Buying a new car in Germany (as opposed to in CH) ? Experiences?

Recommendations
1

Hello

I am looking at buying a new car and my initial research with Swiss car dealers (and comparing with the equivalent German dealers) suggest that it would be much cheaper to buy in Germany and inport (especially given the Euro CH FX rate and the VAT differential).

Anyone had a direct experience of this (and have some tips?)

Thanks in advance.

2

I did it and used a company called import butler to manage it all for me. I saved a considerable amount of money, it was worth doing.

1 Like
3

Also have a look here : https://www.vfas.ch/fr/home

4

Thanks Alan, was it a new car purchased from a franchise dealer ? Was it an easy process? Any complication?

5

I used a dealer, you have to in order to get the VAT back. It was all fairly easy, especially if you use a 3rd party like import-butler.

Mine was a 2nd hand porsche and bought from a porsche dealer

6

what were your costs approximately for this service? so i assume you got 19% back and paid swiss tax on it. how much in relation did you pay for this service? if you don’t mind sharing the cost details in your case with the initial purchase price?

7

I am just in the process of doing this. On the import butler site, you can do a calculation of the potential costs (around 1,200 to 1,500 CHF). When importing to Switzerland, you need consider the following additional costs:

  1. VAT (8.1%)
  2. 4% Automobile Tax
  3. CO2 tax
    CO2 tax is only for relatively new vehicles having CO2 emissions over a certain limit. This can run into thousands for a non-electric car. If the car is older than 12 months or if it is older than 6 months and has more than 5,000 kms, then there is no CO2 tax I believe.
    The process is quite well documented on a few sites, however it demands quite sometime on your side to get the MFK done, etc.
8

Theres a full estimator on the import butler website, it works really well

9

One thing I would note is that there is a stigma from Swiss buyers against imported cars (as denoted in the car papers). You can expect a slightly lower price on average when selling (about 5-10% according to the garage owner I talked to at the time).
Yes, even if it’s imported brand new in pretty much the same way a reseller would.

1 Like
10

Pros: Price
Cons: Free Service, warranty, resell

11

Not sure which brand do you consider, but some of them offer big discounts in CH, so you should try to have a look what would be cheaper - buying directly in CH with a discount or trying to import it.

I have recently bought the car using Volvo Expat Sales program. I got 27% discount + 3’000 CHF.

Also, worth keeping in mind, that when you buy the car in CH, some brands offer better warranty deals and/or free service (free means you pay “just” for fluids, so ~250 CHF). Eg. for Volvo: https://www.volvocars.com/fr-ch/l/produits-et-services/service/service-a-reparation/volvo-swiss-premium/.

I had similar thing for my Mercedes. BTW - I wanted to have 1 car, but so far ended up with 3 (so mustachian :rofl:), so if you consider buying used one from the 1st owner, please send me DM (C43 AMG Coupé - I hope it’s not against forum rules to mention that :fearful: FYI @Dr.PI).

12

Why the hassle with importing yourself. Maybe because a very special car. Pricewise, the direct import reseller are good enough and convenient.

Regarding service and warrenty: 8yrs ago, I got my Nissan Navara at a local reseller 20k cheaper. Service and tyres etc costed me about 4k (at 150k km now).
And 3 yrs ago the Nissan dealership changed a rusty part (AHK) for free, coz they said it doesn’t look good and it makes not an nice image of Nissan.

So, I got no downside and could buy a car just like any other normal dealership walk in and buy, just for 30% less.

1 Like
13

No, this is fine. You are a well established and trusted community member, and most probably even met IRL with other forum users. So I don’t expect any problems with your offer.

What we don’t want is:

  • open posting of referral codes, from anyone. You can request them, and of course we don’t forbid their exchange between users.
  • bots and spam, obviously. Newly created accounts posting dubious messages are mostly deleted immediately.
1 Like
14

You wanted to have one car but end up having three cars ?

Wow -: sounds like me having three scoops of tiramisu when I only wanted one. Just a bit more expensive for you :wink:

2 Likes
15

Hehe, exactly :smiley:. I don’t want to hijack the thread, but I feel that I should now explain it quickly :slight_smile:. So one car is on sale now, but so far I’ve observed that there is no interest from individual people, just from resellers… Not sure if it’s my specific case or the norm here - maybe people in Switzerland prefer to buy from 3rd parties, eg. counting on the fact that the cars were pre-checked by them?

For the 3rd one, which is the oldest I still plan to keep it for a few weeks/months to let my son (17 yo) learn how to drive with manual gearbox.

And final bit for OP - not sure what’s your professional situation, but try to check if your employer offers you discounts for cars in CH. Unfortunately, I’m not sure CH prices + such discounts may be competitive vs. just importing the car, but I guess it’s worth checking.