European car imports from the US have increased enormously in recent years. Unfortunately, the share of cars with underlying problems has also become relatively huge.
In Europe we are apparently eager to import cars from the United States. Figures from Carfax show that in 2015 90,459 cars were brought from the US to Europe, in 2019 this was already 342,642. A growth of almost 280 percent. Well, that in itself is not necessarily a problem, but according to Carfax there is another worrying upward trend. The share of cars with a claim history or serious underlying problems has also grown enormously.
Until 2015, roughly half of the cars or sometimes even less were a ‘risk car’. In recent years, however, this has been the case for the majority of cars. In fact, in 2019 about 90 percent of the more than 300,000 cars imported from the US were such a problem. Carfax therefore warns; ‘anyone in Europe who buys a car from the US can almost assume that the car has underlying damage or serious problems’.
Because of the absurd percentage, it almost seems that cars with problems in the US are being pushed aside with the thought ‘they might still want them in Europe’. Well, not every country is keen on it anymore. For example, in 2015 Germany was still the leader in terms of US imports, but since the share of problem cars has grown, American cars have become relatively less popular there. In recent years, a lot has been imported from the US, especially in eastern Europe. Georgia, very eastern, has been the leader for four years. As many as 160,000 American cars were imported into the former Soviet republic in 2019.
Serving hatch
In 2015, when the number of problem cars was even less high, Carfax already warned against American vehicles. At the time, a lot of cars went to Lithuania, where the damaged cars from the US were repaired quickly and cheaply and then diverted to other European countries. In the Netherlands, we mainly get cars from our immediate neighbors, but if one comes from the US, it can do no harm to be extra critical or to look further.