While we all know that trade in values have gone through the floor, I wasn't prepared for how low they've actually gone....

My brother was possibly interested in trading in his (Irish supplied) '07 320D M-Sport Coupe for the car in the attached up in Joe Duffys.

http://www.joeduffybmw.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=201004196712967 - http://www.joeduffybmw.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car& amp;carID=201004196712967

Salesman said he'd let it go for €40k cash but offered him as a trade in an astonishing €15k on his own car so that would be an additional €30k on top of his own car for a chop top and two years younger....

That idea naturally went by the wayside but maybe that is the norm at the moment ?

That soft top oil burner has got to be over priced?

Are new cars more expensive in Ireland than they are over here even taking into account the exchange rate from £ to E's?

New, that thing over here would have been just shy of £40,000!  So even going on a 1.15 exchange rate that makes it E46,000 new?  Even at a year old it should be cheaper than that, no wonder the sales guy said he'd let it go for E40k cash.

Your brothers car over here would be worth about £16,000 as a trade in, new it is listing at being around the £30,000 mark.  Sounds about right, car is worth ~50% after 3 years.

Doing the conversion to Euros that would be about E18.5k trade and was ~E35k new.  

I think he is loosing a couple of k on the trade in value and the car he was looking at is a couple of k over priced.

One to avoid.

Unfortunately you are forgetting VRT (Vehicle Registration Tax) on all cars here.

The 320D M-Sport Convertible lists at €54,260 new here !

The 320D M-Sport Coupè lists at €47,010 new here !

The list price in '07 may have been even higher for the Coupé due to recent BMW price reductions and emmissions based VRT being introduced in the last 2 years.