… or “Perseverance, Patience and lots of time on the Internet and telephone”
We knew we’d need a car for the year at Bible college, and thought that the simplest solution was to keep our French car and import it into the UK. I made a quick phonecall and was told “oh yes, you won’t have to pay import tax on your car” … so I thought it would all be easy. Hah!!
To import a Peugeot 206 – more than two years old and over 60,000km – into the UK, you have to go through the following process. First the car has to pass the Mutual Recognition Scheme. Oh, but before you can apply, you have to have a European Certificate of Conformity – you can write off to Peugeot for this – and your car has to be altered to comply with UK regulations. Which means it has to have headlights dipping the right way … which means changing the whole headlight blocks … and a speedometer indicating not only km/h but mph. Our local garage changed the headlights today … but found that where they had thought they could replace the dashboard with a right hand drive dashboard, it’s actually the wrong shape. So they told me “sorry, we can’t help you”.
I had found a “dashboard specialist” on the internet, so phoned him. He said “oh yes, I used to do that but I don’t any more” (aargh!) but he did give me the number of someone else based in Southampton who might be able to do it. So I phoned that company and they said that they can do it! And will come to the house!! And have another job in MK44 the same day (“clin d’oeil de Dieu” – a wink from God, as the French might say!).
Then when the modifications have been done, you pay to put in an application to the Mutual Recognition Scheme, who will (hopefully) send you a certificate saying your car meets British regulations. And you must get your insurance sorted out at the same time … because you have to have insurance to be able to apply to the DVLA for British registration … but once you have insurance you only have two weeks to get registered (sigh!).
Of course it also costs to apply to the DVLA. They register the car and sort out your road tax for you.
Oh, and I forgot to say that there is the MOT to pass before applying to the DVLA, which the garage is doing for us tomorrow morning.
So yeah, really simple.
Still, Marc says that we wouldn’t have been able to sell the car in France, as it’s very hard to sell second hand if you aren’t part exchanging for a new car. So we wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy an equivalent car here. And we are really blessed that a friend of the family gave my parents a little Micra last year, so I’ve been added to the insurance and we have wheels until our car is registered, taxed and insured!
We knew we’d need a car for the year at Bible college, and thought that the simplest solution was to keep our French car and import it into the UK. I made a quick phonecall and was told “oh yes, you won’t have to pay import tax on your car” … so I thought it would all be easy. Hah!!
To import a Peugeot 206 – more than two years old and over 60,000km – into the UK, you have to go through the following process. First the car has to pass the Mutual Recognition Scheme. Oh, but before you can apply, you have to have a European Certificate of Conformity – you can write off to Peugeot for this – and your car has to be altered to comply with UK regulations. Which means it has to have headlights dipping the right way … which means changing the whole headlight blocks … and a speedometer indicating not only km/h but mph. Our local garage changed the headlights today … but found that where they had thought they could replace the dashboard with a right hand drive dashboard, it’s actually the wrong shape. So they told me “sorry, we can’t help you”.
I had found a “dashboard specialist” on the internet, so phoned him. He said “oh yes, I used to do that but I don’t any more” (aargh!) but he did give me the number of someone else based in Southampton who might be able to do it. So I phoned that company and they said that they can do it! And will come to the house!! And have another job in MK44 the same day (“clin d’oeil de Dieu” – a wink from God, as the French might say!).
Then when the modifications have been done, you pay to put in an application to the Mutual Recognition Scheme, who will (hopefully) send you a certificate saying your car meets British regulations. And you must get your insurance sorted out at the same time … because you have to have insurance to be able to apply to the DVLA for British registration … but once you have insurance you only have two weeks to get registered (sigh!).
Of course it also costs to apply to the DVLA. They register the car and sort out your road tax for you.
Oh, and I forgot to say that there is the MOT to pass before applying to the DVLA, which the garage is doing for us tomorrow morning.
So yeah, really simple.
Still, Marc says that we wouldn’t have been able to sell the car in France, as it’s very hard to sell second hand if you aren’t part exchanging for a new car. So we wouldn’t have been able to afford to buy an equivalent car here. And we are really blessed that a friend of the family gave my parents a little Micra last year, so I’ve been added to the insurance and we have wheels until our car is registered, taxed and insured!
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