The surge took the local car market by surprise, considering the Association of Automotive Manufacturers and Importers said last month it was expecting used car import rate to slow down after the introduction of the environmental stamp duty in March.
“One can hardly contain imports of used cars in Romania because they are not properly taxed. Once the Euro 3 and Euro 4 car tax hiked, customers went for Euro 1 and Euro 2 instead, which can be seen in statistics,” said Nicolae Sorescu, head of the Radacini group, which owns Opel, Chevrolet, Citroen, Suzuki and Mazda dealers.
Out of the 26,800 used cars registered, 14,800 are ten to fifteen years old and more than 18,000 are ten to twenty-three year old non-Euro, Euro 1 and Euro 2 compliant vehicles, which puts them among the most polluting of all.
Most imported models in July were Volkswagen Golf III, Golf IV and BMW Series 3, the latter introduced in 1998, which means the cars are about 15 years old on average, while customers who chose a used car in July 2012 went for ten to twelve-year old cars like VW Golf IV and Opel Astra G.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)