The situation in the Greek used car market has changed radically due to the lack of new cars and the rise in prices throughout the market.
In Greece, however, it appears that the average age of available used cars has decreased as almost half of the vehicles are between 3 and 11 years old, while last year most used vehicles were between 12 and 22 years old.
This is due to the fact that used car importers have switched to newer vehicles to reduce customs clearance costs as we must not forget that imported used vehicles that meet the Euro 5 and Euro 4 emission directives are subject to an Environmental Fee of €1,000 and €3,000 euros respectively.
According to News Auto, there are more than 96,000 available used cars in Greece, of which more than 62,000 units appear to have traveled more than 100,000 km. In other words, almost 7 out of 10 available used cars have more than 100,000 km on their odometres.
In contrast, the available used cars that have traveled up to 30,000 km, they are minimal and concern only 14% of the available fleet, about 96,000 units.
Also, 2 out of 10 available used cars (over 18,000 units) have traveled over 200,000 kilometres!
But be careful, as in the online ads for the sale of used cars only a small percentage states whether the car has been registered for the first time in Greece or is an imported used car/
According to Newsauto, only 3 out of 10 used cars that are sold state that they come from a Greek dealership, while in the rest it is not specified.
So it would be good for consumers to ask whether the available used car is domestic or imported, so that they can easily determine whether the mileage listed is the real one or not.
In the case of imported used cars, consumers must be particularly careful and choose a vehicle that comes from a member state where someone can verify if the vehicle they are interested in has the correct mileage.
The first way concerns online platforms of other member states in which they fill in the vehicle details and the entire history of roadworthiness tests in the other member state is revealed to them.
If the vehicle comes from a Member State that does not provide information on previous checks such as Bulgaria or Germany then a visit to an authorised workshop of the brand it belongs to may help reveal quite a bit of information about the vehicle!
Regarding the fuel of the available used cars, the vast majority of them concern petrol-powered models (58%), followed by diesel-powered vehicles (32.5%), hybrids (2.7%), LPG (5.6%), natural gas (0.7%) and electric (0.5%).
George K. Andris is a columnist for News Auto.
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