Import or buy French - Some thoughts

[oliveau]

Having  gone through the hoops with importing a couple of vehicles into France, I thought I'd air my thoughts for those who are still in a "should I or shouldn't I" position.

I started off trying to register a UK register 1992 Isuzu Trooper.

Got the CT OK, then found that it was too old to have a Certificate of Conformity [CoC]. DRIRE couldn't help because the Mk 1 Trooper had never been homologated in France. I got the original DoT Certificate from Isuzu, but my department won't accept it [although some apparently will]. So the car had to go to DRIRE for an inspection. By the time all this rigmarole had been sorted out, the CT was more than 6 months old and the car had to be retested. I also had to buy LHD headlights, which I'd put off until I was sure of being able to register it. Anyway, I gave up, and the car's back in the UK.

Then I bought a 1999 Ssangyong in the UK, Spanish registered and LHD. It cost me less than half what it would have cost in France, and I didn't have to change the headlight, and the speedo's in Km's. I went to DRIRE with all the paperwork, because they will prepare a dossier for you which goes to the Prefecture. Despite the fact that the Spanish logbook had a CoC, DRIRE couldn't find the Coc number on their database, and told me to contact Ssangyong France. S France wanted 150 euros, and as I was convinced that DRIRE weren't trying hard enough I persisted with them, taking in paperwork for several other Ssangyongs to proove that they are homologated in France. Eventually I got someone more senior who saw my point of view, and dug a bit deeper [Turns out it's called a Daewoo in France!]. So re-registered in about 3 months.

Conclusions:

If you are resident in France, I think a LHD car is easier - for instance, it makes you look the right way at roundabouts!

If you are thinking of importing your own car, make sure you have got a CoC that the French will recognise, or that your car is on the DRIRE database.

If the idea of a second hand LHD car appeals, think about buying it in the UK - MUCH CHEAPER. Subject to the provisos above.

If you want a new or nearly new car, then buy it in France.

Be prepared to get to DRIRE or the prefecture only to find that they are closed on one day in the middle of the week.

Be prepared for Gallic shrugs. Be prepared to wait!

40% of French employees are civil servants, but most of them haven't been trained in their jobs , so they are completely flummoxed when presented with non-French paperwork.

 

Bonne courage, Oliveau

[Sunday Driver]

In many cases, it's purely a matter of economics.

If your car is fairly recent, then it'd probably be cheaper to hang on to it and register it here.  If it's less than ten years old, it'll come with an EU certificate of conformity, so no problems in registering it.

If it's older than that (or a grey Jap import), then it's worth considering taking the financial hit and selling it before you come over.

As Oliveau says, you really need to obtain the necessary certificates before exporting a vehicle from the UK.  That way, you're not caught out with a car that is difficult/impossible to register that you may well end up taking back to the UK to sell....

 

 

[Anton Redman]

The other thing to keep in mind is that the cost of new headlamps, C of C and new plates are dead money. a second hand French car will seem very expensive but it will have a second hand value in four years time.

[steve]

We had a similar sort of thing with our Ford Ranger - We bought it from a guy who's parents are local, but he had gone to work in Spain with his German girlfriend! The car was a German car from new (3yrs old when we bought it) and was still German registered. We had to write to Ford France for the Conformity (with 150€), and go to the tax office to prove the impots had been paid in Germany, give the prefecture all the paperwork and 300€ (I think) and we were reday! If you do the research first, do the running about, its not too bad!

Cheers

Steve

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

You would have thought all you'd need to do is to change the headlights over and a couple of other minor things, seeing as we're all supposed to be in Europe. I guess it's just another money making scheme by the plebs in power. They're only cars for goodness sake.

[Sunday Driver]

It's because we're all in Europe that they devised the EU common standards for cars so that we'd only have to change the headlights over and a couple of other minor things......[;-)]

 

[Just Chris]

We moved to the Correze a year ago, having decided to import our car.  It's a 2004 diesel Rover 75 Tourer, and a superb motor, with only 26k miles on the clock.  We didn't want to get rid of it, partly because the value had dropped due to Rover's demise, and partly because we love it!  The intention was to bring it here and run it into the ground, as we know no-one else would want it and spares were sparse.  The initial difficulty was to get a conformity certificate, which we had to do (at a cost) through the Rover company receivers.  We changed the headlights in the UK.

Having got it here, re-registration was relatively straightforward.  We've just replaced all 4 tyres, and it now has it's first CT.

In reality it spends most of its time in the barn, coming out on high days and holidays and runs to Limoges airport.  For day-to-day transport we've bought a small diesel 4 x 4 (because of the terrain around these parts), but the Rover's still the favourite, and we certainly don't regret bringing it with us!

[Bugsy]

We've done both and buying french (although a german car) is certainly easier.

There can sometimes be hidden problems with obtaining parts for RHD vehicles in that some parts are 'handed'. That means obtaining them from france is amost impossible. (Dave, remember my Jeep radiator [:D])

It is also a myth that cars are more expensive here, you just have to shop around and haggle. We bought here, from a main Audi dealer, a one year old car, paid cash, no part-exchange and paid about 2000€'s less than an equivalent vehicle in the UK.

It is a buyers market

[oliveau]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

 If it's less than ten years old, it'll come with an EU certificate of conformity, so no problems in registering it.

 

[/quote]

I don't know how this works with cars emanating from the UK, but in my case, the Spanish log book said [in Spanish of course] that the car conformed, quoting a conformity number. There was no separate certificate, and I believe the same principle applies with UK registered cars.

Although I suppled a translation,  the prefecture refused to accept it the Spanish log book, and demanded a 'Certificate of Conformity'. Hence I had to go to DRIRE and pay a fee.

[Sunday Driver]

To be honest, the French have been slow to adapt their import procedures to fully reflect the EU measures which were designed to make it easier for people to move between Member States with their vehicles.

EU Whole Vehicle Type Approval was introduced in 1998 and any passenger car manufactured since from that date qualified for an EU certificate of conformity which would allow it to be re-registered anywhere in the EU without further inspection or modification.

However, the French continued to insist on a French national type approval certificate being obtained before registration, which was contradictory to the new regulations and it was not until 2002 that the prefectures were instructed to accept EU CoCs without question.

In 1999, the common EU community format registration document was introduced which provided for the EU type approval to be included.  However, at that time, only the Italian registration document fully complied with the EU format, so that was the only one that was approved for acceptance.  Since then, no further steps appear to have been taken to extend this approval to registration documents issued by other EU member States.

In theory, there shouldn't be a problem with producing an EU CoC because all new cars are supplied with one.  Now, what happens to those certificates afterwards is the issue.  I suspect that UK dealers don't always pass them on, either because they don't understand the significance of them, or if they do, then they assume that the majority of UK vehicles don't find their way across the channel - remember, there is essentially no market for UK RHD vehicles in continental Europe.

Perhaps the small UK expat minority should begin lobbying the French government to amend its procedures - or perhaps we should just save our breath and just put the 120€ CoC fee down to general moving expenses.....

 

[Beemer1150]

Before shelling out the €120 for the CoC it's worth trying to get it free!

I contacted my supplying dealer and Suzuki GB supplied me with a free one (for a car bought pre-registered) and BMW UK supplied one free for my bike after I emailed them direct - the bike was bought second-hand from a franchised dealer.

A friend here also obtained a free Cert for a much older Suzuki - so it's worth trying!

[oliveau]

As usual SD is concise & to the point!

 

[mousseux]

My Ford Ka was no problem to register I just had to have the headlamps changed. However, my partner's 2001 Suzuki Carry is beginning to look like a no go as we cannot get a CoF. We have phoned Suzuki who have told us they do not issue them for vans as they are commercial vehicles. We're a bit stumped now as even DRIRE seemed uninterested.

[oliveau]

[quote user="mousseux"] We're a bit stumped now as even DRIRE seemed uninterested.[/quote]

 

I wonder if this model was imported into France under a different name?

For example, if you said 'Vauxhall Astra' to DRIRE, all you would get would be a Gallic shrug, whereas 'Opel Astra' wouuld produce a response.

[gosub]

It seems they are available in France. http://www.lacentrale.fr/occasion-voiture-modele-suzuki-carry.html