Purchasing an 'unofficially' imported car from a dealer. Any personal experience ?

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1
I'm thinking of replacing my car and have noticed that for around the price of a 2-3 year old Golf class car, some dealers here are advertising new "imports" for around the same price. By "import", I mean that the car has not been imported through the official manufacturer's dealer network.

I am not talking of personal private imports were I have to find a dealer in say Germany and handle the import process and paperwork myself. There is plenty of information of this forum about that case. Here, I mean that a CH dealer has gone through all that and is selling the car from his forecourt.

I have seen a mention of purchasing "imports" in the EF in previous threads . . .

link

link

I've also seen some firms offering "imports" . . .

http://www.autokunz.ch/en/neuwagen/direktimport.html

http://www.car4you.ch/

http://www.autosteiner.ch/fahrzeugsuche.php?lang=de

Sometimes an advert apears to refer to a car which is really here and can be seen, others offer to obtain a specific car. Sometimes a car is advertised as new but not explicitly declared as an import, only the missing type certificate (Typenschein) gives a clue.

The advantage of buying a new "import" is clear: there is a significant cost saving against the official advertised list prices of vehicles purchased through an authorised CH dealer. But, I am wondering what the disavantages are and I would be interested to hear from people who have had, or know of, specific experience in the following or other relevant areas . . .

1. Recommended dealers (important factors: accuracy of price, delivery dates, quality of service etc. etc.)

2. Any "Hidden" costs

3. Missing documentation in local language

4. Vehicle guarantee (anything to watch for?)

5. Getting Service from an authorised dealer on an "import" .

6. Getting any necessary repairs done under guarantee.

7. Impact on resale value.

8. Vehicle may be sourced from a country that does not normally supply to the Swiss market. Is that a problem ?

9. Anything else I might not have thought about ?

Many thanks.

2
Garages can get arsey, however, guarantee should be international . Get it serviced in France , Germany or by an in dependant garage if the main stealer does not want your business.

Part exchange may be lower, they will tell you the colour is wrong if it was a genuine Swiss car if you advertise it 3k less than other cars it might actually sell within 30 days. Personally I would never pay more for a Swiss Audi or BMW over a German one but I am not Swiss.

3
Pay attention to the service package included in the Swiss price. Swiss service packages and guarantees may differ from European standard guarantee.

Additionally pay attention to base spec included in base price. This may differ from country to country eg. Spanish cars may not have heated seats included in the base when they will more likely be included in the Swiss specs.

Otherwise there is nothing to worry about, they are all from the same factory.

If you need any help PM me, this is my field of trade.

Eli

4
"Some" dealers are getting their own back - buy one of these cars and it won't come with the Swiss importers service pack. Go to get the car serviced - and it will cost you a lot of money. (In Switzerland).

If you are saving 20k CHF on a similar Swiss spec model - then it might be worth doing - do your own sums!

5
This thread caught my eye since we are looking for a new car. One of the cars that hubby seems to really like is a new one that is offered at an "unofficial" importer. Am I reading this right that we might be able to get some of the options we want at a good price, but then servicing at our local dealer will cost more? Stupid question - is a service pack the same as the warranty/guarantee of X years and Y kms?

6
Our previous car (Corolla Verso) was purchased from one of these dealers (Auto Schiess, Zürich) and our local Toyota dealer refused to honour the free service warranty.

7
Problems with service seem to be the main theme here. Thanks.

It's the service issue again. Are you sure they all come from the same factory? I'm currently looking at VW Golfs, nothing exotic. But these are assembled all over the world and I was wondering if this is how the dealers can offer discounts.

Thanks. In my case, the savings will be nothing like 20k CHF because I am not in the "Super Car" league. Some of the prices I have seen for the car are not much over that.

This personal experience is interesting. Did Auto Schiess say anything about possible problems with service when you bought the car ? I had thought of directly asking my own VW dealer in advance what his attitude would be if I brought in an imported car for servicing/guarantee repairs. I can imagine though that he would take the opportunity to tell me to go to hell.

8
Bumping this up again, as we went to one of these "gray" dealers over the weekend. My observations of this one dealer (that I won't name):

- lots of cars at good prices, but staff seemed totally uninterested

- could not test drive, as staff said then the cars "won't be new"

- most cars did not have full warranties on them, even new ones

- no service packages included

- can't order additional features from them, have to take elsewhere and get fitted after-market

- retail prices on most cars were inflated to make the deals look better

- one of the new cars we looked at closely turned out to have a dead battery

- but the prices were good, and certainly worth a second look

- the dealer said they would handle registration papers even though we are not in that canton

So, I am not sure what to think. The prices are well under the official imports, but I dislike the lack of warranty and service options. Maybe other gray importers are better? Like the OP I would be interested in hearing others' experiences with these dealers.

9
I've heard a dealer (BMW) matched more-or-less unoficcial import prices after negotiations. So having these prices in mind go to a dealer and check.