Car Shopping in Regensburg

June 18, 2007 · Filed Under Tips for Expats 

It’s done! We have a brand spankin’ new car on order!It took some time, but we both agreed on a favorite. We started out at the Renault/Peugeot/Citröen dealership and there we figured out that we didn’t need a Laguna, because the Megane had just as much storage space and a smaller engine.

We went on to the Volkswagen/Skoda dealership where the sales guy was extremely pushy and we saw the only used automatic Kombi we encountered. Unfortunately, the sloping roof on the back of the Octavia cut too much into the storage space and we thought it made it too small for Charlie.

We stood around at the Opel dealership for 15 minutes without seeing a single employee, and they had all the cars locked and they all had tinted windows, so we couldn’t even look inside or sit in the cars while we waited. We left without ever seeing or speaking to anyone.

At the Ford dealership, we expressed interest in the new Mondeo Kombi. The sales guy handed us an info book and said we could look up all the prices in there - have a nice day - bye bye. Well, if he wasn’t interested in selling us a car, we didn’t need to buy from him, I say.

We then headed over to Mazda where we found out that Mazdas are really expensive and only come with big engines (as automatics anyway). The salespeople were nice though.

The final stop was Toyota, where we priced out buying a new Avensis Kombi. I liked the Avensis, it’s super safe and even has knee airbags for the driver. The sales guy was also great. Probably the nicest, friendliest, most helpful guy we met along the way. He was the kind of guy I’d want to be friends with, which probably makes him a really good salesman - or at least it would in the US, I’m not sure how Germans react to that kind of thing (Rainer wasn’t that impressed). Unfortunately, the price was a few thousand higher than what we went with.

*drum roll, please*

A Renault Megane Grandtour in Fels-Grau!

In the end, we learned that finding mid-priced used stationwagons with automatic transmissions is difficult. The people who buy automatics in Germany want suped up cars with huge engines. In searching online, there were plenty of automatic Audi, BMW and Mercedes stationwagons for sale, but we aren’t Fahrvergnügen-types and found that a brand new mid-priced Kombi (with navigation system and an Ipod for Rainer) was generally cheaper than these supersized used cars! But when we bought our previous car, the two-door Civic hatchback, we had no problem finding automatics to look at, so if you want a smaller used car with an automatic transmission, don’t lose hope. Or maybe it’s that we were looking in Rostock and people in the East buy automatics more? I have no idea about that. Also, don’t be surprised by the number of sales guys who don’t seem to need to make sales in order to make a living. I guess the dealerships pay them good salaries anyway. Hmph.  The dealerships also keep odd hours, so plan on looking between 7am and 6pm on weekdays, and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays.

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Comments

11 Responses to “Car Shopping in Regensburg”

  1. Martina on June 18th, 2007 12:57 pm

    See, I told you that used Automatic Kombis will often have so many other pricey features and huge engines. Same thing I went through 3 years ago. Except that I found a super-nice Opel salesguy.

    We also had a Ford-guy hand us a price list and send us on our way. We had to interrupt the Peugeot guy’s important game of solitaire, and he grudingly configured a car for us, only to hound us with phone calls for the next 6 months, even after we told him we had bought an Opel.

    Congratulations on choosing a car, and I think you’ll be happy with your choice.

    When is the expected delivery date?

  2. vailian on June 18th, 2007 2:21 pm

    Have fun with the Renault!Which shold arrive first, the baby or the car?

  3. Christina G on June 18th, 2007 3:00 pm

    @martina: Yup, you were right about the used cars!

    @vailian: They’re both due in mid-July, so it’ll be a race to see which makes it first!

  4. Martina on June 18th, 2007 3:40 pm

    P.S. I don’t *think* that people in the East buy more automatics. This is going to really date me, but in 1989 my East German pen-pal came to visit me, and when I drove her somewhere, she was fascinated by the fact that I wasn’t shifting, so I explained the concept of an automatic to her, and she was blown away!

    Okay, now that the wall has come down who knows, maybe automatics are all the rage over there :-)

  5. CQ on June 18th, 2007 4:13 pm

    I’m glad to see the phenomenon of, “Don’t give a darn” car dealers exists in Europe also. When I shopped for my new car in the US, I went to a Toyota dealer 3 times wanting to kick the tires on one of their cars, test drive, etc. and they couldn’t be bothered with me.

    Needless to say, I purchased elsewhere.

    Congrats on your new car!

  6. J on June 18th, 2007 10:03 pm

    That’s a good looking car, for a mommobile :)

  7. Michelle on June 18th, 2007 11:27 pm

    Whoopeeee! Congrats.. that will be fun and a new one at that! Looks very nice :)

  8. Ange on June 19th, 2007 9:50 am

    Very fancy! Certainly a step up from the dodgy Bangkok Taxis that are my usual mode of transport!

    P.S - You’ve been tagged - a music meme… enjoy!

  9. Lisa on June 19th, 2007 10:22 am

    Oooooo… Ahhhhh! Purty! :)

  10. Christina G on June 19th, 2007 11:43 am

    @martina: Yeah, I have no idea if they are the rage or not, I just know that for mid-size hatchbacks, most of the Autohandlers in Rostock had two to three to look at! Could be true all over Germany, I dunno!

    @cq: Thanks! And if they don’t want any business, that’s fine by me!

    @j: It is definitely a mommobile! ;-)

    @michelle: Haha, I don’t know how “fun” a practical stationwagen can be, but I’ll give it a whirl!

    @ange: I will do the meme soon. It is a really hard meme and I’m sure I’ll be changing my answers several times too!

    @lisa: Thanks!

  11. Where to find a used car in Germany | an american expat in deutschland on February 10th, 2008 10:08 pm

    […] will be much slimmer, and with larger cars, generally limited to the luxury models.  This was my experience when we were looking for a station wagon.  Most Germans drive cars with manual transmissions.  It’s that whole Fahrvergnügen […]

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