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Hello!
I'm from small far away country - Latvia. I'm planing to travel to south with my girlfriend on September and I'm playing around an idea that I could fly with her to Greece, buy a car there and then road trip it back home. I know - that is fucked up idea, but otherwise I'll have to drive to Greece and back which would come up to 7000km which is much worse - not much of a vacation for us if we have to drive all the time.
So - what, where and how greeks buy their cars?
I want something classic (I like older cars, and my girlfriend also likes them). I would say date of manufacture before 1990, coupe, RWD. Something like BMW 3 series, mercedes or fomething similar (ahh the utopia). As I'm not a fancy american/swiss and I do not have a cash falling out of my pockets, then I'm looking for interesting and cheap deals. For example: 1985 audi 80 with LPG for 700 eur - I'm sold. It is a solid car and I can survive without a coupe. On the other hand - I could squeeze all the juice and borrow money to grab a Toyota Supra MKIII with minimal rust for less than 4k EUR. But that is my sky high price range.
To make it understandable - either it is a cheap LPG car or something interesting which could have less rust than the ones that I can get in my area.
At the same time I have promised myself to buy only RWD cars, but this could be an exception. I found some Alfa Romeo 75 for 1200 euro that would be a perfect car, but I cannot fly to Greece now to buy it and store it for the september
Please add info on what are the laws in your country for road worthiness of the cars.
Best regards - Peter, the crazy latvian!!!!!
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Hello!
I'm from small far away country - Latvia. I'm planing to travel to south with my girlfriend on September and I'm playing around an idea that I could fly with her to Greece, buy a car there and then road trip it back home. I know - that is fucked up idea, but otherwise I'll have to drive to Greece and back which would come up to 7000km which is much worse - not much of a vacation for us if we have to drive all the time.
So - what, where and how greeks buy their cars?
I want something classic (I like older cars, and my girlfriend also likes them). I would say date of manufacture before 1990, coupe, RWD. Something like BMW 3 series, mercedes or fomething similar (ahh the utopia). As I'm not a fancy american/swiss and I do not have a cash falling out of my pockets, then I'm looking for interesting and cheap deals. For example: 1985 audi 80 with LPG for 700 eur - I'm sold. It is a solid car and I can survive without a coupe. On the other hand - I could squeeze all the juice and borrow money to grab a Toyota Supra MKIII with minimal rust for less than 4k EUR. But that is my sky high price range.
To make it understandable - either it is a cheap LPG car or something interesting which could have less rust than the ones that I can get in my area.
At the same time I have promised myself to buy only RWD cars, but this could be an exception. I found some Alfa Romeo 75 for 1200 euro that would be a perfect car, but I cannot fly to Greece now to buy it and store it for the september
Please add info on what are the laws in your country for road worthiness of the cars.
Best regards - Peter, the crazy latvian!!!!!
-
Hello!
I'm from small far away country - Latvia. I'm planing to travel to south with my girlfriend on September and I'm playing around an idea that I could fly with her to Greece, buy a car there and then road trip it back home. I know - that is fucked up idea, but otherwise I'll have to drive to Greece and back which would come up to 7000km which is much worse - not much of a vacation for us if we have to drive all the time.
So - what, where and how greeks buy their cars?
I want something classic (I like older cars, and my girlfriend also likes them). I would say date of manufacture before 1990, coupe, RWD. Something like BMW 3 series, mercedes or fomething similar (ahh the utopia). As I'm not a fancy american/swiss and I do not have a cash falling out of my pockets, then I'm looking for interesting and cheap deals. For example: 1985 audi 80 with LPG for 700 eur - I'm sold. It is a solid car and I can survive without a coupe. On the other hand - I could squeeze all the juice and borrow money to grab a Toyota Supra MKIII with minimal rust for less than 4k EUR. But that is my sky high price range.
To make it understandable - either it is a cheap LPG car or something interesting which could have less rust than the ones that I can get in my area.
At the same time I have promised myself to buy only RWD cars, but this could be an exception. I found some Alfa Romeo 75 for 1200 euro that would be a perfect car, but I cannot fly to Greece now to buy it and store it for the september
Please add info on what are the laws in your country for road worthiness of the cars.
Best regards - Peter, the crazy latvian!!!!!
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Hi Peter,
I cannot be of much help on all the law/regulation/exporting-car from Greece, but online you could check the http://www.car.gr portal to find cars that may be of any interest. I think is is the biggest portal on 2nd hand (and new) cars.
Other forum members I am sure will have much more info to add.
Wish you all the best to your plan, trip and purchase. -
Hi Peter
Without a valid Greek individual VAT number you cannot buy a car in Greece. In other words you have to be a Greek tax payer with valid proof of address and tax registration.
It will be cheaper to rent a car anyway from the airport, so start looking into this option.
Sent from my G8141 using Tapatalk
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Hey man,
I'm sorry if my message is going to bring you back down to reality or may sound a bit pessimistic, but are you sure you want to deal with our magnificent local used car market and government regulations?
You are going to have a local greek VAT (ΑΦΜ) issued in order to buy the car. From then onwards, you will be subject to the everchanging greek law of property holders (car is property here).
LPG is not a thing in our used older cars because it became spread only in the last 5 years in the country.
It will be hard to find a car in GOOD condition with 700 euros here. Cars retain their value way more than in the average EU country because people switch them way less frequently due to low wages. Such a low price car will usually be in bad shape and due to its age it will have inadequate passive safety features. If you made me drive a 700 euro 1985 Audi 80on a road trip around Greece, I would be scared shitless every single second.
You will be travelling in a foreign country with mediocre roads and really aggressive drivers, better make sure to stay safe. Drivers here are not guaranteed to stop at a STOP sign, neither respect priority as you may expect.
Supras here are usually heavily modified for hp and decent ones are expensive (maybe 8-9000 euros)
Take a look at car.gr to see for yourself what kind of cars we have at the price range you're looking for. A safe choice would be a middle class high-selling car of the past decade like a Corolla/Megane/307 etc for 3-4000 but then again who are you going to trust for inspecting and giving you thumbs up for the condition of the car before you buy it?
Finally, you need to make sure that the car has paid its yearly road tax properly. People do leave this kind of deeds unattended for long periods of time, especially owners of older cars, and you don't want to face any such surprises.
Dishonesty, knavery and all the bad traits of people here are at their absolute worst when it comes to the used car market.
Overall, knowing the place, I wouldn't dare to buy a cheap used car here as a total foreigner. To be honest, I would be very sceptical of doing it as a local as well
Maybe you can consider having your own car sent here by truck, and have someone put it in a garage until you arrive by plane. Or buy a cheap used car that you can thoroughly check at your country and send it here. Otherwise, consider renting a car from a reliable vendor like Hertz or Avis who can also serve you at the airport.
Sorry if I was too harsh on your dream, I'm just seeing things pragmatically and trying to protect you from having an awful experience
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Hi,
sad to hear this. I'm just starting to plan the trip. It does not have to be cheap (less than 1k eur), more like rare in my country. I saw sam older models from seventies like an RWD corolla and similar that caught my eye. Those do not exist near me as we have harsh winters with a tons of salt on the roads which in turn means that a lot of cars do rust away. This trip would be an interesting opportunity to bring something like that back home. Plus the thrill of driving an unknown car across the europe.
Renting in this case is not an option as we do plan to get there and do a drive around the countries for 2 weeks. I hoped that if it would work - we would get a cheap flight to Athens, spend few days there to do some seesighting. And September is already the end of tourist season - cheaper. I'm not coming from a country which ir richer than Greece so prices are a consideration So spend some time in Athens, buy a car with all of the export papers and then start slowly driving back home spending a few days here, few days there and making our way up the Adriatic sea coast line and then go north back home.
But now this plan starts to fade out.
Maybe someone has a phone number or web page for something like a DMV where I could call and ask if I have to jump all the hoops if I want to export the car outside of the country?
P.S. Thank you for the input, it was not cheering, but helpful!
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Hi,
sad to hear this. I'm just starting to plan the trip. It does not have to be cheap (less than 1k eur), more like rare in my country. I saw sam older models from seventies like an RWD corolla and similar that caught my eye. Those do not exist near me as we have harsh winters with a tons of salt on the roads which in turn means that a lot of cars do rust away. This trip would be an interesting opportunity to bring something like that back home. Plus the thrill of driving an unknown car across the europe.
Renting in this case is not an option as we do plan to get there and do a drive around the countries for 2 weeks. I hoped that if it would work - we would get a cheap flight to Athens, spend few days there to do some seesighting. And September is already the end of tourist season - cheaper. I'm not coming from a country which ir richer than Greece so prices are a consideration So spend some time in Athens, buy a car with all of the export papers and then start slowly driving back home spending a few days here, few days there and making our way up the Adriatic sea coast line and then go north back home.
But now this plan starts to fade out.
Maybe someone has a phone number or web page for something like a DMV where I could call and ask if I have to jump all the hoops if I want to export the car outside of the country?
P.S. Thank you for the input, it was not cheering, but helpful!
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Sorry for double/tripple posting.
The reason why I started my research into this:
https://www.car.gr/12319572-toyota-corollaIf it actually looks like that and drives - I want it! That would be a perfect weekend car to hold on to.
But I also found:
https://www.car.gr/classifieds/cars/photos/10791866/#4https://www.car.gr/12806981-opel-rekord
https://www.car.gr/classifieds/cars/photos/12647020/#6
https://www.car.gr/12301804-toyota-corolla-30
https://www.car.gr/12566531-toyota-corollaAll of these cars and models are super rare or not existand in my area.
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Ι think Greece doesn't provide export plates to drive the car back even if you can buy it. You will need to load it on a truck.
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Some of the cars in your list don't have license plates which likely means that there's some road tax debt on their back, others have their original engines replaced with higher capacity ones without legal paperwork, others have antique license plates which only permits them to roam the road on specific days and under special occasions.
The Greek used car market is not a fairytale, be extremely cautious
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Thank you all for the answers!
It seems that I'm going to try another country as my starting point. Now I'm looking in Bulgaria or Italy... Feck....
Ehh... The bureaucracy, takes all the fun from the citizens...
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ok let's assume that you find and buy a car like those you are looking for:
What you gonna do it when you finish your road trip? -
Petka man, got a bettah plan for ya. Direct flight to ATH --> rent a car --> drive the hell out of it round GR (beware the public roads ain't for the faint hearted ones!) --> return it to the leasing comp --> fly back to ur Baltic paraiso. Cheaper, faster, more relaxed. Plus you can save money to visit rest of the Balkans. (Or maybe even start your DIY camp van conversion for ultimate 2019 Balkan road trip!!)
Anyways ditch the idea of buying used wheels from here, ready plated for export, bureaucracy is a nightmare
Buying car in Greece