Motoring Advice Required Please

Cars / Motoring / Insurance
1

Hi


When we moved here permanently seven years ago, we brought our cars (Mercedes 300SL LHD and Volvo 850 Estate RHD) with us. We registered them here and everything was hunky-dory. But last week disaster .... our Volvo died (with a terminal gearbox failure), so we're left with the Merc which has always been a summer high days and holidays car and is totally impractical for trips with the dog, dechetterie runs, etc. So changes have to be made. I need to dispose of both cars and buy one which meets our current needs. I would be grateful for advice on the following:


1. What is the best method for selling the Merc.? It's old (1990) but has travelled less than 30K miles and is in VGC. My local Mercedes Dealer told me it is worth around 8500 Euros.


2. What are the formalities / documentation that has to be completed when selling a car in France?


3. What is the best method of disposing of the Volvo? It's stuck in my garage (gearbox seized) and effectively, it's scrap.


4. In the UK there are websites where you can enter your car's details and you can get a scrap valuation. If you accept the value, someone will arrive with a truck, pay you the money, and take the car away. They also deal with all the paperwork. Does anything like this exist in France?


5. When we brought the cars here, we had owned them for a number of years. If I bought a replacement in UK, how does one deal with the short-term registration and insurance issues?


6. Has anyone used the LHD car specialist dealers in UK?


Thanks


Ian







2

Hi Ian,

We bought a BMW from the Left-Hand Drive Place in Basingstoke a few months ago which already had a French registration so getting insurance, a Carte Gris, and CT was easy and the price was better than those advertised by French dealers for an equivalent car.

The whole process was easy and the guys in Basingstoke were extremely helpful - just remember they are car dealers.

A lot of their stock is one-owner sourced from Germany and they will even find the exact car you want if they don't have it already.

And, of course, they offer part-exchange (I don't know how competitive they are as I sold my UK cars privately and negotiated a cash discount).

MJS