Perhaps homesick for RHD cars, I am so used to it, I am fine driving it in a country with LHD’s apart from that I get the same question from people “Can I ask you a question, I say “Yes”, they say " How do you manage to drive with the RHD car in this country” me say “Fine”…“Apart from when I want to overtake” but then “As a British driver I tend not to overtake” lol. 
After driving for many months driving I became like them and start overtaking, apart from I reply on my wife to tell me when to overtake 
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Hi Catherine,
I will try and advertise it in Leboncoin, but I am sure with the new Brexit rules, they will find it hard to register in the France and pay for custom duty and VAT. What a such bad idea is Brexit.
It depends on the vehicle. We have sold numerous RHD Land Rovers in France. Obviously quite different if you are selling a RHD Twingo but prestige models are perfectly saleable.
That’s my understanding too.
Yes! Put your number plate into the DVLA site and it will tell you the info that is publicly available about MOT and tax status. Your car comes up as non taxed (due April 2019j and no MOT (due 24 April 2019) and not off the road or with an export marker.
The reason would quite simply be economic.
Secondhand cars are SO much cheaper in the UK than France. Therefore, for example, I have a French registered but originally UK/RHD BMW Estate car which I leave in France. That model of car would currently be worth significantly more in France than in the UK…easily three times more if it were LHD.
So, if I were to offer it up for sale (which I might soon!) at say only 1.5 times what it’s worth in the UK (instead of three times) then I’m sure I would quite easily find a buyer prepared to put up with RHD for the money saved. This is especially so in rural France where the low traffic volume makes very little practical difference whether you have RHD or LHD.
Cars are kind of my ‘hobby’ and I would never consider actually buying one in France.
You are implying that your car is french registered and probably with CT. Rather different from a UK reg which would have to be re-registered and have a CT, and is probably illegal to drive u til these things have been done as sounds like no french insurance either.
I’m sorry Jane, I thought I read further up the page your post where you said words to the effect that you “simply couldn’t understand why anyone would buy a UK RHD car in France unless they were driving back to the UK.”
I did miss where you specified “UK registered”. So, apologies for that. However, my point would still hold!
If someone had such a car in France and was selling it in France but at a near UK price, instead of a French price, then I (and probably others as well) would still, all other things being equal, buy that car and simply register it in France. For the most part and for most run-of-the-mill cars it’s a fairly straightforward process.
Does anyone know why cars seem to cost much more secondhand in France?
It’s more a question of “why are they so cheap in the UK?”
I’ve just spent the last 3 months in Germany and secondhand cars are more expensive there than the UK too.
The UK car market is much more driven by people buying brand new cars essentially on credit finance by whatever package it’s clothed in e.g. personal lease plans etc. So many people get locked into these 3 year cycles.
So the market is constantly driven by people having to have new cars which means the secondhand market becomes ever more saturated. Therefore, the prices of secondhand cars are ever more depressed.
I’ve seen cars for sale, at decent money still, in France and Germany that you virtually couldn’t give away in the UK.
Yup, credit is easy to get in the UK and is another bubble just waiting to burst. Covid and the economic downturn might just do that, and there will be a lot of people unable to service their personal contract car loans. Something like £60 billion apparently…
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As long as a RHD car was registered in France I would certainly choose it over a LHD.
All the time we had a LHD car I was a nervous wreck (passenger 95% of the time) always had the fear of cars coming towards me, the French tend to hug the central line 
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But people hug the central line whether you are driving RHD or LHD? The issue to me with RHD is pulling out and turning right onto another road as the road angles are set for people driving LHD, so you don’t have as much visibility. And overtaking of course - but I rarely do that whatever I’m driving!
Overtaking should never be any issue really.
Your position as the driver in a RHD vs LHD is only about maximum about 3ft different.
If that small difference is making it difficult to see up the road to make overtaking safe then you are trying to overtake from a position too close to the vehicle in front. By hanging back and overtaking from a safer position that 3ft difference in seating position should make negligible difference.
I drove performance BMWs as daily drivers that were only ever available in LHD in the UK for nearly a decade and never had an issue with feeling overtaking safety was compromised.
Also, as already pointed out, people tend to drive near to the crown of the road (in France and in the UK actually) and that means most of the time you can actually see way up the road ahead by staying away from the crown and looking right up the inside of them!
I’ve driven lots of RHD cars in Continental Europe too and really the only ‘slight’ issue is at Peage points if I’ve been alone. But, even it has its positives as at least one is forced to get out and exercise one’s limbs intermittently on a long journey. Following drivers have always been completely understanding and fine about that.
Yes, if I had to replace my car in France I would do so with another bargain from the UK! 
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Even that’s not a problem these days with the automatic gates. 
I drove our RHD merc very happily here for 11 years. Everything @Derin100 says is true about sight lines. Wish we still had it.
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Overtaking shouldn’t be an issue, but perhaps as a very confident driver with a higher performing car you don’t consider things the same way. Also, several times I have been forced to brake hard when hanging well back (which I do anyway) as some moron has come up fast from the back of a queue of traffic and forced themselves into the gap.
I am more comfortable overtaking here in a LHD car, and feel safer at certain junctions too. Perception is reality.
Mind you, a RHD car is probably less likely to be stolen…
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I agree, but If visibility is iffy I drive the car on a straight line to the white line which gives me clear vision both ways.
We don’t hug the central line because we have better judgement with the ditches.
Will it be a bargain post Brexit?
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Good question. I don’t know. They’ve been bargains in the UK because of the credit driven culture. Who knows how that will change once everybody stops thinking about the pandemic and the reality of the consequences on people’s personal finances of Brexit unfold…??
Derin what sort of of channels would you recommend in the UK to find a decent second hand car at the lowish end?
Wasn’t my plan, but am considering returning to UK to find a backup vehicle as soon as we are allowed. I don’t think the licence-swapping delays in France are going to be fixed before I have to replace my current vehicle. So I wont be able to take a French car by the time my existing one will need replacing.
What method would you use to source one in UK these days? Are prices inflated by Covid?