A question or two about buying vehicles in Germany

Monday, February 5. 2007

This one isn't really an entry, its a couple of questions for my German friends. We've been looking at motorhomes on mobile.de, sorry, you guys calls them reisemobile, and we know that we are not going to buy a really expensive one, our money isn't worth as much as the Euro, so we've set a limit of €10,000.

This of course means the vehicles are most likely to be early 1990's models, or even late 1980's models if we find one that is in exceptional condition. At this stage we are going to have to drive from city to city to see all the vehicles we want to look at, so can anyone tell me the following drive times, roughly, it doesn't need to really exact.
  1. Dusseldorf - Cologne
  2. Cologne - Hamburg
  3. Cologne - Essen
  4. Cologne - Frankfurt
  5. Cologne - Berlin
  6. Cologne - Munchen (in Bavaria)

Also, can anyone explain, when you buy a vehicle, obviously there is a fee for the registration, but what else, does the vehicle need to be tested for safety every year, are there other things we should be aware of? I know this is asking for a lot of info, but if you could just briefly tell me the basics, I can always do more research, but at the moment I don't even know the basics.

Thanks guys.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed.
  Comments (6)
Defined tags for this entry: ,
Related entries by tags:


Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

  1. genevainformation said,

    Monday, February 5. 2007 at 20:00 (Reply)

    Carl, look at www.viamichelin.com to get exact routing. They are accurate.

    1. Dusseldorf - Cologne - fast (1h?). Do not drink the beer in Düsseldorf.

    2. Cologne - Hamburg - ~300km (3..4h)?

    3. Cologne - Essen - should be 2hrs

    4. Cologne - Frankfurt - you CAN DO IT IN ONE HOUR ;-), but take 1.5-2 hrs. There's a train as well (check www.bahn.de).

    5. Cologne - Berlin - Long. Takes a day, roughly.

    6. Cologne - Munchen (in Bavaria)
    Long. Takes a day as well.

    Average speed on german motorways boils down to 100km/h and 120km/h if you push it and are lucky.

    Hope that helps.

  2. carl said,

    Monday, February 5. 2007 at 20:15 (Reply)

    Thanks for that, the viamichelin site is exactly what I want for drive times, we're used to driving for at least an hour to get into town so these times aren't all that frightening. At least I know that in a weekend I can travel between Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg.

    BTW, you're not the first person to warn me about Dusseldorf beer. But I don't drink beer so I might be safe.

  3. Thomas said,

    Tuesday, February 6. 2007 at 00:50 (Reply)

    Hi!
    I have some more infos for your trip to germany.
    I'm driving the distance cologne-munich (Köln-München) quite often, which usually takes me about 5 hours.
    If you plan to buy a motorhome you will have to register it. But i think therefor you'll have to have a domicile in germany. It might be an option to let it be registered by your relatives.
    And of course it has to be checked and approved by the TÃœV (Technischer Ãœberwachungsverein), which also includes an ATU (Abgastechnische Untersuchung). These examinations have to be done every two years. Without these, you are not allowed to use the car. On the other hand you can say, every car with valid TÃœV and ATU for at least one year will be technically ok.

  4. matangi said,

    Thursday, February 8. 2007 at 00:05 (Reply)

    just some ideas -- first of all if you buy a car of that type and age, check for everything that is close to the shower, kitchen, rotten tin is hard to fix and it's a major problem on older "camping cars". In general, take care of Fiat, they are not that reliable in my opinion. Even Volkswagen, has a high price and many technical problems and it's a german car, so people love it. Look for a Mercedes 207, 307 or more modern from a serious owner. On the other hand japanese cars are mostly ugly and smaller than mercedes, but will do there job.
    About the technical examination, is not so hard to get it, but it doesn't make shure that the engine is reliable. Better look for a car with only one and two owners.
    Have phun

    matangi

  5. genevainformation said,

    Thursday, February 8. 2007 at 00:28 (Reply)

    One quite important question: Do you want to sell the car afterwards or export it from germany?
    If you want to sell..well. I'm a bad car salesman.
    If you want to export you will use "export" number plates which have a limited (in time) insurance coverage. If you buy from a car dealership, they'll work it out for you.

  6. carl said,

    Saturday, February 17. 2007 at 04:37 (Reply)

    @all
    I've been offline for a week so haven't had a chance to review your comments, but thanks for the extra info. We've finally started our travels and we're in Brisbane, Australia, so we're ready to start thinking about getting flights to Europe. I'll keep you posted how we get on with this.

    As for exporting the vehicle, we would only export it to somewhere else in the EU if we did this.

Add Comment

E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

 
 
 
 

Friends

Madrid Travel Granada Travel Barcelona Travel