tooboocoo

Does anyone have any advice or lessons learnt on exporting a GCC vehicle to the EU (continental, LHD) countries when their time is up and they return to Europe? It's a LHD, European-built vehicle so type approval-wise there should be no issues. I understand there will be some costs, and that the appeal of bringing one's own car back must be carefully weighed up against the convenience of the plethora of similar vehicles freely available all over Europe, but I've done those sums. Are there any other significant barriers?

mikelincs

The vehicle must be totally uncustomised, be exactly as the manufacturers spec otherwise it will be unable to be matriculated until it is returned to factory spec. It may be european built but might well differ from the EU specs in some ways like window tints, so they may have to be modified, unless there iss something really precious about the vehicle then I would just get rid before the move and buy when you get there.

scrubbedexpat141

What car is it?

archie159

A friend of mine did this a few years ago - a Mercedes convertible, with not much resale value here, but plenty of life left in it (he reckoned). He found a specialist car-import company in the destination country to help - they did it all, including the shipping and registration, for what seemed to me to be a very low fee; if I remember correctly just a couple of hundred dollars more than the shipping alone would have cost, but a massive saving in bureaucracy and time.
I also know people who have shipped Volvos back to NL, which apparently was very worthwhile doing in comparison to the cost of second hand Volvos there (and I know US friends who did the same for BMWs to USA).
Maybe worth trying to find a specialist importer at your destination country?

DXBtoDOH

It's next to impossible to take a car back to the US if it wasn't exported from the US in the first place. US has very strict regulations for importing a car into the country and all my American friends looked into it and concluded it wasn't worth the money because you have to pay to have the car inspected in US customs and for the car to be upgraded to US specs, which was more than the actual replacement value of the car. But if you bought a car in the US, brought it to the Gulf, and took it back, then that's fine.

sicklyman

Jeep Wrangler Sahara Premium with black leather seats...

scrubbedexpat141

Snort.

tooboocoo

Thanks all, for the useful replies.