Oneswoop Car Importer

...£12,300.

Oneswoop price, £10,300, OTR!

I checked out their finance deals, which looked eminently affordable, especially as I get shot of the mortgage half way through the 36 month term. A 15% deposit was needed, and you could register your desire to speak to someone about finance and even trade-ins, who, in the case of the HP, would ring you.

To be fair the site quotes lengthy lead-times of up to 6-months, ...
...to find myself diverted to Oneswoop who had "acquired" the site.........Dooohh! I've also discovered that www.icebergcars.com have a 16 week wait at the same price, and better still, they've got a steady flow of Yaris T-Sports coming into the country in colours that I like, availible for almost immediate delivery, presumably ordered on the backs of other specific orders. It appears that the Motorpoint and Trade-Centre car supermarkets can ... more

Www.oneswoop.com is one of a rash of car import sites now available through the internet, offering sizeable discounts on UK prices.

They offer a very wide range of all the main stream cars, all with full UK specification, supplied via a UK dealer, all with three years warranty, and year’s road tax (VED), new vehicle registration and AA cover. Therefore, when they say On-The-Road, they mean it. AND they deliver the car to your door, in a covered truck.

I’ll give you an example of my latest dealing with them. I quite fancied the idea of the new Toyota Yaris T-Sport as being a good combination of off-beat design, performance and boy’s toys, coupled with reasonable fuel figures. UK price at a dealer including metallic paint? circa £12,300.

Oneswoop price, £10,300, OTR!

I checked out their finance deals, which looked eminently affordable, especially as I get shot of the mortgage half way through the 36 month term. A 15% deposit was needed, and you could register your desire to speak to someone about finance and even trade-ins, who, in the case of the HP, would ring you.

To be fair the site quotes lengthy lead-times of up to 6-months, except for cars in stock, since it goes to great pains to stress that all cars are built to order. The Yaris was shown to be one such car, with a “22-26” delivery period. I suppose 26 weeks sounds better than half a year!

They make all the right noises about putting your deposit in a hyper-safe “e-scrow”* bank account opened in your name until the car is on its way.

* No, I didn't know what it meant either, but the "e-" in front makes it all OK doesn't it, in the same way as the word "digital" does. I suppose my Natwest account must be analogue!

Sounds too good to be true? – well, for me anyway, although you might be prepared to hang on in there, it just depends on circumstances.

Here’s what got really up my nose. On Friday evening I received an e-mail, giving me 48-hours (not just 2 WORKING days) but 48 real hours to complete their forms, and sign them, obtain a photocopy of my passport, and FAX the lot to their office. I then have 7 days to come up with the deposit otherwise their price is no longer fixed, and round we go again.

Herein lies the nub of my ire. How is anyone who only uses his PC for domestic purposes going to get a photcopy done, and then conveniently come across a Fax machine in time for Monday? And suppose I don’t travel abroad and have no passport?

Also, they want you to make all the running viz-a-viz finance and trade ins, despite the impression given on the web site. All they give you are numbers to ring.

Once you’ve jumped through all these hoops, the delivery time is now being quoted as 26 weeks. The so called “22-26” has already disappeared, so you now sit back to wait 6 months (at least, I should imagine).

Then I got to thinking. Suppose my existing Micra gets “totalled” some time in the next 6 months and I’m forced to replace it early. Well, I reasoned, I could always sell the import – ah yes but, I’ve already signed to say that I’m a private user, and won’t sell it on for profit. So they’ve got you there, too.

Exit one set of forms, in a bin-ward direction.

p.s I've just got a "Rough Guide to Shopping Online" - a 99p Tesco's special. This recommended me to try Carbusters.com, so in I went, only to find myself diverted to Oneswoop who had "acquired" the site.........Dooohh! I've also discovered that www.icebergcars.com have a 16 week wait at the same price, and better still, they've got a steady flow of Yaris T-Sports coming into the country in colours that I like, availible for almost immediate delivery, presumably ordered on the backs of other specific orders. It appears that the Motorpoint and Trade-Centre car supermarkets can offer a practically identical deals - they all seem to have a car of your choice arriving next week! Just make sure that you are buying like-for-like, i.e. does "Full UK Spec" only mean "street legal", or an verbatim copy of what a UK dealer's brochure says you're going to get.
 

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