We are thinking of buying a second hand car & the car we are thinking of is fairly rare in France. We’ve
seen a few for sale that look ok but they are somdistance away.
Is there such a thing here as the RAC/AA or the ADAC in Germany?
Many thanks!
You could try Reezocar if you want something that’s very rare locally.
They search across Western Europe. We sourced a BMW Xdrive in Germany with much higher spec than the equivalents that we’d seen in the Midi (mainly 2wd and cloth upholstery) but it was no more expensive. They arranged a mechanical inspection , knocked the price down by €500 f(small scratch on rear door) and handled the import procedure. For an extra fee they also delivered it to our door, which was much cheaper than going up to Paris to pick it up and driving back down to the Aveyron.
It’s easy to waste a lot of time and money going a long way to view unusual/rare s/h cars that turn out to be unsatisfactory.
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Breakdown cover is normally taken with your insurance in France. Check it carefully as some will only get you to a garage local to your breakdown or offer you much less help than others should something happen - not necessarily related to price.
What are you thinking of?
Many thanks Mark, very helpful!
A Volvo ?
Interesting. A classic or a recent one? One of the contributors on here has a 122 (or maybe a 123) that they rally. Very fine cars. I don’t think the recent ones are very popular in France. In the UK they have had a sort of “horsey set” (in my opinion undeserved) equivalence with Mercs etc., which I don’t think would be perceived in France, or indeed Germany. So maybe a smaller number to choose from. Of course they are Chinese now, like MG, and their last diesel just rolled off the production line…
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We’re thinking of about 10yrs old. Lots of resons -
- Over the years we had several Volvos in the UK and they were all brilliant.
- The driving in France. I passed my test in 1968 and never had an incident at all till we moved here & then two quite serious incidents over the past few yrs. Hit it rear when in not moving traffic, pushed into car in front by driver on phone. Then they claimed we had reversed into them . Then on major road out of a town & car came out of small side road not even looking & wrote off our large 4x4 (not Volvo!) Luckily no injuries to us but other driver claimed they were on the main road not us ??
Lost track of how many wing mirrors we have lost, so as my plan is to live as long as possible then it’s a Volvo for us.
regards
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I had a boss in the early 90s, a great guy who I respected enormously, who drove a Volvo estate, not my sort of car 
And then this happened 