Buying second hand cars in Spain

I am new to this forum so Hello all!

I am looking at buying a second hand Ford Focus CMax (2004 onwards) in Spain.  The prices seem cheap compared to the rest of Europe and I am a little worried.  Are the second hand dealers reliable.  Do people run the odometers backward or is the industry fairly well regulated?

Also, are there any specific cities/areas in Spain where there are a lot of used car dealerships?  I would be flying in specifically to buy the beast and would like to have as much choice as possible.

Regards,

Nicola

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Quote: "The prices seem cheap compared to the rest of Europe"

Umm! Hmm! Most people around here will tell you that 2nd Hand Cars here in Spain are expensive, and I  am one of those people, then again I am comparing used car prices in Spain with UK prices.

I would have thought that Madrid or Barcelona will have the most car dealerships, but here on the CDS Malaga, Fuengirola and Marbella have their fair share.

If the car prices seem very cheap, then it could be that the cars are ex-rental, so be careful.

Yes, seems a little strange! A lot of second hand cars are brought from Germany to Spain, but it's not often you hear of people taking cars from Spain elsewhere. I wonder where you are taking it and why? I have read recently about high mileage ex-taxis and police cars being shipped to Belorussia from the Costa del Sol because the bodywork tends to be better than models sourced from colder climes - but otherwise, I would expect cars from Germany to be better maintained.

We are looking to source a used car from Germany, they are definately cheaper there. .

 http://www.autoscout24.de/

Regards, Poppyseed

Hi Poppyseed,

That website does look cheap.  By the way, slightly hidden away at the bottom of the page is a link to the site in English:

http://eng.autoscout24.com/home/index/default.asp

Do you know if they would ship the cars to Spain?  How easy is it to register a German car in Spain? Presumably you´d need to get an ITV (MOT) done and get a gestor to sort out the paperwork...

David

Hi Sanchez1,

Sorry don't have any more info as we have only just started on this quest ourselves. We've got as far as identifying Germany as a good place to buy, the rest we'll have to find out too. Thanks for the tip on the English link!  Will post more info if and when we find it.

Regards, Poppyseed

David, talk to Steve next door he should be back by now, it cost him a fortune to have his car from England transfered over, is it not the same with a German car.

It has nothing to do with where the car originates from - to re-register it on Spain, you will have to pay a matricualtion tax based on the cars depreciated value and its CO2 emissions. There have been discussions about this on other threads.

Whether a dealer will ship to Spain or not is surely down to the individual dealer. Fortunately, I imagine most of the dealers in Germany will speak English!