As the United States exports more and more cars to the European Union, data show that an increasing number of those vehicles are considered “risk cars” with underlying damage or serious problems.
The figures come from Carfax, an American web-based company that provides vehicle history reports to individuals and businesses on used cars and light trucks, HLN reports.
They found that just as European car imports from the US have increased, so too has the percentage of those cars that are damaged.
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Until 2015, about half the cars coming to the EU from the US were considered to have serious problems. That number has grown to 90% of the 342,642 cars imported in 2019.
“Anyone in Europe who buys a car from the US can almost certainly assume that the car has underlying damage or serious problems,” Carfax warns.
The numbers aren’t the same across all EU countries. Germany used to be the leader in cars imported from the US but when the number of problem ones rose, demand fell.
Most of the imported cars now go to Georgia and other Eastern European countries. In 2015, when Carfax first warned about the issue with American cars being in questionable condition, many were going to Lithuania where they were fixed cheaply and then diverted to other EU countries.
Helen Lyons
The Brussels Times
