Expensive cars (Was: Standard Audi A4 1,8T)

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

Mike Walder <miwa@premier.co.uk> wrote:

>>In DK a Audi A4 1.8T without Quattro are sold at the lovely price of
>>nearly $50.000. That is simply not fair because Audi is the ultimate car
>>in the whole freaking disturbed world.
>>
>>Weel just a little yelling from a desperate guy in Denmark

>Since these prices seem ludicrously high in Denmark, why not go to a nearby
>european country, buy one there and drive it back.  Aren't we supposed to
>have free trade in europe?  You drive on the right in Denmark, it's not so
>easy for us in the UK, but you I think are supposed to be able to buy either
>LHD or RHD from european dealerships.  (EU law I think).

>The only reason I haven't done this is because of the LHD problem, oh, and
>also not having enough money to buy a new car!

I'm not sure about Denmark, but in Holland we have this ludicrous car tax
called BPM, which is also levied on cars imported from other EU countries.
So, if you buy a car in Germany (up to 40% cheaper than in NL) and import
it, you have to pay the 40% BPM anyway, which negates the advantage. When
you buy a used car abroad, it might be advantageous- BPM is written off
over 100 months, so if your used car is, say, 24 months old, you only have
to pay 76/100 of the BPM amount due originally. If it's over 100 months
old, no BPM is due, just a 5% import duty and the costs of testing and
re-registering your car.

Many older cars that don't owe BPM are now imported into Holland from
Germany, where they have just introduced a 'clunker law' that taxes
non-catalysed cars heavily. The cars that are exported are mostly crappy
examples anyway, that no-one wants. They're very cheap and popular among
young kids- they can now drive Golf GTIs, Kadett GSIs, Honda CRXes and
other fast cars for the price of a run-of-the-mill Golf 1300. Consequently,
many end up written-off in scrapyards (last week, I saw a totalled circa
'87 Golf GTI with a two-month old registration number in a scrapyard). The
cars are easily recognisable for their non-age related registration numbers
(and many mods, trailing blue smoke and thumping stereo).
This is no stereotype- it goes for 95% of these cars.

Tom

 _______________________________________________________________________
 Tom Nas                                          Zeist, The Netherlands
 tnas@euronet.nl
1988 Audi 80 1.8S, Tizianrot metallic, 210,000km

        Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it,
       misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
                                            -- Groucho Marx