My vehicle without certificate of conformity gets her carte grise

[sam in france]

 

We were buying a ski chalet in the French Alps and needed a suitable vehicle to pick up our customers from the airport and also to convey them to the slopes; hence we bought a Mitsubishi Delica a 4wd people carrier

 

We found a suitable vehicle and bought it, this is where it all got difficult, we needed to register the car as French, so we could insure it for our business and to comply with the law, only problem was the vehicle had never been imported into France and we could not get a certificate of conformite, this is a certificate which says the vehicle conforms to European spec, so this is how we got around it

 

Prior to our move to France we got a French friend to write to Mitsubishi France and request a certificate of conformity, this was not easy and several letters were exchanged until we eventually got a certificate to say the vehicle did not conform, this was essential later

 

We moved to France, in amongst all the other things we were doing we had to find left hand drive lights, big problem, these vehicles are not in France, but we did manage to find the lights at a garage in Switzerland who do have this type of vehicle

 

We located our local DRIRE on the Internet; these people inspect vehicles that are imported into France without the certificate of conformity

 

They gave us some papers to fill out, all admin stuff but difficult, IE every piece of Glass on the vehicle has a E number on it these had to be written onto this form in the allocated box, also this included all the lights mirrors etcetera

 

We were instructed to take the vehicle for a control technique (English MOT) she passed no problem, we were also instructed to get the vehicle weighed, whole vehicle, front of the vehicle, and the rear cost nominal

 

With all this done we booked in for the DRIRE test and on her day she failed on the fog light and the plaque construteur not complying it didn’t have the weights on it, cost of test 86 euros

 

We then sent off the logbook to DVLA and informed them we were exporting the vehicle and they sent us an export certificate

 

About 4 weeks later we got a letter confirming what she had failed on, they also included an example of what was required on the plaque constructeur

 

I managed to get a blank plate from Mitsubishi no thanks to them, but Big T at The Mitsubishi Owners club  forum gave me the part no, so thanks to him, part no MB291079 a blank plate with Mitsubishi on the top and places for information to be stamped in, this cost just a few pounds, they did look a bit surprised when their computer told them they had what they had previously said they hadn’t, I got the plate filled in and fitted it

 

Back to DRIRE and she passed, the DRIRE office sent all the paperwork to the Sous Prefecture at The Marie, we went there and they told us we needed a certificate from the Hotel des Impots to say that no tax was owed, this was close by and we went with our purchase invoice and they gave us a certificate straight away no cost

 

We went back to the Sous Prefecture and a Carte Grise was Issued  (French Log Book) cost 303 euros

 

She now has French plates and we have now got her insured properly for our business etcetera

 

To those that need it I can help out with copies of these docs, examples of mine

 

Certificate of non comfomite, copy of mine

 

The first fail certificate which list all the items checked

 

The letter from DRIRE which shows what was needed for her to pass

 

Please note this was how it was in my department 74, I don’t know how it will be with others

 

An