UK buyers save £15m a day by importing

25 July 2002: UK car buyers are saving up to £15 million daily by buying new cars from other EU states imported by dealers and internet retailers. This is in line with revelations that the UK has the most expensive pre-tax recommended retail prices of any EU country for more than half of popular cars sold.

According to UK-based car price monitor CarPriceCheck.Com, the most abundant imported models visible on the UK forecourts are from Audi, BMW, Ford, Land Rover, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota and Volkswagen. The survey adds that the number of unsold imports arriving in the UK everyday has risen by 40-45 per cent during the past twelve months.

While the practice of individuals ordering and collecting their cars from dealers abroad has been growing, car supermarkets, Internet retailers and traditional dealers have also been bulk ordering more and more popular models from the Continent before actually finding a UK buyer for them. Typical savings can be similar to as much as £5,000 off a new Land Rover.

Because Ireland has in general cheaper pre-tax prices than the UK, often in significant percentages (see our story yesterday on the EU survey of car prices) many thousands of new vehicles are sold into Northern Ireland and Britain through Irish dealerships. These sales do not register on the car sales figures for the Irish market.

July 2002