Anyone bought a car from the USA?

vix2000

Thanks but I have already had 2 lhd american cars so am used to driving them. I can get a much newer, therefore more environmentally friendly, vehicle for the money which will be running on lpg. Also the insurance is cheaper.

mrtg0525

vix2000, you'll have to arrange for the shipping of the car from the dealer to the port, and the collection from the port here in the UK - they're normally not included in the shipping cost.

Also, don't forget than if the car is less than 10 years old, it'll have to pass an ESVA in the UK in order to get it registered. Cars older than 10 years only require MOTs... Anyway, for the ESVA you may have to check if you can get a model report or a confirmation from the manufacturer that the car conforms to UK specifications (not sure about the latter, the former is usually required for Japanese Imports as a lot of them don't have UK equivalents). Without the model report, you may find you've just bought an expensive doorstop, provided you have a big enough door.

It may be worth buying something like Classic American if you don't already and have a word with the importers in there. Some of them offer ESVAing a car
as a service.

vix2000

Thanks for the advice. I assume if I bought a ford or chrysler vehicle I could get a model report from the main dealers here?

mrtg0525

I wouldn't rely on that one, especially if the vehicle was never officially imported into the UK in the first place as there would be no point in the manufacturer having one. And if you're not looking for a UK-spec vehicle I doubt that they'd be overly interested in helping you if they're a franchised dealer. Hence my suggestion in talking to importers instead of main dealers.

My suggestion if you are considering importing a car yourself would be to stick to something that's older than ten years and thus only needs an MOT to register instead of the whole SVA/ESVA rigmarole. I know that this is probably not what you'd like to hear but then again, I do know of a few cars rattleing around the UK which are currently unregisterable because people bought them without checking that you can actually get a model report for them. And now they're waiting for the car to turn ten...

steveo3002

out of intrest...what cars are waiting until theyre 10 becuase they cant be registered?

mrtg0525

They're all models that weren't officially imported into the EU and thus have no European type approval (aside for vix2000 - if you get something that's already got EU type approval I think that would negate the need for an E/SVA; This may be worth looking into as I'm not an expert in that particular field).

From memory, one's a very late (2001 or 2002) Mazda RX7 that came in shortly after the law changed, another (again from memory) a N/A R34 Skyline. Basically, in both cases people made the mistake to assume that these cars were OK to register because other similar cars are already in the UK. The problem in at least one case was the "similar" bit as it wasn't the same model. With the RX7s, there are a few very late ones that came in before the law changed so people just assume they're OK to bring in and then find out they aren't.

Basically, if you see a Japanese or any other grey import that's less than 10 years old and advertised as "just needs registering" and the seller doesn't know where to get the model report, you've just found out why he's selling it on...