Would you buy a previously Irish reg'd car?

commited

commited

commited

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
5,367
Location
Dublin, Ireland
Hi folks,

I currently have a 2006 e92 335i SE auto on 96k miles - Black with red leather, style 230s, pro nav and a few other options. Car is mechanically great - HPFP has been done, just had 6 new injectors, gearbox sump&sleeve replaced, turbo has been coded and OFHG & RCG will be happening this week. Comes with FBMWSH and receipts for £4500 worth of work over the last few years.

The car is originally a UK car, exported to Southern Ireland in September 2007. As Ireland works in kilometers rather than miles, the history is in KMs but it's written in the book as so. Currently on 155k KMs. Cosmetically not fantastic - needs PDR, wheel refurb & some small touch ups. Black is very unforgiving.

Having a look at Autotrader, similar cars are £6.5-8k. They're currently not the easiest cars to sell in Ireland due to the ridiculous road tax and fact that everyone is chasing massive diesel MPG.

So, question is - would you avoid a car that spent time in Ireland?
 
I go to Ireland a lot and I'd never buy a car from there. I'm sure there's some careful owners over there, but I've never met one. They're almost as bad as the French and Spanish when it comes to car care - most of my relatives never service their cars, drive straight into the many huge potholes in the road and never bother slowing down for loose chippings on resurfaced roads. Maybe it's just my family, but even when I'm driving around most of the cars look utterly ****ed.

My dad's cousin bought a brand new Range Rover sport several years ago and immediately ripped out all the back seats and replaced the rear windows with black panels. He never even used it as a van - it was some sort of tax dodge I think? So he basically ruined a brand new car just to save a few thousand a year.....
 
As above - attitude to car ownership is much different here - pretty much a disposable approach - which is incidentally why a lot of of the Irish buy their cars from the UK.

The concept of a full main dealer service history is but a myth here :p
 
Thanks guys, brutally honest :D

geekman said:
I go to Ireland a lot and I'd never buy a car from there. I'm sure there's some careful owners over there, but I've never met one. They're almost as bad as the French and Spanish when it comes to car care - most of my relatives never service their cars, drive straight into the many huge potholes in the road and never bother slowing down for loose chippings on resurfaced roads. Maybe it's just my family, but even when I'm driving around most of the cars look utterly ****ed.
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Fair comment, a lot of people in Ireland buy disposable Toyotas, Kias, Hyundais etc and don't care but there are a fair portion that do, and to buy something nice is genuinely expensive to buy and own. For instance, my 335i would have had an on the road price of around €82k in Ireland new and costs €1500/year to tax - if you're paying those kind of figures, you maintain it properly. .

My dad's cousin bought a brand new Range Rover sport several years ago and immediately ripped out all the back seats and replaced the rear windows with black panels. He never even used it as a van - it was some sort of tax dodge I think? So he basically ruined a brand new car just to save a few thousand a year.....
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Bit more complicated than that. Taking the cheapest RRS would have had an on the road price of around €70k. 36% of this is VRT so €25k, which doesn't apply to commercial vehicles. €8k is VAT which doesn't apply if bought by a company for use. Effectively, by commercialising the vehicle, your uncle saved nearly half the passenger price, between 900-1500/year in road tax, and significantly reduced BIK if applicable. It was a bit of a no-brainer in Ireland if you didn't need back seats for a lot of people.

Gayjin said:
As above - attitude to car ownership is much different here - pretty much a disposable approach - which is incidentally why a lot of of the Irish buy their cars from the UK.
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This came down to condition, selection, spec and price. For instance, in 2007 prices were nuts for used cars. My 530d was €30k forecourt but I got the same car (but better specced) from the UK for €22.5k including €7.5k VRT. Now it's mainly due to lack of supply due to the small volumes sold 2009-2011.

The concept of a full main dealer service history is but a myth here :p
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I think that's a bit unfair, sure it's not as common as the UK but it's not a myth - both my parents cars have them, as have all of mine and most of my friends and work colleagues. That said, there are plenty of smaller, cheaper cars around that don't.
 
commited said:
This came down to condition, selection, spec and price. For instance, in 2007 prices were nuts for used cars. My 530d was €30k forecourt but I got the same car (but better specced) from the UK for €22.5k including €7.5k VRT. Now it's mainly due to lack of supply due to the small volumes sold 2009-2011.
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From discussion with friends and colleagues - yes, variety of spec is certainly one reason, and yes the cost - in prior times. But also condition, and record of care were major factors.

commited said:
I think that's a bit unfair, sure it's not as common as the UK but it's not a myth - both my parents cars have them, as have all of mine and most of my friends and work colleagues. That said, there are plenty of smaller, cheaper cars around that don't.
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It was said in jest - hence the smilie :)

I might have been careless and slightly flippant in how I phrased it, but in essence I stand by what I said - the general attitude to car ownership is much more laid back from what i've seen - in several different circles and demographics. Obviously there are of course a lot of people over here that do look after their stuff - but i'm just going by the interactions i've had.

I helped some relatives with BMW shopping a few months back and it's definitely a minefield in terms of condition, existing faults and patchy histories.
 
I'll echo the above, i spend a lot of time on Anglesey so the main road here are full or Irish cars off the ferry in Holyhead and purely based on that i'd never ever buy an Irish car, they all drive like mentals and even very new cars look completely haggard.
 
Sorry to high jack thread, however I work for a Dublin based company and my MD has a merc A45...going by your figures it would have been horrendously expensive to buy in the first place and eye watering to tax every year?! Always wondered why at the moment he doesn't bat an eyelid when I stick in some expenses for my 56 reg A4 at the minute.

To answer your question I have very little experience with Irish car ownership, going by my boss and aunt and uncle though I wouldn't hesitate to buy a car which would have been a certain value to purchase and run in the first place, however throw away cars like you say I would run a mile!
 
Our kids first car was a Irish registered Punto and he had 0 issues with that over the 2 years he had it till the day he put it in a ditch. So I would buy one :)
 
The main put off for me would actually be nothing to do with it being owned and driven in Ireland as such, but rather why would i bother buying a car with service history marked in KM?
We have so many cars in this country that i would probably simply move on and buy one with a straight forward logical conventional history which i will never need to explain should i wish to sell it on later.

This of course wouldnt apply to a Ferrari at a good price, but for a BMW there will be so many for sale that i would go with my usual "single owner FBMWSH" criteria.
 
arfoll said:
I find this very funny, I'd argue in general the brits take very good care of their car's appearance but cheap out on everything internal. I am always surprised at the number of breakdowns on UK roads compared to france or spain. Also breakdown cover is a totally british thing! Seriously never even heard of it in france or spain...

A car can look bad but be in excellent working condition, whilst the two are seen to correlate closely in the UK, having shiny paintwork is easy to achieve for pretty much any idiot and doesn't mean much imho!

As for the OPs problem, I wouldn't let that be the deciding factor, look at the car for what it is... If it really looks like a great deal and you're worried, why not get an inspection by AA/RAC?
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Are you going to a different France or Spain to the ones I go to? :p I found it very noticeable how there were considerably more breakdowns over there, and the condition of the cars supports this.

Mechanically, I had quite a few things done to my car in France, all were poorly done and overpriced. In my experience, Ireland is the same.
 
Jez said:
The main put off for me would actually be nothing to do with it being owned and driven in Ireland as such, but rather why would i bother buying a car with service history marked in KM?
We have so many cars in this country that i would probably simply move on and buy one with a straight forward logical conventional history which i will never need to explain should i wish to sell it on later.

This of course wouldnt apply to a Ferrari at a good price, but for a BMW there will be so many for sale that i would go with my usual "single owner FBMWSH" criteria.
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This is exactly where I think the crux of the problem would be. That said, OCUK motors contributors in general would be quite quite fussy as most people are passionate about same. I guess if I was offering it at a £1k discount vs equivalent, so somewhere around £6-6.5k, it may start to be attractive to people.

My 335i is one of the few "quick" cars I see on a daily basis, the rest of the time it's silver repmobiles. A lot of serious metal, including pretty much all the 993 Porsches left Ireland during the last few years :(

Mr_Sukebe said:
Personally, I wouldn't stop at a car, I'd simply never trade with an Irish, buy or sell.
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:D

Funnily enough back when I started importing cars to Ireland, UK cars carried a lot of stigma as we never salted our roads, therefore UK cars had rust that Irish cars generally didn't. In addition, there was a lot of suspicion due to the amount of write-offs that are put back on the road. This sort of disappeared out of necessity, but lots of ads still carry the "genuine Irish car from new" as a badge of pride!
 
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The roads are ****e dan' saaaf too. Especially when you get off the main arterial and inner city / town roads. The roads in the country are dire. It's probably why rally is so popular and the Southerners so good at it. "Crest to 4 left avoiding pot hole" and that's just on the school run.
 
OhEsEcks said:
The roads are ****e dan' saaaf too. Especially when you get off the main arterial and inner city / town roads. The roads in the country are dire. It's probably why rally is so popular and the Southerners so good at it. "Crest to 4 left avoiding pot hole" and that's just on the school run.
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He's not wrong, you know.

All the road budget has been spent on cycle lanes despite having potholes the size of dustbin lids all over the shop.
 
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