Importing French car to England

[bubbles]

I've just read Quillan's sticky - thanks.

Our French car is still insured in France until the end of June. It is now in England where it will stay and we need to start the process of registering it, changing numberplates, adjusting lights and arranging British insurance.

In what order should all this be done?

My worry is that we can't change the registration details without switching insurers - and vice versa!

ps I suppose it might have bee a better idea to sell the car to you, Santenay! - easier all round.

[idun]

We had been going to keep our french car when we moved back, but I chickened out. Reasons were  it was going to be costly to get some of the required jobs done and we'd have to be very careful with doing things in the right order. So we sold our french car in France and bought one in the UK.

[AnOther]

You have returned to UK to live taking your France registered car with you yes ?

If so that raises some important points.

1. As UK residents you are not allowed to drive a foreign registered vehicle.

2. Have you told your French insurer that you are no longer French resident or are you just going by the policy expiry date. If you do not provide them with proof that you have either sold, exported, or scrapped the car then they will almost certainly charge you a further years premium. Just telling them you have exported will not do.

3. Although the French insurance may appear to cover you because of your UK residency in the eyes of UK law it does not.

4. Notwithstanding that it shouldn't be driven on the road at all then UK insurance is the first thing you need to be able to drive it to a prearranged MOT. Also you must have UK insurance to be able to buy the road tax which is about the last part of the process.

The best way to import a car is to get an import pack from the DVLA, it will tell you clearly and concisely what you have to do and include the relevant forms etc.

It might have been an idea to have researched this a bit more before moving though as you could have easily avoided most of the problems you now face [blink]

Idun had the best idea, or if you must drive back in it flog it to a LHD dealer in UK when you get there, when all the dust is settled I doubt you'll find you've saved much and remember, you'd have got the best price for it in France [;-)]

[bubbles]

Thanks for that, AnOther.

We are still French resident at the moment.

Will send for one of those packs without delay and get on with things.

ps Just ordered it online. Well, that bit was easy anyway.

[dave21478]

Insure it - you will normally need to do this using the chassis number rather than the reg number.

Change the headlights. I can't remember offhand if a MPH speedo is obligatory or not, you will need to confirm this with VOSA / MOT garage.

MOT it. Once insured, you are legal to drive to a pre-booked MOT without reg documents or tax.

Register it. There is a fee to pay (sub £50 from memory). You will need to show proof of ownership (Carte Gris) proof of UK address, MOT document and proof of insurance. This is best done at a DVLA local office where they will also let you do the next stage....

Tax it. You will have a temporay registration certificate which will allow you to tax the car. Remember to have your MOT and insurance papers with you.

The definitive V5C will arrive in the post from Swansea.

[idun]

MPH is obligatory. That was about the last straw for us, the price of everything kept going up and up.

[powerdesal]

[quote user="idun"]

MPH is obligatory. That was about the last straw for us, the price of everything kept going up and up.

[/quote]

I was also told that an MPH speedo was mandatory but my imported LHD Range Rover had a KPH speedo and was accepted without comment, this was a few years ago though. Apparently there are 'stick on' dial faces that are a conversion but I have only heard of them, never seen one.

[AnOther]

These are the regulations however they are not to say that certain MOT testers may 'overlook' this aspect when testing a foreign vehicle with a KPH only speedo [;-)] 

Regulation 35 Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 states that every motor vehicle shall be fitted with a speedometer except:

a vehicle having a maximum speed not exceeding 25 m.p.h.,
a vehicle which, at all times, is unlawful to drive at more than 25 m.p.h.,
an agricultural motor vehicle driven at not more than 20 m.p.h.,
a motor cycle not exceeding 100cc first used before 1st April 1984,
an invalid carriage first used before 1st April 1984,
a works truck first used before 1st April 1984,
any vehicle first used before 1st October 1937,
a vehicle fitted with an approved tachograph which is required or not.

Vehicles first used on or after 1st April 1984 the speedometer should be capable of indicating the speed in miles per hour and kilometres per hour. Vehicles may instead comply with EC Regulation (Community Directive) 97/39 or ECE Reg 39.
These directives stipulate the markings, graduations of the speedometer and refer to 75/443/EEC which specifies the tolerances.

The indicated speed must never be less than the true speed (it must read exact or high) and between 40km/h and 120km/h the error must not exceed 10% + 2.5 m.p.h. high (true speed/10 + 4kph).
This means at a true speed of 25mph or 40km/h the speedometer may read 40/10+4 = 8km/h or 5mph high = 30mph indicated.

[Les]

These are the regulations however they are not to say that certain MOT

testers may 'overlook' this aspect when testing a foreign vehicle with a

KPH only speedo

I think that you will find the speedo is not a testable item for the UK MOT.

[Sunday Driver]

But a kph only speedo has to be changed to a mph one in order to obtain your VCA mutual recognition certificate...

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/@motor/documents/digitalasset/dg_071776.pdf

 

[powerdesal]

In all fairness to the MOT station I went to, they probably never thought to look at the speedo, the car being a Range Rover built in UK, albeit LHD.

As it was subsequently stolen, crashed and written off it all became a bit academic anyway.

[bubbles]

Thanks, Dave.

Really useful information.

[bubbles]

And thank you, Powerdeal.

Fingers crossed.

[bubbles]

Thought I'd write an update on this ongoing saga - the attempt to reregister our French car over here in England.

It might just help someone else sometime.

We were informed by friends who have already returned to England that there are specialist LHD car purchasers so we tried two of them.

One offered us just over £2,000 but we would have had to drive miles to them and then find our own way back by train since the company doesn't do "swaps". It they did, we might have been tempted.

The other firm took 2 weeks to decide to offer us just £1,200 or to try and sell it for us for about double that. This place was also about a two hour drive and we would have been carless afterwards.

So, we took the plunge - we had the headlights changed, had the foglamp and the reversing lights swapped over and had an MOT done. (£450 in total)

We approached specialist LHD insurance companies for quotes. These ranged from over £500 !!!! down to just over £300 - for a tiddly little car and two drivers with clean licences and full no claims bonuses. These companies told us that LHD vehicles are always high risk for pricing. Not true -

Just as we were despairing, we were offered cover by a major insurance company who agreed to provide this at just over £200, using the chassis number instead provided that it was just for a short period, while we went through the reregistration period. Only drawback is that, although the car will be insured, apparently we won't be covered to drive it, except to the vehicle testing station! In our case it won't be a problem since we still have French insurance cover for another month.

We have now ordered a "new" speedo (£60), showing miles. Garage will charge £39 to fit it.

One final hurdle before we can apply for our new number plates - a conformity certificate! Chevrolet UK cant supply this since they don't have it on their database apparently.

So we are just waiting to hear from Chevrolet France customer care.

If anyone has experience of obtaining conformity documents, please share it!

Fingers crossed it will all be ok in the end but - what a palavar!!!

[idun]

You truly have more 'energy' than I felt I had to deal with all this. Good luck.

[AnOther]

Maybe that will teach people to moan about how it is in France bubbles !

[Anton Redman II]

The charge for the speedo is relatively cheap but a quick look at Boost / Max Power etc will show that you can obtain replacement cards which stick over the existing dial faces.

LHD - I would almost always sell in France.

Minimumm insurance extra premium for LHD in France used to be 10%.

[bubbles]

We did enquire about a replacement card or some sort of sticker to show miles instead of km but were told that there wasn't one for our car.

At least we are almost there now - just need this conformity certificate.

Oh, yes, almost forgot - we also need proof of no claims bonus (which we have on our renewal notice) but.........they want an English version as well as the French one.

And.........they want it to quote the actual years no claims bonus we are entitled to, not a percentage "bonus" as our French insurers have quoted.

Ah - thank goodness we still have some of that imported red medicine left.

[bubbles]

Still plodding on with this!

We now have a new speedo.

Guess what - it shows both miles and Kilometres!

Now why couldn't the French one have done that.

Also good news is that it shows only 14,000 miles.

I was afraid it might be loads more than the car has actually travelled.

Now, the big frustration is first of all getting our French insurers to give us something on paper showing our no claims bonus entitlement - in years!

We already have this expressed as a percentage on the renewal letter but it won't do apparently.

We also have somehow to get them to write in English as well as French. Have emailed 3 times now and asked very nicely.

[bubbles]

Forgot the second of all thingy.

We have had no joy with a reply from Chevrolet fr. concerning a certificate of conformity.

Our email to sav@chevrolet.fr was returned to us as undeliverable.

Anyone got any ideas?

[AnOther]

The address for Chevrolet France is:

SAS

1 - 9 ave du Marais

95102 ARGENTEUIL

Cedex Tel: 01.34.26.31.30

so a letter might work.

A bit pricey but this outfit might be worth a shot if all else fails, never personally used them so just a suggestion and not a recommendation [;-)]

http://www.eurococ.eu/en/

Chin up !

[idun]

Our insurance gave us a letter with several EU languages on it. Simple form. Hope your insurance does the same.

[bubbles]

Thanks, AnOther. Will give them a call on Monday.

And...thanks, Idun. I live in hope then!

Bon weekend a tous.

ps. AnOther, I tried that website but got message that the address was invalid.

[just john]

I am really surprised that no one has suggested advertising on e-bay, Autotrader or even dare I say an alternative Anglais/French Forum that allows advertising[Www]; equal to yourselves are a lot people struggling with to how acquire a LHD car for france, especially one that's registered in France already avoiding all that palavar! You'd probably get a premium for it especially over UK price or even advertise swopsy's. Just look at  ebay.co.uk/2005-CHEVROLET-MATIZ-LHD- £2795  .autotrader.co.uk/ 2005/chevrolet/Matiz-£2795 - Happy motoring[8-|]

[bubbles]

Further update.

Cautious optimism on two fronts but still not reached the sending-off-all-the-bumph-to-DVLA stage yet.

Front one: the French insurers wrote back eventually (sorry for the delay - I was on holiday) using the wodking I suggested to confirm in English that we are entitled to 12 years' no claims bonus. Good of them since they hadn't much idea of what they were writing.

Downside to that: It was just a tatty little e-mail so it could have been almost anyone writing it and I'm sure GB insurers won't accept it.

They also omitted to give the original French version.

Apparently the office scanner is not working so they couldn't attach a proper letter to the email.

They have now offered to send a fax direct to the insurers.

And, secondly: we received an email from Chevrolet France with a form to fill in and return for certificate of conformity. Pricey at 150euros but the main problem is that they want a cheque and won't accept a credit or debit card. And - guess what - yeah, we don't have a chequebook for our French bank account any more. Working on that one.

So, a few steps forward and a couple back.

I do like a good challenge. Keeps me young(ish).