New car sales slump and imports surge in Galway

Sales of new cars in the first half of the year are down more than 15% in Galway.

However, sales of secondhand imports are motoring ahead are up by more than one-third, as buyers look to the UK for bargains.

Data compiled for the Galway City Tribune by car history-checking website Motorcheck.ie shows that a total of 3,419 new passenger vehicles (cars, jeeps, people carriers and caravans) were registered as ‘171 G’.

That figure compares to 4,041 which were registered as ‘161 G’ last year, a decrease of 15.4%.

For commercial and Heavy Goods Vehicles, the decrease was more pronounced at almost 23% – from 1,001 to 773.

Registrations of motorbikes were up from 17 in the first half of last year to 26 in the first six months of this year.

The most popular new cars in Galway in the first half of this year were the Hyundai Tucson (152 sold); Toyota Corolla (151 sold); Nissan Qashqai (124); Ford Focus (120); Skoda Octavia (116); VW Golf (111); Toyota Yaris (111); Ford Fiesta (102); Toyota Auris (94) and VW Tiguan (88).

Of the new cars registered, 2,265 were diesel; 965 were petrol; 160 were petrol/electric hybrids and 20 were electric. The most popular colour was grey, followed by black, white, blue and red.

Meanwhile, importation of used cars was up a whopping 37.7% for the six-month period – from 2,126 last year to 2,927 this year.

The top imports were the VW Golf (204 sold); Ford Focus (199); VW Passat (155); Hyundai i30 (116); Audi A4 (101); Toyota Avensis (86); Audi A6 (81); Ford Mondeo (79); BMW 5 Series (68) and Toyota Auris (67).

A total of 2,383 used imports were diesel; 436 were petrol; 73 were petrol/electric hybrids; 20 were electric; eight were classed as ‘petrol/plug-in electric’ and seven as ‘diesel/electric’.