New Cars

Tax.

I thought the Tax thing had been lowered as we can now buy cars direct from Audi Germany?

I am going to contact them and ask them why the same car costs us 20k$ more

Is VAT on cars 41% now then?

To answer Ronny's question, someone has to pay for a 30% currency devaluation in their 2nd largest sales market. It appears to be us....

Just spec'd a new S4 $46 in the US and £37k here, why are we getting charged so much? even if you add local tax's onto the price its still nothing at all like the price we pay.

But surely that is illegal? or imoral :)

OK, the gap is still pretty damned big, but, the pre-tax UK price will be around £30k, which translates to USD57k.

Difference, before taxes is around £5k.

Remember that the average salary in the UK is higher than that in the US, and you have all the factors that influence pricing.

They have to make them wrong hand drive for the UK. They don't make the right hooker parts in such high volumes so don't get the same economies of scale.

The Dollar was much stronger not so very long ago, so do they make our cars so very much cheaper all of a sudden, or let the price of cars fluctuate with the value of the pound? No company operating in a "prestige" market in their right mind is going to do that. Or do they make the USA cars so much more expensive suddenly? I don't think that would be very popular with customers.

I guess what it actually all comes down to in the end is that someone like you wants an Audi, so that someone and lots and lots of other people like him are willing to pay £37k. If Yanks'll only pay $46k then fair play IMHO, that's market forces.

Douglas

£31.5k

60k.

£8.3k, or 34% more than what they pay. Our average salary is only 13% higher.

Just be glad we're not Finnish:

US 760Li = £62k GB 760Li = £81k FI 760Li = £146k

also there's the left/right hand drive thing

Whats the specs an i'll see what the price is here

Over here they are AUS$124,200 or 51,328 Pounds. So stop complaining. ; )

Fraser

PS that is for the base model as well. The avant is another Aus$10k.

Last time I was in the States I saw an advert for a Dodge Ram (I want one loads) on the telly, and the cheapness of the price almost made me cry...

Nothing is going on.

USA price with the 17.5% VAT which we have to pay, would be $45k. Which is about £24k - so they're only eight grand cheaper.

And that's only cos the dollar is broken at the moment - it's normal rate of $1.5 : £1 gives a price of about £30k.

So they are infact only two grand cheaper.

If Audi can sell their cars to us for an extra two grand, then quite obviously they're going to do so. It would be madness for them to do otherwise ! You can't compare prices in different countries - the USA has completely different salaries/taxes/livingcosts/EVERYTHING to us - you can't reasonably expect their prices to be the same as ours.

$46k + 17.5%VAT = $54k. At normal exhange rates, that translates to £36k. Which is almost exactly the same as the cost here !

They're only cheaper at the moment because the exchange rate is broken !

Exactly.

So knock off the 30% discount that the dollar's exchange rate is currently giving, and the figures almost match.

We pay no more for our cars, than they do !

Welcome to Rip Off Britain. It's not as bad as it used to be but it still exists. Because we're all "jolly nice chaps" and oh so very polite we don't tend to haggle or complain if prices are high.

Those of us that do might get a slightly better deal than everyone else but generally the weight of the pacifist majority means that we dont, and like I suggested, the better deal is only slightly better.

Mind you, I've recently spent some time in Dublin and that's a whole new world of rip off. I was laughing at adverts that said "The New Astra starting from only 20,000 euros" and then laughing on the other side of my face when I needed to buy anything at all because everything cost so damn much :S

Which will include their sales taxes.

I think 'normal' needs to be redefined - the exchange rate hasn't been 1.50 since June 2002.

And will continue to be for quite a while if you believe the futures market.

No they should be more expensive, they have to be imported further away.

Take a Nissan 350Z for example 26k in states, thats 13k here, and it has to be converted to Left hand drive

Heh, I just misread that as "market farces".