excpomea

That's going to be a nightmare for 400 owners.

S Folinsky

Our second car is a 2004 BMW which we have had since new. Twelve years after purchase we had to replace a part which was supposed to last the life of the car, so it was not stocked in the US. So, special order to air freight it from Germany. $800 please, in advance. FWIW, the equivalent part for US car is $85.

PetrifiedExPat

Which part? Yes that is a huge markup. I will say though that I am pleased to hear your 2004 car is still running. I want out 2021/22 cars to last at least 10 years

Pulaski

There may have been some misunderstanding about what "the life of the car" means. Most vehicles are scrapped within about 10 years and at less than 200,000 miles, so if you keep running a vehicle past those parameters you are pushing it beyond the what the marketing department ever envisaged.

trentschris

Yes, got the same feedback from others... Im selling 2 of them and will buy in US. Cheers

tht

I assume this tread is really about registering cars in the US. My brother was able to bring a VW camper van from EU to US on a ROLO and then took it up to Canada for 2-3 years, and he then did a tour of some US national parks, and had to wash all the red mud off it on my driveway before he shipped it back from the US to EU about 3 years later….

my 2nd hand understanding is there is some sort of international convention on reciprocity that enables people to overland around the world and Arabs to fly their cars to London etc… and that you can buy some sort of insurance at the EU boarder when coming in from outside.

Pulaski

Yeah, you can bring your vehicle to the US as a visitor/ tourist and stay, I think, for 12 months without falling foul of the treaty rules, but in any case a US visitor's visa is limited to 6 months, and after that you'd start to fall into the clutches of the IRS too.

That said, apart from any visa issues, so long as you keep moving around, from state to state, I think it is relatively unlikely (unless you were arrested for something) that anyone would ever notice that you've been here for over 12 months, or 24 months, .... or 36 ..... and ask you about registering your vehicle. On the flip side, without an SSN and some sort of residence status in the US it would be extremely difficult (or impossible? ) to register and insure a vehicle even if you wanted to!

However once you buy/ rent a home*, start work, put your kids in school, etc, each US state views you as a resident and you are obligated to obtain a state DL and register your vehicles with a few weeks or months (never exceeding 90 days AFAIK).

*Unless you are already resident in another state. E.g. a resident of NY buying a vacation home in FL would typically keep their NY license and registrations even if they spent four straight months living in Florida.

tht

for tax and maybe Insurnace minimums I actually see it more the other way around for people with an option of both… FL plates in NY and CT but that’s a different story…

S Folinsky

Steering column sensor. My mechanic said they are nicknamed "yo-yo" due to it's round shape with a wire sticking out.

We tend to keep our cars for 15 years or so. We maintain them and our mechanic is a whiz. (He is still grateful for his wife's green card and his naturalization. Yes, I gave him a largish discount. But I digress). Every three years or so, the BMW demands $3000. Next time that happens, it's history

The shortest time we have owned a car was a Jetta Sportwagen - with a diesel engine. DieselGate turned said vehicle into a Toyota RAV4.

Pulaski

I have no doubt you're right, I was only giving an example and a couple of states - I could as easily have said "state A" and "state B".