shoo

I genuinely believe that it’s not worth bringing a R/H drive car over here, although you will get used to the steering wheel being on the wrong side, it’s still has its difficulties. :scared:
Although there are a lot of people (illegally) using British registered cars over here, and getting away with it, but who knows, you may get stopped and find out they’re having a clamp down and its, bye bye car, or even worse, one day you may have an accident, killing or injuring someone, only to find out your insurance is void due to a technicality!

As for second hand cars out here, yes they are more expensive but they do hold their value, and bargains can be found, in January I bought a two month old 1.5 T/D with full electric pack and 4* safety rating, for €11000 (sorry BritBull)

rogerb

As long as Spain & UK are both members of the EU, I find it hard to believe that Spain could get away with making the use of rhd cars illegal (or, for that matter, that UK could ban lhd).

I find it easier to drive a rhd car; my body is programmed after 48yrs of driving to use my left hand to change gear and to look left for the interior mirror.
On narrow country roads I am better-placed to see the often-rough road edges.

The big disadvantage, overtaking, isn't a great problem to me, as most of my driving is either urban or on motorways.

When I am on the dreaded N332, I just hold back and exercise patience. If absolutely necessary, I use my passenger to tell if it's safe to 'have a look'.

Secondhand value is unimportant to me, as I intend to drive my current, (Spanish-reg and insured) car until it has none!
By then my driving days may be over, anyway

steve in pago

Try this company in UK they seem to have a lot of ex american service peoples vehicles up for sale .
Worth a phone call
http://www.cutmaple.com/cgi-bin2/cutmaple/general.pl by the way not all have accident damage

jdr

I think shoo was meaning all the UK reg cars that are not UK taxed and MOT`d. Even if it is insured here i bet they would not pay out if it was not taxed and MOT`d, and the Guardia could easily confiscate it for dodgy paperwork.

shoo

Hi jdr

you got it in a nutshell

cheers, bri

zel

It's a bit of a long winded way but the cheapest way is buying a used LHD car in Germany and registering it in the UK then driving it around for a year (or until the road tax runs out) in Spain before registering it there.

Now one thing that hasn't been mentioned but is the law in the EU (it might be one of those overlooked things in Spain I'm not sure)

Any car you buy outside of Spain HAS to be produced in the EU and sold directly to the EU (not sold to outside of the EU then bought back into the EU)

When you buy a LHD (new or used) vehicle or indeed your RHD car you will have to contact the manufacturer to have a certificate issued to say it passes all EU regulations, this is called a "Ceritificate of Conformity"

Now when buying a second hand or new LHD outside of Spain the chances are VERY small that it's an "import" and thus not being able to have a C.O.C issued, but I would never buy a vehicle without this document in the owners manual pack as it's just not worth the risk.

This document does not come with a EU car by default it has to be ordered at cost. So if you do some surfing find an interesting car make contact and if you're still interested enough go see it, put a deposit down and the full balanced paid on supply of the C.O.C (they will order it) Once it's arrived fly back and pay the full amount and drive the car away knowing you have all the T crossed and I's dotted.

If it's anything like importing a car into the UK from Germany the law says (not entirely sure if it's EU law or UK law, i would imagine it's EU law)

You do not pay the VAT in the destination country unless it's less and six months old AND has less than 6000KM's.

So for example if you bought a 2004 car with 6100KM in Germany when you bought it to the UK (and i imagine spain) you do not pay their local VAT as it's already been paid in the original country.

If the vehicle is newer than six months (or new) or has less than 6000KMS then you will have to pay the local VAT (say for example Germanys) AND have to pay the Local VAT on registration then you can reclaim the German VAT back (it will take some time and a few calls, but make sure the company knows you are going to do this, do not buy off an individual for export only a company)

The only way around this is if you have a VAT qualifying company where you can buy it NET in Germany and then just pay the VAT in the destination country.


--

I strong suggest you sell your RHD car and buy a LHD vehicle as it will start to be a pain and once you've had enough of it you will have to go back to the UK to sell it or try and find a Brit returning to the UK to sell it to.

Not to mention psychologicly if you have a LHD car it doesn't scream inside your head "i can go back when something goes wrong" kinda thing. Make you feel like you're settling in and wanting to stay.

If you want a LHD vehicle sourced for you I can put you intouch with someone who does it for a living (supplying LHD cars to expats on their way to Spain) It's not me but a good friend of mine hence me knowing about importing/exporting of vehicles.

Hope this has helped somewhat.

Sorry one last tip if you go the Germany route to look for a car a good sign (unless faked which is ultra rare) that a C.O.C would be no problem to order yourself (if you don't want to wait around for them to order it and just want the buy the car and get home)

Is to have a look on the stickers of the car, it's normaly on the black sticker on either under the bonnet or on a door post.. normaly black with silver writing with the load weights etc on it.. it will have a number started with EU* or EU<something>* that is the EU type approval number which means it has passed the EU regulations and thus you won't have a problem with ordering a C.O.C

EsuriJohn

Hi Zell,

Sounds like a lot of hard won experience there (BAOR perhaps). I thought I would follow your route and buy nearly new left hand drive in UK and drive it down.

But my chosen vehicle is Italian (Fiat Doblo Family[7 seats] with the 1,3 multijet diesel) 7000 miles would be just nicely run in. Add the trip to Spain and it should be an excellent all purpose run around that is cheap to run and service.
Where would be best to source such a vehicle?

I have done a couple of self imports from Holland and Germany to UK and had no problems at all but the C.O.C and EU type approval are vital if you are to have a smooth passage with the first UK registration. Thanks for all the tips and advice.

Regards,

John.

zel

Unfortunately sourcing such a LHD vehicle in the UK already I would imagine would be rare as hens teeth as most of the LHD imports are normaly sports cars,Minis and stuff like that.

I would imagine the cheapest route would be to source one yourself and do another self import. From what I've heard Belgium is a good place to start whilst looking for Fiats and a damn sight closer than Italy!

Have a look on Fiats website for a dealer in Belgium and try from there.

One last thing I forgot to mention (it was a late night post!) When you try and register a LHD car in a RHD country it needs a few bits and bobs done to it. I've read on forums that if you're "friendly" with a garage and they just run you up a letter saying it's been VCA prepared 99 out of 100 times the VCA will issue you with a letter without wishing to view it. Then you can reg it and go off to Spain without having had to do anything to the car.

But if you want/have to do it the following needs to be done to have a VCA letter issued: on a LHD/Continental car it will have headlights that shine in the opposite direction, a rear fog on the wrong side and obviously the speedo will be in KMH..

The only real expense is the speedo change (which from past experiences with Fiats was a pain and no-one knew if it was possible or not so you would be wise to make sure with fiat uk if they can change the speedo for a mph one as when i looked into it i never got a definative response so gave up)

The lights are cheap to do, you can bod it by the reflective strips on the front and the rear fog can be bought from halfords and strapped on (you've probably seen them before little red box hanging off the bumper on some cars)

Note: When you goto spain, all you have to do is disconnect the fog light, take the strips off the front lights and the speedo will already output in kmh/mph but the odometer will record in miles. If you want this changed you will have to pay fiat to put the old one back in.

You may be able to have a speedo fascia made up which would mean you take the cluster out gently take the fascia off and put a mph one on and vis versa when you move to spain. If you do decide to go this route ask me for someones number and call them before you buy the car to make sure he can make you a fascia up, it's the cheapest and in the long run way less hassle.

Ikke

Apparently a lot of people do come from Spain to Belgium to buy cars as there is a significant price difference.

If you want a nearly new car there are a few car supermarkets on the edge of Brussels. One I have used which is very good is www.myway.be - no price negotiation and no trade in but the prices are always good on guaranteed cars. The stock varies by time of year. The sales people usually speak English there too.

There's another place called Nearly New Car Center but I can't find their web address at the moment.

EsuriJohn

Hi Ikke,

That site is brilliant puts Brit 2nd hand supersites to shame. Have about 1/2 dozen Fiats but not Doblo at the moment. If you can find the web address for the other site would grateful.

Regards,

John.

Ikke

Found these two
http://www.auto-on-net.com/vehicles/...n&resetQuery=2 http://www.transauto.be/en/index.asp

which may be of help. Otherwise I suggest just doing a Google Search for Second Hand Cars Belgium. The Fiat site for Belgium doesn't seem to have an inventory search but you may be able to link to the various dealers from there.

Good luck

sibsie

My top tip for buying a cheap car in Spain...

When I first moved over I rented a car from a small local car rental place in Javea. (Javea cars) They did me a great deal on the rental and then I decided to buy the car I was renting. It was a 6 month old Fiat Punto and cost me 6k Euros with a full warranty. Well worth trying as it does seem the cheapest option.

zel

On the same sort of subject does anyone have a Autotrader type site for Spain if there is such a thing?

BritBull

Mentioned somewhere here i think:

http://www.coches.net/ocasion/

In Spanish but simple to use.

rogerb

Sorry, shoo, I misunderstood you.
Yes, there is an appalling number of untaxed & hence uninsured UK-reg cars here, in the Torrevieja area.
The Guardia had a 'swoop' in Ciudad Quesada a few weeks ago and nicked quite a few