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Buying a Car on Arrival in France


Daft Doctor
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Hi there.  Imagine the (future) secenario.  Have sold up in UK and moved family over to France, have driven hire van back to UK and have flown back from to France from the UK.  Have hired a car very short term. Need to find a new set of wheels for the long term and fairly quickly.

Is buying a new or (probably) second hand car a similar process to doing it in the UK (ie, scout around, do test drive(s), choose car, haggle on price, sort out insurance, taxes, MOT equivalent, etc, then drive it off), or are there fundamental diffierences in custom and practice, pitfalls, key documents or phrases I need to be aware of?  I hear that second hand vehicles are very expensive in France, is this true?  Is new a better option in that case?  Any insight or advice much appreciated.    

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Versus UK distances are longer, parts of France close to Spain or Belgium seem to have more competitive new car  pricing as people can and do cross the border to buy.  The French do not have a culture of expensive company cars so small engine, non air con, fully unloaded cars are much more common than the UK.

Costs  of registration on change of owner are higher in France but unless the car is very polluting annual road tax does not apply. These costs halve at ten years so some French keep their cars for ten years then sell.  As in the UK in general second hand car prices are cheaper in prosperous parts of France.  Many garages sell cars on consignment, they do not own the car and you pay the current owner rather than the garage.

It is possible to negotiate on price but in my experience far harder than the UK. Against this the Cartel of closed auctions for second hand cars and price support to produce lower lifetime  costs of ownership does not seem as common in France. Around us you often see good value second hand cars simply advertised parked on land with an AV sign in the window.

Cheap spare parts are limited, there is no equivalent of GSF, against this Peugeot, Citroën and Renault consumables are fairly cheap from either Hypermarkets or the Halfords equivalents such a Feur Verte Max Auto on the Centre Commercial.  

If I was buying anything than was not PCG or Renault I would look long and hard at the distance to the agents or a garage locally that would have the diagnostics for the car.

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You might do better to source a second hand LHD in UK.

I bought my Skoda Octavia from a dealer in London (ex Belgian car) and although it cost me about £1k more than the equivalent RHD would have car it was probably still about the same amount cheaper than the same car in France.

3 years and 100,000k on if I was selling - which I'm not - I reckon I'd lose about £2000 on what I originally paid.

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Interested in the replies for this as we are in the same position. Is it allowed on the forum for you to give us the name of the company you bought from and what do you do with the car when you get it to France? Just reregister it?
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DD, I bought a 3 year old Nissan off the dealer's forecourt and took possession 3 days after I had given it a test drive with a year's warranty and all the paperwork sorted - so no probs on that score.  I paid about 1k more than the UK  Glass's guide price for an rhd but it was totally hassle free so to my mind nothing like the rip-off everybody says 2nd hand cars are here.  A lot of roadside 2nd hand AV cars are certainly overpriced but to my mind dealers are rather more realistic, especially big city ones who have plenty of competition.  Bear in mind also that you'll sell on better as a result of the fact that 2nd hand vehices hold their price better here.

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Interesting thinking about UK vs French.

I am looking for a Grand Scenic 1.5dci, there is only one lhd Grand Scenic on Autotrader UK, it's a 1.9dci (not as good an engine) 2005 car with 88k miles on the clock in a dealer.  They want £7995 for it, ok it looks lovely but most cars will if given a polish.

Autotrader France has them with the engine I want starting at E6690 with less miles.  You could spend way under the £1.2k difference on giving it a dam good service and make over and be left with plenty of cash left over, and it's already on French plates.

I would take a good look at http://www.automarche.fr/ before making any decisions based on cost alone.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Depending where you are of course, I would suggest looking at 2nd hand cars in Switzerland. Very much a generalisation but you find top of the range models, fully loaded, fully maintained by the book, not thrashed and usually garaged most of their life.  2nd hand prices are very competitive too.  I will certainly be looking there for my next car.
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Wilko

I don't have anything at the moment but I have some friends working in Zurich so I will ask them.

I base my opinion on Swiis owned cars from the time I was working there and my appartment was next to a used car lot.  I remember thinking that the prices were very attractive for what was on offer.

As soon as I get some websites I will post them here.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I am in a similar quandry. We moved here a few months ago & want to buy a LHD estate. I have seen that second hand cars seem much more expensive here. Living here, buying from UK probably a non starter. Have heard that cars are cheaper in Belgium, however belgium is not just up the road from 56. Is it just worth taking the knock for the cost the first time around and buy one locally, or is it really worth the time/bother/expense etc. of looking at buying in Belgium. Anybody have experiences to share?

Thanks
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Pierre thanks for that. Took a while to respond, missed the nudge to say there was a reply.

L&G....it depends on your budget, maybe less than 5K I'd buy locally........check out the 2 sites I mentioned previously to compare prices in Belgium and Germany.
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