Why are cars so expensive in the UK as opposed to the US?

[P.I.M.P]

After reading many car magazines, many of them being CAR(a british one), and looked at the prices then converted them to dollars, I noticed that car prices are significantly higher in Britain(and Europe). Why is that so? A $86,000 car here, such as the SL500 costs in Britain £71,475, or $119,380. This is true like a 911 costs £56,000 or more than $90,000 USD in Europe when here the base price is $68,000. This goes for ALL cars.

[Anzeige eBay]

Hallo P.I.M.P,

 

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[GIR]

It's because of taxes and import costs. If you look at the catalogue price (excluding taxes) you'll see that Europe is on the same line with the US but with taxes it becomes a totaly different picture.

For instance The Neterhlands has the lowest catalogue prices in the world. A car can easily cost 10k less over here. But when taxes creep in the price is almost doubled. Many German and UK dealers order their cars here in NL.

German people buy their cars themselves and they fill out the forms to get the taxes back. Funny actualy, the car is being built in Germany, imported here and it's cheaper here then in Germany.

In the UK dealers mostly fax over orders to NL dealers. The NL dealer faxes back the form with a price and the order is signed and faxed back. The NL dealer orders a RHD car for the UK dealer and puts it on the first boat towards the UK. After all this the car is still cheaper then if you would order it in the UK.

Like the SL500 you mentoined, in the US the catalogue price is 89k, over here the catalogue price is 87k. But after taxes and handeling fees and such in the US it can cost upto 100k (depending on which state you are in) but over here it costs 142k. Same goes for a Porsche or any other car.

We maybe paying more taxes but we do get a better infrastructure back for it. Like in Germany and in some states of the US the roads are horrible. Like the road between NL and Hamburg is the worste road I have been on ever! Same goes for some roads outside Manhattan and Boston. Most of the roads are just long patches of asfalt without anything. No emergency facilities and an occasional roadsign here and there.

[Daimion]

You think UK is expensive?!?!

My country (Singapore) is worse.

A BMW M5 (E39) costs SGD$396,000, that is equal to USD$228,000.

We have a 20% Custom's duty, and a 140% Registration fee. Basically any car we buy down here, we pay twice the car value in taxes/duties and such.....

[kleinefisch]

What do people drive over there then??

[Daimion]

The most popular cars are the Japanese Makes.. but oddly enough..according to the statistics, 1 in 10 cars here's a Mercedes.

Only 1 in 20-25 is a BMW. Last year, Mercedes sold an average of 7 cars a day! Which is pretty good, considering my country only has a little over 3 million people!

So I guess, we've just adapted to the higher cost of living...

[P.I.M.P]

Singapore is gay move here!