Buy your car in Northern Ireland?

Miamifox

Hello,
I need to buy a diesel car with a big engine (play a lot of gigs around the country thus hauling keyboards and people etc).
Does anyone out there have any advice regarding reputable dealers in the North of Ireland?
I've been advised to make sure that the car is from the North and not brought over from the UK.
Any other nuggets of information would be greatly appreciated!

Sheldons Brain

Wrong forum. Maybe read the many threads on this issue in Motors.

Miamifox

haha thanks Sheldons Brain! a bit of a tourist here as you can see!

DieselPowered

Miamifox wrote: »

I've been advised to make sure that the car is from the North and not brought over from the UK.

First time I've ever heard this - soo not true, why would you think that?

Check out the importing from the UK guide

Can a mod move this to the motors forum?

Miamifox

I was told that there can be a problem with salt on the roads in parts of the UK and so can damage the engines

DieselPowered

There are over 28 million cars in the UK [end of 2012], so they can't all have bad engines due to salt - no worse then in Ireland (or Northern Ireland) anyway.

Miamifox

Indeed that would make sense alright! it's more practical for me to buy from the north though. you seem to know a lot about cars.
any experience or knowledge about dealers based in the N.I.?

DieselPowered

My post above includes the link to a lot of import info from both Northern Ireland and mainland UK.
In relation to specific NI dealers I don't know, maybe if you can post about what make/model you are looking for, budget available, straight purchase, trade-in (probably not if you have a current IRL reg) etc will help you make decisions.

What you should do is go to the english main dealer website (www.xxxxx.co.uk) of the brand/model you are looking for and put in a post code for NI and search within a certain distance or 'national' to cover all of the UK and see what options you have available, otherwise this link - used cars NI seems to be popular.

Miamifox

Cheers for that, i'll check them out.
I'm looking for an audi a4 diesel estate, no trade in. I'd prefer a sale through a dealer so there is some guarantee but either private or not I will pay for an independent mechanic (further research needed here) to do a full check and also check to make sure it hasn't been crashed. My budget will can go up to about 10k.

L1011

Miamifox wrote: »

I was told that there can be a problem with salt on the roads in parts of the UK and so can damage the engines

Not really comparable anymore - we used not to use salt here due to milder winters (actually used a mix of molasses and grit, this gave adhesion and a very slight amount of melt due to the sugar) but recently due to the few hard winters and the sugar factories closing, we use salt.

A car from say, Highland Scotland is likely to have been exposed to a lot more salt than one from Ireland still, but its not like we don't have it at all here.

pow wow

Edwin May in Coleraine & Portadown and Agnew Cars in Belfast - all VW dealers who stock audi aswell. Bought diesels from all of them and never an ounce of bother, salt or otherwise!

sandin

why buy from NI - I don't think there's any saving to be had.

Rent a mechanic for a day and go to an auction.

L1011

sandin wrote: »

why buy from NI - I don't think there's any saving to be had.

Rent a mechanic for a day and go to an auction.

No value at auctions either anymore.

Cars in NI are usually far higher spec and better maintained than down here but they're not as much cheaper than cars from GB are.

brian_gall85

I second the comment about auctions. I've seen cars go for more at auctions than far superior models are retailing for on the likes of autotrader.