Hello,
My partner and I plan to move to Fuengirola next summer. We are just wondering if anyone has any advice re our car. We ideally would like to take it with us but have heard a few horror stories about higher crime rates with British cars and it being a pain to register it with spanish plates?
Has anyone taken their car with them? Or sold it and bought a new one abroad?
Any advice would be appreciated as we are pretty confused!
Thank you in advance!

Email Graham Shelton ,who writes a motoring column in the Costa Blanca News, he does this for a living, and what he doesn't know isn't worth knowing.

Thank you. Do you know where I could find his email address?

In the Costa Blanca News.you can get it online.
Just google Graham Shelton Costa Blanca News, click on the site there is an enquiry form to email, or phone numbers if you prefer.

I don't know your area but I would say that the crime against foreign cars is not (generally) an issue.

We brought our car with us and had no problems at all in getting it legalised (onto Spanish plates etc.).

There are many companies that offer this type of service - just google 'car matriculation in Spain'

How old is the car, because it will cost a few hundred Euros to matriculate it, and, at the end of the day you are still driving a car with the steering wheel on the 'wrong' side, which will cause problems if you are alone in the car and get to a barrier car park, need to overtake etc. It's no great pain, apart from to your wallet, to re register as long as the car has not been modified in any way from it's original state when made, and modifications will have to be 'undone' before it can be matriculated.

I brought my UK RHD VW Polo when first moving to Spain, sold it when I bought a Spanish registered Mini.

I have a Land Rover Defender 300TDi 1997 I would get about £5K for it here as they hold there value quite well but I wanted to take it down with me next year when we move as it's a classic and I love it. It has tow bars either end so I suppose I will need to remove these. I am still in two minds what to do, take it or not.

If you love it take it

Hi

Firstly to pass the ITV test, the vehicle must be in original manufacturers specification - not the dealers specification; this includes tow bars, sun roofs and the like. Sometimes it is possible to homologate the changes, sometimes not.

What I usually advise is that if you have had the car for a number of years and expect a number of years use without significant repair costs, then it is usually worth re-matriculating it.

There are associated costs with re-matriculation - if you are going to keep the vehicle for two years or more, then the costs of re-matriculation are less than you lose selling and buying something else.

Davexf

Thanks missile and Dave, I probably will take it...........I just need to convince madam.

Nice car and valuable here also, have you thought about having it professionally converted to LHD before you get here?

Thanks. No I thought that might be a bit too expensive to convert and it definitely would be outside the manufacturer's spec.

Not worth converting IMHO.