L'Acajou

I have just mentioned this to hubby and he reckons they are nearer 60% dearer here. His mate who has an IW dealership in the UK and shifts quite a few trailers reckons on making a mere £200 -£250 on each new trailer he sells, bless him!
We even checked with the tax office to see if we needed to declare importing trailers and eventually they said no, not if they didn't have a motor.

Now we know the ins and outs of registering trailers we only use our old one on the farm, we can't insure it and wouldn't risk taking it on the road, certainly not with livestock in - -far too dangerous!

To get carte grises though we did need to have receipts from the UK vendors which hmm, how can I put this, we produced duplicates... however, true to form the prefecture still did not want to issue carte grises. Luckily the manager had worked in London (although how that helped I don't know, but he happily accepted the IW COCs, which I am pretty sure were in French anyway) and agreed with us that the paperwork was in order, the desk clerk was really not happy to be over-ruled! We were so relieved we went out to lunch to celebrate our victory

Domino

That would not be the case in UK, we let everyone in to sell what they want. As said this should no longer be the case. There were all the rows in the early Eu days about pricing differences between left and right hand cars bought in Belgium (IIRC)

Problem is life is too short and money even shorter to take these people to court and prove a point

tramblygoat

I have passed all that I now know on to my French girlfriend who will have a word with the DREAL - our local one, and see what they say.

I contacted Basile Moudivendar at Ifor Williams who has twice refused my request on how much they charge for an attestation. He sent me the part 1 'how to confirm if your model of trailer conforms to a type sold in France' and refused by not saying what the price is.

By god I'm so determined to beat them at this scam. I'll also have an invoice 'as necessary' to deal with any attempts to block me buying one in the UK. I don't want to leave the trailer 6 months off road but I will if I have to.

Next question is what does that attestation look like (can it be massaged 'so to speak' via Paintshop). If any one has a copy of one they care to send me I would appreciate it.

I'll keep everyone up to date on what reply my girlfriend get's once she has spoken to them.

tramblygoat

Finally received my devis (3 weeks after asking) for the Ifor Williams G85 dual axle model with options:

UK price (at 1.13 euros £) 3384 €
French Price 4657 €

And they wonder why we all want to import our trailers......

L'Acajou

Hi there

I am surprised that he won't tell you the cost of the CoC - but then, we know what they are like! They take weeks on end to come, too, unlike Landrover and Fiat, probably any other marque, which we received in under a week.....
They really are determined to do things their way and one has to wonder how they stand legally Did you tell him you live in France? We used to buy mineral licks for cattle direct from the manufacturer in Germany but now we are forced to buy from their French Agents and guess what? The prices are at least 50% more. So when hubby is bringing a trailer from the UK he pops a few 50kg mineral buckets in! Why be ripped off? Same applies to cattle wormer, another example of how things are stitched up here. Actually, quite a long list.....

Regarding the CoC, we don't have any documents here to refer to so I will ask hubby when he gets in if he remembers what they look like.

We imported a new trailer for a lady and it had to be officially in our ownership for 6 months, on my father-in-laws UK address before she could apply for a CoC, even then it took several phone calls to get everything in order - in fact we will phone her to make sure she did get the trailer registered in the end. She lives in the South of France so had to tow it for several hours, having only receipts/paperwork in place of a carte grise, as did hubby when he towed it from the North of England.
So hopefully she didn't have to leave it parked up for 6 months - depends on if she just used it on her own land! We had asked if IW could deliver the trailer to an Agent in the south of England so that we didn't need to go all the was up North to collect it, no, they couldn't, and it was delivered on the day they specified, no flexibility whatsoever.

As far as we know trailers shouldn't need to go to the DRIRE or whatever it is now, we understand that is only if you can't get a CoC, ie if it is pre-2004 however it would be interesting to know if this is an alternative....

Just curious, what type of trailer is it you are buying?

Sue

Domino

and we call it Rip Off Britain

tramblygoat

Morning Sue,

I am looking to buy a G85 double axle ramped version with aluminium floor, 4 fixation points, extra supports and a canopy.

My girlfriend reports back that all French services are on hold as they have used the 14th to be off today and thus are having a long weekend - ils font tous le pont..... you know the story....

Yes I'm sorry but the mark up is too much in France on many things. I'm all for supporting the country where I live but there is a limit. In fact the other reason I want to get the trailer is because I want to bring a lot of stuff back from the UK, visit my parents etc - so the transport costs of coming back are taken into account.

So thinking about it would it be wiser for my dad to buy the trailer based on his name and his UK address and then 6 months later I could try the IW bunch for a COC? Or maybe it might come with one and I could be lucky? In any case my dad couldn't keep it with him as he doesn't have the space. My thought was that after 6 months he could sell it 2nd hand to me with our own quality made up sales invoice between him and I?

Look forward to your thoughts

Mark

Austrobrit

Now go back a year to when the Euro Pound conversion was 138 and the price of 3384 pounds would have been € 4669.


It is not about "Rip off britian or "rip off eu, it is the difference in the currency pair fluctuation.

I have made good money last year buying Harleys in the UK and importing them into Austria, despite the Tax etc they still worked out nearly 28% cheaper.

At the moment the UK is a great and cheap place to buy if you are from the € zone.

tramblygoat

Yes but the French dealers are getting the benefit of a powerful Euro to buy the trailers so why the difference - plus the VAT is now more in the UK, albeit only a small bit higher.

Austrobrit

I agree with the sentiment but you cannot expect dealers to alter their prices down in their own markets when the rate changes in their suppliers land.

Imagine the difficulty the dealers would have getting the prices back up if the pound were to strenghten.

there has to be a benchmark value for market stability in each and every country, anything regarding currency fluctuations just creates opportunities.

If Harley Austria had brought down the cost of its new VRODs to match that of the English bikes, it would have meaned reducing the average price by 10k from 22k to 12k,.

Domino

is that not what the Euro was designed to do - ensure price stability within the linked market places ?

does it work ?

Austrobrit

Ah well, I think you have to be in it for it to work....

I see no disparity between German, French and Austrian pricing as a result of monetary exchange rate changes, but then we share the same currency.

Domino

so it works, just not for those who are outside it

although not part of the Euro we are in the same markets and there are no borders - so there should be no differences in duties etc.
Just in manufactured prices
(not that there are many manufacturers left in the UK)

Im_and_Er

I think you are simply talking about market forces where goods are priced on supply and demand and what the market will tolerate, the prime example being second hand cars where for an identical vehicle you can pay thousands more in France then in UK.

From the French buyers point of view residuals will play a part in what they will pay for new items. In good nick a trailer will be expected to fetch anything between 2/3 and 3/4 of it's purchase price on resale whereas with the UK equivalent you will be very lucky to realise a 50% return.

It's not quite as simplistic as the £-€ comparison suggests

L'Acajou

Hi again

We find it far easier to buy good second-hand trailers in the UK than to buy new, simple as that. Then you can order the CoC and get it in a reasonably short time. We can't find any way round this six-month thing, they won't issue the CoC, simple as that.

We tend to buy from dealerships as they are less likely to be stolen and if by chance they are then we have some protection.

We have so far only dealt with livestock trailers, other types might not be as easy to come by... contact one or two dealerships and see what they have in or what they can get for you, or check on websites.

A few years ago hubby bought a brand-new IW cattle trailer, for our own use and sold it two years later in our farm sale for £75 more than he paid for it new . But that was in England! Hopefully you would get a better bargain than that, some people buy trailers, use them a couple of times and then sell them.

If you need any more pointers, just phone us, I have PM'd you our number.

Sue