Partner Focus - paying for your car in the UK
You've trawled the web, picked a selection of vehicles, researched the VRT costs and satisfied yourself that importing a car from the UK is the way to go. But have you even considered how you are going to pay? Forget cash, dealers in the UK stopped excepting it a long time ago due to money laundering procedures. Cheques or Bank drafts won't work either. In fact feedback from our customers tells us that actually organising payment for the vehicle is one of the most bothersome parts of importing a car. One customer shared a story of how he sat in the dealership for more than five hours trying to finalise the payment on the day he was supposed to collect his car. Furthermore there is little good advice online regarding how best to go about this task, so we though we'd put that right.
We recently spoke with the experts in this area, Transfermate.com, and got some good tips to note down when paying for a car abroad.
First and foremost, by using your bank to pay for your UK car import you can expect to lose on average €400-€500 on the transaction. We reckon that by using a service like the one provided by Transfermate that you will save hundreds of euro on your euro sterling UK car import payment. Here's how...
Steps when importing a car from the UK:
1. Negotiate Price
Identify a car you wish to buy and haggle for a better price. Once you have negotiated a better price now you should always do a third party check with Motorcheck.ie to ensure that everything is in order with the car.
2. View the car yourself or organise a transporter
You will now choose to either use a third party to transport the car back to Ireland for you or like most people, fly over and see the car first. We recommend the latter as nothing beats seeing it in the flesh and you always have the chance to back out at the last minute.
3. Payment
UK Car dealers will not accept cheques as they are not secure. Neither is cash accepted by any self respecting dealer in the UK. Paying with a credit card means you will lose up to 5% on fees, cross border charges and exchange rates. A good solution is to book your transfer before you go. Our partners Transfermate have the best rates going and will provide you with a free quote and advice over the phone. Once you have seen your car and are happy to proceed, its as easy as contacting TransferMate for a same day wire transfer to the UK car dealer.
For Example:
Monday:
You know the car costs £18,000, call TransferMate and book a better exchange rate and then transfer to TransferMate.
Tuesday Morning:
Arrive in the UK, view the car. If everything is fine then contact Transfermate and confirm that you wish to transfer funds to the car dealer. Because TransferMate also bank in the UK, transfers are guaranteed to be same day (ie by close of business, 6pm). but you must call before 1pm to guarantee a same day transfer.
Summary of Benefits:
- Lower fees than the bank
- Fully regulated payment service regulated by the Central bank
- Faster than the bank
- Better exchange rates
- Total security ie don't pay in advance and find out you have paid for a dud car.
- All quotes are free so go right ahead and compare to your bank first
