What do the eastern europeans do with all the old cars they ship out of this country. Have you ever noticed that if you see a scruffy car transporter with old cars on it always has eastern europe (mostly Lithuanian) plates. Have also noticed that if you park at a services in Belgium or Holland there are always lots of them there as well. Are they just taking them for the spares or to do up and sell as runners? Surely they drive on the the right side over there.
cars are quite expensive in the russian republics, so they collect them from the uk…then convert them to LHD and sell them at a profit, they used to do this in other eastern bloc states but when most of them joined the eu restrictions and taxes were imposed. Most of the cars are imported from germany and holland and it is still viable to get a bargain in the uk, as our MOT failures get sold very cheap.
Damaged,write offs and cars not worth anything over here are a regular return load for East Euro hauliers collecting from DMS in Doncaster. Its not just transporters either, they will use Tilts, vans and trailers,pick-ups anything that will get a car on to be honest.There used to be lines of trucks waiting to load,so it must be a decent payer to them to return with damaged vehicles.
Bilgepump:
What do the eastern europeans do with all the old cars they ship out of this country?
- Good cars may be converted to LHD and still driven. Used cars are relatively cheap in UK.
My friend bought himself vauxhall omega, made a conversion to LHD (in proffesional garage, he get Single Vehicle Aproval test and all MOT’s etc) and to buy, drive it to Poland and to convert it was still cheaper than 2 years older with 20000 kms higher mileage same omega bought by my other friend in Germany. My other friends bought from someone vw polo after conversion as well. They got it cheap, but it drives well and they are quite happy with that.
Note: some cars are ready for a swap, but some are not, so you have to cut the car and change it’s front wall etc. I would never buy such car, and from last year, at last in Poland, it’s impossible to register such car.
So you have to be really good in this stuff, as for instance said omega sometimes can be converted and sometimes not, and it’s very complicated to find out, as the same version from the same year can be different.
- Bad cars are used for spares. My friend is doing that. He’s buying a Honda Prelude here, but in japanese version, as parts to it in Poland are mad, drives it to Poland, split it in his garage and selling parts on allegro - a polish kind of e-bay site.
I don’t know how many he earns on one, but if he’s buying them for arround 1000 and recently he offered me a 300 quids for driving it to Poland only (and that’s only my income, as fuel, ferries and my ticket back is paid) it has to be a good business. And recently one broke down in France, so he hitch-hiked home, took his car transporter from Poland and brought it back and as he told me, he still not lost a penny on that one… So it has be really a good business.
(btw: if anybody has such prelude for sale, he’ll buy them all) 
Off course only particular models gives you so good income, but if you ship 100s, it still can be good business on salvage parts…
I do a Denmark to Poland route very often and it does seem as you get around Berlin that every vehicle is Polish with a car on the back. Last year I tried to buy a new car in Poland, but found them expensive and spec I wanted was not available. I assume that the market is still newish for a lot of makes of cars we take for granted, perhaps having the money to buy a western car is a newish thing as well, I don’t think there is a secondhand market for new Polish bought cars yet. In the end I bought a German car with had been crashed, it had been repaired in Poland and was already on Polish plates, the guy showed us a picture of the damage 
We had our local mechanic with us, so he was happy with the repair and me with the spec and price, so I got a car and a new kitchen 
We saw a few horrors of repairs and cars without papers, we paid our mechanic very well for his advise in the end, he was on top of the game.
The wife wanted a car a couple of months ago, so we went off again in search, apart from a few lease cars on forecourts they were all imported cars, mainly German or French, quite a few UK cars as well, it seems there would be sold and then converted to LHD. In the end we found a guy who brings cars in undamaged to order, but keeps a few cars in his garden, not the cheapest cars, but better quality. This one was still on German plates, but he did the paperwork to import and we drove it away on German plates a week later and converted it onto local plates. Even though the price was a little above normal and also with the price of importing, it still a far better deal than sourcing a Polish bought car, although we never saw one of that make.
I would think in the coming years more and more new Polish bought cars will arrive on the market as secondhand cars then you will see less and less transporters with what appears to be wrecks on.
What do they do with them?
Live in them I guess?
Polish version of Ebay is called… Allegro? Say no more!!
There is a polish company that spends about £200k a month at a large auction (via an agent) near me on insurance write offs, they take them back to poland stacked up in curtain siders as back loads loaded with a teleporter and either use the parts or put them back on the road depending on what type of write off.
When i say stacked up with a teleporter i mean stacked with a teleporter, usually 3 high, if they’re not mashed up when written off they are by the time they’ve been transported 
Could do with a Vectra bonnet-facelift model,satin red if anyones passing
Koop:
Polish version of Ebay is called… Allegro? Say no more!!
No, polish version of e-bay is called ebay.pl but no-one want to use that, as allegro.pl is much better 
Koop:
Polish version of Ebay is called… Allegro? Say no more!!
I found my car via Allegro, but I see your point. The site wasn’t made in the UK so this Allegro actually works
Fair play to them, it’s got to be better for the environment than crushing them. And there shouldn’t be too much of an environmental impact because the vehicles would be running back to Poland empty otherwise. And it earns someone a living at the end of the day.