One in nine vehicles now being registered is a used import. Daniel Attwood looks at the reasons why.
As the motor industry continues to enjoy an increase in new car sales, the importation of used cars is also showing a significant rise.
New car sales in Ireland for the first six months of the year stood at 121,640, which is almost 10,000 more than during the first six months of 2003.
However, an increasing number of motorists are also looking outside the state for second-hand bargains. In fact, so many used cars have been brought into the Republic during the first five months of 2004, that they now account for one in every nine vehicles registered.
During May, the number of second-hand cars registered here for the first time increased by 45 per cent on the same month last year. This brings the total number of such vehicles brought into Ireland so far this year to just short of 14,000 - almost 2,400 more than in the same period in 2003.
Despite this increase in the number of used vehicles being brought into the state - the vast majority are from Britain and Northern Ireland - the figure is still a long way off the levels experienced in the mid-1990s. In 1996 a massive 57,000 used vehicles were imported, almost one in three vehicles registered during that year.
Since 1996 the number of imported second-hand vehicles has been steadily falling, until now.
The reasons behind the rise are varied. But many in the motor industry believe high registration taxes are to blame. Car makers are often forced to take items such as air-conditioning and satellite navigation from the standard specification list and move them to the options list in order to keep Irish showroom prices down.
However, in low tax countries such as Britain, where competition is fiercer and customer expectations higher, these items generally come as standard. This means that, as a rule, used cars can be bought from Britain with more standard equipment at no extra cost.
Nevertheless, these "extras" must still be declared and VRT must still be paid on them when the car is imported. Despite this, and because of a glut of used cars in Britain at present, prices there are attractive to Irish buyers, even with an exchange rate of just 67 pence per euro.
These conditions - and a growing resistance among the car buying public to paying up to 73 per cent of the price of a new car in tax - have prompted an increasing number of motorists in the state to travel to Britain or the North to buy nearly new cars.
This is most clearly shown in the high number of used cars registered in the border county of Donegal. In fact, over the past few months, it's only in Dublin that more used cars were registered than in Donegal.
Although VRT still has to be paid on used cars brought into the state, prestige marques and certain specific models can still offer second-hand value for money.
As a result, it's marques such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz that are consistently popular with used car bargain hunters. However, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), Toyota remained at the top of the table this year.
Although the CSO figures don't reveal specific models, it's believed that continued high demand for Land Cruisers has pushed Toyota to the top of the second-hand import league. Toyota also tops the new car sales table.
However, the growing interest in importing nearly new cars may come to a premature end. Within six months, Ireland's roads signs and new car speedometers will be metric, while Britain and the North will retain imperial readings.
Therefore, within a few years, most cars on roads in the state will have kph speedometers and the attraction of buying a used car with mph speedometers is expected to fall off.