I’ve got a one month old MOT, COC in German (at a cost of £130 from Mercedes UK). Had my local UK dealer adjust the headlights for LH driving (think that there is simply a switch near the headlights), and had the digital display set to display the speed in KPH.
The only issue that I can think of is that the analog speedometer reads in MPH. Is this likely to be a problem when importing the car…and are there likely to be any other issues?
thanks
Forgot to add that I’ve had both rear fog lamps enabled.
If you have a digital kmh readout on the speedometer there will be no problem. I have a car with the analogue in mph but the digital in kph. Even so nobody has ever questioned it.
Do you have to get both fog lights enabled?
I believe that the requirement is to either have the offside or both rear fog lights enabled. I think that most manufacturers only enable the offside light although its common for the wiring for both lights to be fitted. I decided to have both enabled as I’ll be driving on the UK and France, and it should mean that its one less thing to worry about when importing the car. From memory it was only in the region of £30 to get the other rear fog light enabled.
I have two cars. One has just one rear fog light, on the L/H side, the other has two rear fog lights. Both cars have gone through CTs successfully.
The car with two fog lights is RHD and needed a wire fitted to enable the second light (the work was carried out for free by a main dealer) the other car is LHD. If the second car had been RHD I would have needed to have bought a complete new set of rear lights which would have been expensive or to have fitted a separate fog light on the correct side.
So is it the case that there needs to be a fog light on the correct side of the back of the car - and that your left hand drive car has one on the correct side? The right hand drive car did nit originally have one on the correct side but by adding a second it then had one on the correct side (and an additional unnecessary one on the other side)?
The reason for asking is that I will need to add this as part of the conversion of rhd car to make it suitable for ct - so headlights & fog light on correct side?
Yes, if you only have one rear fog light it has to be either central or in the correct, offside, of the car. Individual cars vary so much. I’ve spent 30 years driving RHD cars in Europe and during that time have had cars that have two fog lights wired up, cars that have needed a wire routed to the second fog light, cars which have had to have LHD rear lights fitted because there is no fog light socket but the lens in for one the L/H light cluster and cars like my Golf where it is only possible to have one rear fog light and with a RHD car that means buying new light clusters for both sides.
Thanks David.
It might be too late, but if your car is ten years old or older, there should be no ‘Malus Tax’ to pay regarding the emissions. The highest tax to pay is when new, reducing at 10% per year.
Does anybody know if a UK registered car has to be taxed in the UK whilst the registration process in France has not yet happened.
The car in question arrived in France about a month ago, it now insured in France and I hope to get it registered in France in the next month or so. The UK car tax however runs out at end of April which may be before it is registered in France.
If it’s not on the road in the UK, don’t worry about it. The gendarmes don’t care if its taxed or not, neither does the insurance company. In any case, if its now insured in france, you can’t get UK road tax anyway.
Mat… have you been to the Duanes (customs) and got the Quitus Fiscale for the car… if you have, you are in the throes of French registration and no longer under UK thrall…
Do I need to? I was hoping to get someone just to register it for me on the ANTS website. I have been waiting for @fabien to be able to do this but he is not yet quite ready so I may need to find someone else.
You have to get the QF from your local tax office - and you will need it, take the V5, passport, leccy bill, and every other piece of paper you can think of.
You will need this piece of paper to get the whole process started. It is the point where you officially “import” the car into France… (more or less).
You will need: Invoice/Bill of Sale… showing Owner (you presumably); V5 document; Identification (Passport); proof of French Address ( EDF Bill or similar); Current Miles or Kilometres (whichever for the car);
In other words, a paper trail, showing that VAT was paid at some point in the car’s life… and that you are the current owner… et al
Thanks Stella
I need one of these and then the process through the ANTS system?
Yes, Mat… the QF is the first thing… you can’t go forward without it…
@Stella QF obtained this morning from FP (Finance Publique?) in Libourne.
Initially went the driving licence building elsewhere but after waiting for an hour told to go to the other building 1.1km away.
Arrived at FP - joined queue for Individuals - 15 minutes later at the desk told to go to the section for businesses, no queue here and job done in 5 minutes.
Whole process took about 2.5 hours - could have been 5 minutes if I had known where to go! (I am just relieved to get it sorted).