Value England or North

yourdeadwright

He guys

Just wondering is your looking for value and decent spec would you be better getting a car from England or going up North ?

Looking to spend about 10 grand on a family car, either an estate or a Suv,

Is there much difference from going up north or England to get one ?

bazz26

Prices in the north tend to be that bit higher due to the convenience of not having to book flights/ferry. Choice and variety is much better in the UK though.

yourdeadwright

bazz26 wrote: »

Prices in the north tend to be that bit higher due to the convenience of not having to book flights/ferry. Choice and variety is much better in the UK though.

Cheers man , what the best site to use for looking in the uk

bazz26

autotrader.co.uk. Just use an example UK post code from the area you are thinking of travelling to.

yourdeadwright

yourdeadwright wrote: »

He guys

Just wondering is your looking for value and decent spec would you be better getting a car from England or going up North ?

Looking to spend about 10 grand on a family car, either an estate or a Suv,

Is there much difference from going up north or England to get one ?

I went up north to test drive a high spec car and to get a proper look at what they look like in the flesh. Dealer was bang on and could sense that I wasn't overly committed, so started telling me the added benefit of going with him versus going to the 'mainland'.

• 12 month warranty (not all dealers offering in UK)
• no need for ferry
• less petrol/diesel to get it home
• pick up and drop off if anything goes wrong during warranty

When I was still a bit apprehensive, he then said they offer a delivery service and he'd waive the fee for this. One of his staff drove it down to our house, and all we had to do was give him a lift to Connolly station to get the train back home. 150km journey x 3 saved on fuel was a nice bonus.

bs2014

While it may be a little cheaper, alot of UK dealers arent interested in serving Irish customers; their warranties are only useful if the car is in the UK. I've heard of someone going to the UK to look at a car and when they got there it was more scratched than they expected and felt forced into taking the car cuz the 2 of them already made the journey. I would stick to some of the main dealers in the north such as Donnellys or Charles Hurst. They are every bit as cheap as the fred in the sheds up north and they can arrange finance and do a special warranty for ROI customers. Most of the fred in the sheds warranty is just a word of mouth thing.

bazz26

Feeling forced to buy a car with scratches because your there is buyer error to be honest. Putting yourself in a position where you only have one car to view or not getting an inspection done on it prior to travelling is really a schoolboy error and could easily be the same buying up North. Invest in an inspection or have at least 2 or 3 similar cars lined up to view in the same area so that you have options to fall back on. Worst case buy a return airline ticket in the event none of them are suitable. Geography is not at fault there.

Also how does a NI dealer arrange finance for a ROI resident? Also what sort of warranty are they offering ROI down here, where do you bring the car for warranty work in the ROI outside of the manufacturer's warranty period? And there are a wide variety of professional dealers in the UK to buy from who sell plenty of cars to Irish buyers, they are not all fred in the shed or Arthur Daleys. Do your homework and it is just as straightforward as buying in the North.

For what it's worth I went over 2 years ago with a colleague and brought home a car. Cheap flights to Manchester then caught the train up to Preston. Got some lunch and then arrived at dealership. Had a good look around the car, took it for a good test drive, did the deal and were on the road for Holyhead by 5pm. Arrived back in Dublin just before midnight and straight home.

yourdeadwright

bazz26 wrote: »

Feeling forced to buy a car with scratches because your there is buyer error to be honest. Putting yourself in a position where you only have one car to view or not getting an inspection done on it prior to travelling is really a schoolboy error and could easily be the same buying up North. Invest in an inspection or have at least 2 or 3 similar cars lined up to view in the same area so that you have options to fall back on. Worst case buy a return airline ticket in the event none of them are suitable. Geography is not at fault there.

Also how does a NI dealer arrange finance for a ROI resident? Also what sort of warranty are they offering ROI down here, where do you bring the car for warranty work in the ROI outside of the manufacturer's warranty period? And there are a wide variety of professional dealers in the UK to buy from who sell plenty of cars to Irish buyers, they are not all fred in the shed or Arthur Daleys. Do your homework and it is just as straightforward as buying in the North.

For what it's worth I went over 2 years ago with a colleague and brought home a car. Cheap flights to Manchester then caught the train up to Preston. Got some lunch and then arrived at dealership. Had a good look around the car, took it for a good test drive, did the deal and were on the road for Holyhead by 5pm. Arrived back in Dublin just before midnight and straight home.

Iv had two mates do the same as your self and both used a English company that do a proper check on the car,They let him know about tiny little things on the car that you wouldn't even notice yourself , I can't remember of hand the name but there suppose to be brilliant

dogleapguy

I believe that there is a minor difference* on price for the most part between the North and GB, but if you find an equivalent in GB on Autotrader and talk to the Northern dealer, you will probably find that they reduce to the GB price. Certainly that is exactly what my wife did last year.

* some specialized makes seem to have a HUGE markup in NI compared to GB in my experience : see Jaguar and Volvo for further details.

The Mulk

yourdeadwright wrote: »

He guys

Just wondering is your looking for value and decent spec would you be better getting a car from England or going up North ?

Looking to spend about 10 grand on a family car, either an estate or a Suv,

Is there much difference from going up north or England to get one ?

Bought a 151 Juke up North recently, came in at €10,000 including VRT .
Wife's delighted with it, decent spec and warranty. Decent choice too, so if i wasn't happy with it there were other options in that garage and garages within a 30 min drive.

The dealer knocked £400 off the price for cash