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Hi Mary,

We've seen them as cheap as €5,950 on a private sale but that's probably not the best way to go. Budget between €7,500 and €8,000 to get a good one, with history, from a dealer.

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Hi Debbie,

If you're importing it as a commercial vehicle (and it may well be that Revenue will ask for some proof of its future use before allowing you to do so) then it comes in under Category B, so it's a minimum of €125 VRT, or 13.3 per cent of the Open Market Selling Price, or OMSP.

How much that is can best be answered by me waving this piece of string around and asking you how long it is. I'd take a stab at around €8-900,  but honestly that's just a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Assed Guess). You won't know for sure until the car has been inspected. The wonderful certainties of the Irish vehicle taxation system...

If you're not importing it as a commercial, but as a private vehicle, then you're going to be paying more. The CO₂ emissions for the 2. 5D with 114hp were 186g/km, which puts the L200 into the ninth VRT band, which means you'll pay 30 per cent VRT. That should work out at about €1,500 or so, but again, that's a total finger-in-the-air guess and I can't offer you any more than that without taking the actual, physical car to Revenue myself for the valuation.

Best of luck with it

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Hi John,

You can't claim it back. The Revenue rules are that if a vehicle is less than six months old or has less than 6,000km on the clock, you must pay the VAT on importing it here, regardless of whether or not the VAT has been paid in the UK. The only way you could claim the VAT back from the UK HMRC would be to be VAT-registered in the UK.

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Hi Mary,

Sort of. Ford currently has a special offer, dubbed Ford Swappage, in play for 151 registrations. Basically, if you trade in a car up to ten years old against a new Fiesta, Focus, B-Max, C-Max or Kuga, then Ford will give you a bonus of €1,500 on top of the normal trade-in value of your vehicle. In other words, if your car is worth €5,000 as a trade-in, Ford will give you €6,500 for it.

There are some terms and conditions of course. The car being traded in must be taxed, insured and have a current NCT ticket and the offer is currently set to run out at the end of this month. It's also only available to individual, private customers not those buying for fleets.

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Hi Alice,

First off, yes - the Superb really lives up to its name and it's a car we can recommend without reservation. As for buying privately, it's always a bit riskier than buying from a (good) dealer, but if you tread carefully, you should be OK. Don't accept anything without a full service history, get a history check from the likes of Cartell.ie and potentially get an AA check too.

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Hi Rasti,

I'd say that kind of mileage puts you just over the tipping point for diesel, but if you must insist on petrol then go for the 1.6 - that 1.4 is so underpowered that you have to work it hard to get any performance out of it, and that really hurts the fuel consumption. As for buying privately, just keep your wits about you. The Octavia is a solidly reliable and well made car, which lowers the risk, but don't accept anything without immaculate paperwork and a proper, fully-stamped service history. None of this my-brother's-a-mechanic-and-he-looked-after-it rubbish. Worth getting a history check (from the likes of Cartell.ie) and maybe an AA inspection too. Be especially wary of cars with outstanding finance still owing on them.

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Hi Pat,

I'd say you could potentially get between €4,500 and €5,000 if you sell it yourself, or probably between €3,000 and €3,500 if you trade it in. One tip though - don't try to sell it now. The value of cabriolets drops sharply in the winter. If you can hang on until the summer you'll potentially make a few more quid, or at least find it easier to sell.

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Hi Mary,

Through a Volkswagen dealer you're looking at about €400 for a front door and nearly €350 for a rear door, not including VAT. We'd recommend with a car of that age to go through a scrap yard instead - you may even find one of the right colour.

Hope that helps

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Hi there and sorry to hear about your issue. That sounds to us like a blocked gauze in the oil pick-up in the sump. This gets clogged up with dirt and debris and the oil pump can't cope with the blockage. The end result is starvation of oil to important areas of the engine like the camshaft and crankshaft bearings, which could result in terminal engine damage.

A decent mechanic should be able to diagnose it properly for you. Hopefully we're wrong...

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Hi Kamal,

If you sell it privately, you'd probably get around €5,500 for it, maybe €5,000 for a trade-in.