Ciao from new member

Hi Browndog and welcome to the Italy community. I really do not know what you need to to if you want to buy a second hand car in Italy, but for sure you won't need to be resident. some of my cousins are German and when they decided to buy a house in Sicily, they also bought a second hand car for the few months they would be staying in Italy. They did not have residence at all and managed to do everything down there. I mean, as long as you pay insurance, you won't have problems. Otherwise, just buy the car in Dublin (with insurance paying in your hometown) and take it to Italy - nothing easier than that!  Foreign Numberplate is no problem as long as you won't be Italian Resident. 

Hi Browndog and welcome to the community. You are right, residency requires 183 days in the country (half of 366 days which is the maximum in a year). As for purchasing a car, there is plenty of information on the subject. Do a search here and also in the old forum at www.italymag.co.uk/forumsBest wishes regarding all your plans.

Welcome browndog.Good advice from GP above.  But remember that second hand cars in Italy are VERY expensive.  The advice seems to be to buy one in Holland or Belgium and drive it down.

Hi Browndog, I am another Dubliner, and I am losing the will to live here at the moment, with the weather being so bad. Roll on September when I am back in glorious sunny Italy.

 Hi Browndog, (I have one of them!)Welcome to the community, on a day like today here in Dublin ( it's 31 July, we have rain, and its cold) , all I can think of is being in Puglia next month...I'll stay in touch with this post and do a little research of my own with some colleagues in Italy about the problems (and there are some) of foreigners buying cars there. I assume that you don't want to buy here and drive there (i've done that a few times for holidays) and I'm not sure how long you can keep a car there before registering it OR selling it. I'll let you know what I find...JG