).

I'd say for that saving it is well worth it, but get a black one!

[F.C.]

Mr Noble said:

Still hunting for my new car for work.

I've found a garage with a new delivery of 12 well specced Golf GTi DSG 5 door models.

I'm interested in one that would list for £27k here and they only weant £19995 for it. Its unregistered and they say it'll have a UK VW warranty with it.

They are also happy to give me "at least" £30k for my X5 which makes me even more interested.


Whats the crack with buying an import. I used to have a 330ci import which I bought from a BMW dealer! VW also have loads of "import" marked cars on their own used site so it can't be that bigger deal.


Help please going to see it tomorrow)

Greg

You MUST make sure that it is a C16 specification car on the log book / Import form.
If it is not C16 you may have trouble with country orientated legislation that the car may or may not comply with. i.e. Headlamps dip left etc,etc. And you WILL have trouble selling it later on.
If it is C16 it should be a veritable bargain and you won't be able to tell the difference between a franchised dealer car and”it“because the franchised car will be C16 as well i.e. Identical.
Good luck.
F.C.

[gizard]

F.C. said:

If it is C16 it should be a veritable bargain and you won't be able to tell the difference between a franchised dealer car and”it“because the franchised car will be C16 as well i.e. Identical.
Good luck.
F.C.

When ever having my car serviced at a VW dealership I would give them the registration details etc. and there would always be a sharp intake of breath followed by the words 'it's an import isn't?' but it never made any difference.

One of the funniest things a salesman said to us when we looking at buying a pair of V6 4motions from europe (my brother and I bought one each) was: 'You do realise that when you come to sell the car it will by worth X less than a UK one' and we just said 'well we saved X when we bought it so go figure!' and as I said earlier it turned out that I sold it for the above the book price of a UK spec one anyway!!! I see no problem with buying an import as long as it's C16 UK spec as mentioned above.

cheers

Guy