Source
r/askswitzerland•
lrem

What are the downsides of buying a new imported car?

I'm considering buying a car and recently discovered the abundance of companies selling new imported cars. These are generally at a very steep discount from the Swiss prices, the sellers claim about 30-40%. What are the disadvantages of buying from such a seller?

Some things I've stumbled upon so far:

  • CO2 tax - that's 0 for efficient hybrids.
  • VAT & duty - I would expect that is in the price, since they're selling locally?
  • Smaller resale value - well, I'm paying less now, I don't think I'll lose more than this difference on resale.
  • Possibly weird languages - everything seems to be Deutsch here.
  • Possibly bad warranty conditions - I will have to inquire. But probably won't be any worse than buying a used car?

Am I missing something?

Posted Jan 31, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

811
Tballz9•

An import car here has a much lower resale value compared to a Swiss one. If you have a registration with an X on it, old people will be suspicious and never consider buying it. If resale doesn’t matter to you this point isn’t an issue.

Often times importer cars come with weird Eastern European specs that are not available locally. Things like trim levels and such. Probably doesn’t matter so much, but you might wind up with a Ukrainian spec Mercedes with some small differences. Again, if you are aware and don’t care it isn’t an issue.

I’ve heard all kinds of stories over the years about warranty refusal, mfk inspection issues, and other horror stories, but these are always “I know a person, well, a friend of a friend’s brother’s neighbor” and are probably not really true.

6
Swissboy98•

Big brands tend to have Europe wide warranties.

4
konichiwaaaaaa•

It's actually a good deal. I have a friend who sold dozens of such new cars he imported from Eastern Europe.

Swiss stealerships mark up the cars a lot and they lobby the government all the time to prevent you from so-called "direct importation". One example is they somehow pay lower CO2 tax and they can offset one vehicle with another (you cannot however claim the same benefit when importing a hybrid and a Mustang...)

The only catch is: research the options. Trims will usually be different. Many cars sold in Switzerland come with some sort of "winter package" which includes heated mirrors for example.

You might want to skip the middleman and import the car yourself to save even more money.

4
lucy35lucy•

can you show an example?

3
lremOP•

That would be whatever new car seems to be sold by https://www.carforyou.ch/en/auto/dealer/1132?conditionType=new or https://www.carforyou.ch/en/auto/dealer/1103?conditionType=new

1
Shrike01•

Well pay attention since not everyone in this market is honest... Just yesterday 4 people have been arrested for fraud in Tessin, they was selling imported car but with modification in the papers, so they look more new

Link to the news (Italian) :

https://m.liberatv.ch/news/cronaca/1416581/maxi-truffa-al-gruppo-auto-cadei-l-upsa-spiega-ecco-come-funziona-il-raggiro-delle-immatricolazioni

3
lremOP•

How do I pay attention to this? Is there, say, a way to verify with Toyota or some government agency that a car identified by VIN is ok?

1
Shrike01•

You can ask at the garage a confirmation (a signed paper) that the first immatricolation marked on the documents of the vehicle correspond to the very first, also for the constructor

The problem with that fraud i linked you before is that these vehicles was alredy in circulation in Romania or other countries, so the guarantee start from there and the car is maybe 2-3 years older than written on the papers

2
lremOP•

I'm considering a Corolla TS hybrid - they haven't been around for long. I see one of the sellers explicitly claims 3 years of Toyota warranty, the other does not. I'll have to ask about that.

1
arisaurusrex•

If the car is produced for the european market, you won‘t have a lot of problems.

Only for the fact that some people don‘t want to buy „non exclusive swiss created“ cars.

2
sucukxcervelat•

If you plan on using the brand‘s roadside assitance it might be a phone home contract and you end up calling a call center in x country (where your car is from) to get roadside assistance in switzerland, because the databank in switzerland doesn‘t have the imported car in it.

1
fabblahbs•

Humm, I'm in the very same situation.

Pay 34k+ CHF for the top spec https://www.suzukiautomobile.ch/modelle/vitara#version-285

or, 26k CHF for the imported one https://autokunz.ch/en/autos/suzuki-vitara-1-4-compact-top-mild-hybrid-4wd-7/ which comes from the same factory in Hungary that produce the same trim levels (with diff names) for all other European countries.

The differences I spotted were:

- It does not have a label at the back written "Swiss Line"

- Factory warranty start from the day the car was imported, so it may be a few months before I'd purchase

- The extend from 3 to 5 years warranty seems to be valid only from official dealers

​

Am I missing anything else? I wouldn't care about the resale value as I plan to use it pretty well over the next 5 years at least.

1