My notes on Zurich and Switzerland

You may of course consider buying a car. Purchasing a car is easy and relatively cheap. Here you can find a very good car purchasing guide in Switzerland (in English). A few notes:

I found luxury cars surprisingly affordable. For instance a 2000 model Audi A8 can be purchased under 20k. (Minimum wage here is around 3k) This means it costs more or less the same with a similar aged A6 and I am sure it will be thoroughly maintained. I found it weird and I am told that here you are expected to drive a car in line with your social status and if you drive a car belonging to the “upper class”, it is considered snobbish. I did not find it convincing as in my apartment’s parking, you can see cars ranging from Panda to Range Rover. Nevertheless it is noticeable and I wouldn’t mind if I look snobbish while cruising on an A8 that I can afford.

Another interesting thing here is, there are too many garages selling used cars (and very few shops selling –new- furniture, opposite oddity). So you can shop around and there is 90% chance of having one such shop within walking distance from your home.

You may also check the following web sites where you can find all sorts of car. (there are at least 10 brands I have never heard of before) In these sites I didn’t see many users selling their cars directly however. It seems people prefer to buy/sell through garages, to avoid a lemon I guess. Or call it Swiss conservatism.

• http://www.autoscout.ch/
  http://www.auto24.ch
  http://www.auto-online.ch
• http://www.car4you.ch
• http://www.bluewin.carweb.ch/

A large swiss auction site, www.ricardo.ch worths checking too

For car insurance you can check this document from www.comparis.ch

# posted by altan @ Sunday, June 04, 2006