UK Import - told they cannot sell to Ireland

tails_naf

Hi All,

I've come accross a strange one. I was talking to a dealer in the UK (Mercedes), and they told me they cannot sell a car that is going to Southern Ireland.

The reason given is they must have a UK address to send the registration / V5 forms. The V5 will take 3 weeks to send out.

Is this something others have come up against? How is it worked around usually? I know loads of people buy UK cars - but was wondering if there is a new rule that would prevent this sale - or is it just a confused dealer?

I was thinking of Parcel Motel as an option, but would appreciate any advice you guys may have.

Penalty

I have come accross this.

Mercedes garages have this policy.

It is still possible to buy a mercedes from a non mercedes dealer.

I suspect its a mercedes company policy that they are imposing on their dealers.

tails_naf

Penalty wrote: »

I have come accross this.

Mercedes garages have this policy.

It is still possible to buy a mercedes from a non mercedes dealer.

I suspect its a mercedes company policy that they are imposing on their dealers.

Do you know if there is any way around it? The car in question is hard enough to get a good deal on. If I used a parcel-model address, would that suffice?

In the end, if I get the V5C documents, is that all I need? Do I then notify the UK authority that the car is re-registered in Ireland?

Penalty

Sorry - No idea.
A friend of mine ran into the same problem - just ended up buying the car from a non mercedes garage.
But I know he exhausted a lot of avenues trying to come up with a solution with mercedes and didn't get there. Was lucky to find the car he wanted in the end.

MarkN

Surely this is anti European law?!

Del2005

tails_naf wrote: »

Hi All,

I've come accross a strange one. I was talking to a dealer in the UK (Mercedes), and they told me they cannot sell a car that is going to Southern Ireland.

The reason given is they must have a UK address to send the registration / V5 forms. The V5 will take 3 weeks to send out.

Is this something others have come up against? How is it worked around usually? I know loads of people buy UK cars - but was wondering if there is a new rule that would prevent this sale - or is it just a confused dealer?

I was thinking of Parcel Motel as an option, but would appreciate any advice you guys may have.

They are lieing, you still take the full V5C . They are just not willing to sell to you, maybe contact the local trading standards.
https://www.gov.uk/taking-vehicles-out-of-uk/for-12-months-or-more

tails_naf

MarkN wrote: »

Surely this is anti European law?!

You're right, it sounds like it should be. Apparently they were asked about the legality of this for this article - and they claim they are compliant, but it sure looks like anti-competitive and anti free-trade EU rules :
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/mercedes-says-no-irish-need-apply-to-import-cars-from-uk-1.566993

I guess they are on the way out of the EU now anyway... but it looks like they have been doing this for 5 years. It's disappointing, as they have quite good deals on their used cars.

MarkN

tails_naf wrote: »

You're right, it sounds like it should be. Apparently they were asked about the legality of this for this article - and they claim they are compliant, but it sure looks like anti-competitive and anti free-trade EU rules :
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/mercedes-says-no-irish-need-apply-to-import-cars-from-uk-1.566993

I guess they are on the way out of the EU now anyway... but it looks like they have been doing this for 5 years. It's disappointing, as they have quite good deals on their used cars.

Is it an agreement with MSL or MDL or whoever it is these days to protect Irish sales I wonder?

tails_naf

MarkN wrote: »

Is it an agreement with MSL or MDL or whoever it is these days to protect Irish sales I wonder?

Hard to say. .. but I hear irish dealers do source a lot of cars in the UK. So maybe they have some deal done. Shame as there are some high spec cars overt there for decent money

bazz26

It's to protect Irish Mercedes dealers. I'd just buy off a non Mercedes dealer, that way neither an Irish or UK Mercedes dealer benefit from having such a ridiculous anti competition policy. Either that or just look at a different brand altogether.

tails_naf

bazz26 wrote: »

It's to protect Irish Mercedes dealers. I'd just buy off a non Mercedes dealer, that way neither an Irish or UK Mercedes dealer benefit from having such a ridiculous anti competition policy. Either that or just look at a different brand altogether.

I'd love to buy off a non-Mercedes dealer. For some reason the majority of the best prices I see in UK online (parkers.co.uk for eample) are all Merc dealers. It seems very few are available from non-merc dealers. Maybe a merc is not for me after all...

Gumbo

Do you know anyone living in the uk that you can use your name and their address?
What about the north?

You cant use PM as your PMID details after your surname would not be able to go onto the V5.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Do you know anyone in the uk that could 'buy' the car for you? Once they have the V5 they can give it to you to register the car here. It may take a tad longer but you'll have your car.

I recently bought a uk car and the dealer just sent away the slip from the V5 that states the car has been exported and gave me the full form.

liam7831

Just set up a parcel motel account. Worked for me

tails_naf

kceire wrote: »

Do you know anyone living in the uk that you can use your name and their address?
What about the north?

You cant use PM as your PMID details after your surname would not be able to go onto the V5.

My company has an office in the UK that I could use that address with my name - at least then any correspondence would reach me. As for buying though someone else, unfortunately, I don't have anyone there I'm that close to.

Definitely an interesting situation. I'm not buying a CLS, but have browsed - and looking at the price differential on those, there's 10s of thousands to be made per car when importing. Mercedes Ireland are really robbing us.... and with this (alleged) 'deal' with mercedes uk they are keeping it that way!

irishfire

If it's any good to you I have an e class coming in from Stratstone Mercedes of Glasgow in the next few days. Dealing with Bob and no problem of buying into Ireland. He is even willing to drop it to the boat in Cairnryan for me.

Might be something to look into, was in it last week and they have a serious stock of cars and he told me they do source cars from their other sites if a customer wants a certain model or spec etc

Edit: if this is a used car then the V5C has nothing to do with you, they just return the section for "Notification of Permanent Export" from the form and give you the rest to hand in at VRT

Shefwedfan

Im sure you could find a friend of a friend who lives in UK and could use there address....

Or Parcel Motel as mentioned.

Or ring a car garage in UK, tell him you will throw him 100 quid if he will send on documents....

I work in company with UK offices, I just used there address before and got someone in office to forward post to me in Ireland

Not really rocket science...lots of ways around it

bazz26

If the distributor is telling the franchised dealership that their policy is not to sell to Irish residences then I don't think throwing the dealer £100 to ignore it will wash. That might work with a small time dealer working out of a portacabin but a franchised dealer would have a lot more at stake than £100 when the distributor becomes aware of it.

Shefwedfan

bazz26 wrote: »

If the distributor is telling the franchised dealership that their policy is not to sell to Irish residences then I don't think throwing the dealer £100 to ignore it will wash. That might work with a small time dealer working out of a portacabin but a franchised dealer would have a lot more at stake than £100 when the distributor becomes aware of it.

I dont mean the dealer you are buying from, I mean get a dealer in area to allow you to use there address

bazz26

Ah right, that might work.

Shefwedfan

bazz26 wrote: »

Ah right, that might work.

I needed an address before in part of UK. I found a shop, had a chat with owner and we came to an agreement and he let me use that address and just forwarded on any mail that arrived

tails_naf

irishfire wrote: »

If it's any good to you I have an e class coming in from Stratstone Mercedes of Glasgow in the next few days. Dealing with Bob and no problem of buying into Ireland. He is even willing to drop it to the boat in Cairnryan for me.

Might be something to look into, was in it last week and they have a serious stock of cars and he told me they do source cars from their other sites if a customer wants a certain model or spec etc

Edit: if this is a used car then the V5C has nothing to do with you, they just return the section for "Notification of Permanent Export" from the form and give you the rest to hand in at VRT

Absolutely - but they won't give it to me there and then at all - they said it would have to be posted and could take 3 weeks. Does the V5C normally have to be transferred to the new name? Perhaps that is the reason. The delay of 3 weeks is also an issue as it cuts things very fine on the VRT side of things having to be done within a month of the vehicle entering ireland

tails_naf

irishfire wrote: »

If it's any good to you I have an e class coming in from Stratstone Mercedes of Glasgow in the next few days. Dealing with Bob and no problem of buying into Ireland. He is even willing to drop it to the boat in Cairnryan for me.

I'll definitely look into it. Did Bob give you the V5C there and then?

irishfire

For a UK export I don't believe it has to go into your name, just that you have a sales invoice and the V5C to present for VRT.

I haven't got fully organised for picking it up yet so I don't know how exactly it will be handled but I know I handled a purchase of 12 jeeps from the UK a few months back and all that happened was that once the payment was made, all the logbooks were sent out by registered post, but they were all missing section 5 which is for Notification of Permanent Export to the DVLA. DVLA then knew the vehicle was exported and I had logbooks for VRT.

2 of the jeeps actually went on to go back to the UK and even thought the section 5 had gone in there was no problem changing ownership, they are pretty flexible so I don't think it should be a problem for you