I haven’t been into any of the EEA countries yet, but there’s a non-zero chance of crossing the Swiss border later this year. I’m looking to import a cheap old used car from western Europe and prices for the particular model are a tiny bit higher in Switzerland than Germany, but the Swiss ones tend to have lower mileage (and my friend who used to work at AutoDNA when it was still competitive against CarVertical (or maybe before CarVertical was a thing even) says German cars are the worst to get background checks on since there’s so little info available and Swiss cars are significantly better in that regard)
Cool, just be careful on the rules. Switzerland is technically not part of the EEA. They’re part of the EFTA, and have a bunch of bilateral agreements with the rest of the EU, but there are still quirks to the deals. Even if you’re charged only minimal fees or duties, that could add up if you’re buying a car. At a minimum, you’ll probably have to do paperwork to export the car from Switzerland to another country. And the Swiss love their paperwork.
There’s paperwork to do regardless of country of origin I believe, since you generally need to de-register it and get the temporary plates. This seems to incur some minor fees of usually double digits euros in pretty much every country, as some clerk has to fill out a few forms and whatever. And on the Estonian side I’ll have to show it to some officials who will verify that it exists, is a car, has the correct VIN, the doors open, and that it has seatbelts. More or less. It’s not a proper TÜV, as the TÜV from country of origin still applies. Also we now have a registration fee so that’s nice. Since already registered cars also incur the fee (one time retroactive reg fee for the first change of ownership after the law came into effect a year ago), it doesn’t really make imports any less competitive yet.
Mostly I’m still leaning towards Germany, as I could just fly into Stuttgart or Frankfurt and have several examples in my price range to check out as long as I’m willing to bus/train around or hail whatever the German equivalent of Bolt is (because fuck Uber). Average of 100k extra kilometers on the clock compared to the Swiss examples isn’t a big deal on an OM642 anyway if it’s been maintained and having more choices is better, because I don’t want to go fly out to see one particular car, discover it has a glaring flaw not described by the seller, and have no other options nearby lol
I haven’t been into any of the EEA countries yet, but there’s a non-zero chance of crossing the Swiss border later this year. I’m looking to import a cheap old used car from western Europe and prices for the particular model are a tiny bit higher in Switzerland than Germany, but the Swiss ones tend to have lower mileage (and my friend who used to work at AutoDNA when it was still competitive against CarVertical (or maybe before CarVertical was a thing even) says German cars are the worst to get background checks on since there’s so little info available and Swiss cars are significantly better in that regard)
Cool, just be careful on the rules. Switzerland is technically not part of the EEA. They’re part of the EFTA, and have a bunch of bilateral agreements with the rest of the EU, but there are still quirks to the deals. Even if you’re charged only minimal fees or duties, that could add up if you’re buying a car. At a minimum, you’ll probably have to do paperwork to export the car from Switzerland to another country. And the Swiss love their paperwork.
There’s paperwork to do regardless of country of origin I believe, since you generally need to de-register it and get the temporary plates. This seems to incur some minor fees of usually double digits euros in pretty much every country, as some clerk has to fill out a few forms and whatever. And on the Estonian side I’ll have to show it to some officials who will verify that it exists, is a car, has the correct VIN, the doors open, and that it has seatbelts. More or less. It’s not a proper TÜV, as the TÜV from country of origin still applies. Also we now have a registration fee so that’s nice. Since already registered cars also incur the fee (one time retroactive reg fee for the first change of ownership after the law came into effect a year ago), it doesn’t really make imports any less competitive yet.
Mostly I’m still leaning towards Germany, as I could just fly into Stuttgart or Frankfurt and have several examples in my price range to check out as long as I’m willing to bus/train around or hail whatever the German equivalent of Bolt is (because fuck Uber). Average of 100k extra kilometers on the clock compared to the Swiss examples isn’t a big deal on an OM642 anyway if it’s been maintained and having more choices is better, because I don’t want to go fly out to see one particular car, discover it has a glaring flaw not described by the seller, and have no other options nearby lol