Moving with my finance car abroad

Ksieniek79

Hello folks,

I have a Vauxhall corsa in finance and I am wondering if Ivan take this car with me abroad. I have now moved to the United States and am considering shipping it. However, I'm not sure if General Motors finance will allow me taking my car to the states. Do you think that after two years of payments , all regular and in full the finance company will allow me to move this car abroad? I'm willing to continue payments as they are just brexiting! Or do I have to ditch it? Has anyone had a similar issue before? Thank you.

AndyMc.....

So you want to drive a right hand drive Corsa in the States?

fwor

I would have thought a RHD car in a LHD country would be worth next to nothing when you come to sell it, and quite difficult to shift.

neilmcl

One thing you need to get into your head is that despite all the payments you've made so far the car doesn't actually belong to you. I doubt very much that the finance co. would allow you to do this nor is it actually an easy thing to do in the first place.

jimjames

The cost would surely be prohibitive too.

henry24

jimjames wrote: »

The cost would surely be prohibitive too.

Don't think it costs that much in a container, I used to know someone who had a big Honda motorbike and he used to ship it across every summer ride round for 3 weeks then ship it back.

angrycrow

It is not just the cost of shipping. As soon as it hits the usa you have a bill for 2.5% of what they value it at. Before it can touch usa ground it has to have a full steam clean of the under carriage to remove all foreign fauna and flora. If the car is not compliant to the states emissions which can be much stricter than uk rules you have to pay to have it modified. It may also require modification of the bumpers to meet usa rules.

After all of that you will have a car that is almost unsalable as it is not left hand drive. Get a loan to clear the finance, sell the car and use the funds to clear the loan then purchase a car once you get to america.

JP1978

If its HP and has a VT clause in it (most do) then look into how to do a voluntary termination.

basically, if you have paid of half the debt, you can hand the car back to the finance company and walk away. Obviously if you have equity in the car, better to sell it to a dealer and they clear the finance. (or as above, use a short term loan).

DCFC79

Duplicate thread here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5627348

tim9966

I seem to recall some sort of rule that the car needed to be over 25 years old to be exported from the UK to the US.


I think it would be much easier to sell you car here, and buy a new one in the US.

iolanthe07

I lived in California, and I can tell you that there is absolutley no point in trying to import an ordinary car into the USA. Even for a valuable classic car, the hurdles are horrendous. True, California is probably the strictest of the states over emissions and so on, but all the states have their own rules designed to keep foreign cars out unless they are specifically modified by the manufacturer to comply with state regulations. Believe me, it is not like importing a car into France or Spain! There are classic British car clubs (I belonged to one with my son's 1972 MGB) but they are nearly always cars that had been compliant with US requirements when they were built.

Edit: Good used cars are really cheap in the US. I bought a used Pontiac Parisienne for under $4k. It had a 5 litre V8 engine, was very luxurious, and built like a tank. Your main problem is going to be insurance.