BENEFITS OF BUYING YOUR CAR FROM A LOCAL DEALERSHIP
WHY BUY LOCALLY?
What Are The Benefits Of Buying Your Car From Your Local Dealer?
Should You Consider Buying Your New Car In Europe Or From A Grey Importer?
In theory, you can save money by doing so, but look closely at the figures and you may find that they don't really stack up. For a start, the prices usually quoted for European-sourced cars are discounted ones: those quoted for British dealers tend to be recommended retail prices which, as even the least well informed car buyer knows, hardly anyone ever pays. Make sure you actually compare like with like. It could well turn out that once you compare the price being quoted by grey importers or European operators with the best offer from your local dealer, there won't be that much difference.
It's more than that though. Your local dealer will be able to offer you immediate delivery. Sourcing the same model from Europe or an Internet site may take months in some cases. And if you go to one of those 'used car supermarkets', they probably won't be able to give you the exact colour and spec you want. If you need to buy on finance - perhaps one of those cost-effective Personal Contract Purchase schemes - you may also find that only your local dealer can offer it. 
Finally, it may sound old fashioned but you might like to support local business. Why should your local dealer be prepared to put himself out for you if something goes wrong when you've bought elsewhere? 
What Are The Financial Implications Of Buying Your Car From The Local Franchised Dealer?
Despite all of this, you may end up paying a little bit more for your new car if you go the traditional local dealer route - in theory at least. Add up all the sums however and you may find that you're actually better off. For a start, if you'd bought the car from the Continent, it wouldn't have been so well equipped. Get a brochure from a dealer in Belgium and sit down to compare what you get as standard - you'll often be amazed at the differences. It might well end up costing you a lot to create a comparable specification with the car you could have bought in Britain.
You should also take into account the much higher part-exchange price your local franchised UK dealer will probably offer you. If you'd bought on the Continent (or from some grey importers) you'd have had to sell your existing car yourself and probably got much less than a British dealer would have offered. Be honest: your local dealer is always going to give you a better part exchange deal. After all, he wants your servicing business. Then there are the residual values to consider - which are nearly always lower on imported cars. There's not much point in paying £1,000 less for a car new if it's going to be worth £1,200 less than a proper UK specification model when you come to sell it.
Will It Be Easier To Buy Locally?
Very few Continental dealers will know what the UK spec is of the car you want and few are likely to speak good enough English to guide you through the whole thing, anyway. It can end up being a nightmare. None of them will want your old car in part-exchange and none of them will have right-hand drive cars in stock for immediate delivery. All the dealers you're likely to speak to abroad will require a hefty deposit before they will order your car and all will want you to make two separate visits to their showrooms (weeks apart), one to place the deposit and the other to collect the car. 
Then there's the mountain of paperwork to consider: can you afford the time? As an alternative, you might try looking at some of the 'used car super-market' grey importer-type places locally but often, these can be poor. In some cases, there isn't much choice and the level of customer service can be poor: more 'do you want it or not?' Do you want to be treated like that?
Even where they do treat you properly, there are rarely any of the things your local franchised dealer will talk about. Incentives like cashback, free insurance or favourable finance. Plus buying from grey importers is just like buying abroad in terms of residual values - and in terms of UK-issued safety product recalls. If there turns out to be something wrong with the product and the UK importers issue such a product recall, as an 'unofficial' customer, you'd never know about it.