Importing from the UK - definitive guide (Q and A)

colm_mcm

epopnomis wrote: »

I'm sure its been asked before but when I go to VRT appointment what is the best way to pay the TAX. It will be around 3,500 for me. Would a debit card work?

Yes.

bazz26

I don't think they accept cash or at least not a large amount of it.

michellie

mgn wrote: »

23th of May.

Sorry I'm only replying back now. That date will be fine revenue won't be applying penalties. It will be reviewed by them at the end of this month. Bookings should be opened today and tomorrow keep an eye on the website, more centres are opening next week.

mgn

michellie wrote: »

Sorry I'm only replying back now. That date will be fine revenue won't be applying penalties. It will be reviewed by them at the end of this month. Bookings should be opened today and tomorrow keep an eye on the website, more centres are opening next week.

Thanks michellie.

epopnomis

Hi, I'm having an issue ringing around for a new quote as I have imported a car from the UK. My current insurer is looking for 800€ for a Audi A6 S line Avant year 2015. I've rang FBD and they refused to quote me as its a UK reg. I cannot get a VRT appointment as there are none available.

Anyone else having a similar problem to me. Anyone manage to change insurers while they had a UK reg car.

I would have got this VRT'd months ago if I could and now I feel I'm being penalised for COVID19 timing.

colm_mcm

epopnomis wrote: »

Hi, I'm having an issue ringing around for a new quote as I have imported a car from the UK. My current insurer is looking for 800€ for a Audi A6 S line Avant year 2015. I've rang FBD and they refused to quote me as its a UK reg. I cannot get a VRT appointment as there are none available.

Anyone else having a similar problem to me. Anyone manage to change insurers while they had a UK reg car.

I would have got this VRT'd months ago if I could and now I feel I'm being penalised for COVID19 timing.

I got plenty quotes way above €800. for an Octavia 2.0 TDI.
(37, full NCB, no points etc). I only got 2 quotes anywhere near €600, and I shopped pretty much every company.

Try getting online quotes with an identical car and use its Irish reg number, just as a yardstick.

I had no problem getting quotes on the UK reg last year. Is their issue that you've had it in the country over 30 days or something?

If you have full NCB and pay monthly, you could always look at transferring the insurance onto the A4, then change insurers mid-policy.

epopnomis

I didn't realise it would be possible to change insurers mid policy. If thats an option it might be worth pursuing.

tabby aspreme

Looking at a few cars over the weekend, one of which has a UK reg, can the garages fast track the vrt and nct, or could it be weeks before the car can be put on the road, I didn't think of asking when in the garage. Thanks

User1998

If the car was in stock before Covid it is most likely pre registered, so they just register the car in your name and you get the car on Irish plates. If this isn’t the case you could ask your insurance will they insure you on the car for 14-21 days while it still has the UK reg. Depending on the garage they may not sell you the car and let you leave on UK plates as technically they are not allowed sell un registered vehicles. Better to just call and ask them really.

michellie

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Looking at a few cars over the weekend, one of which has a UK reg, can the garages fast track the vrt and nct, or could it be weeks before the car can be put on the road, I didn't think of asking when in the garage. Thanks

It depends, the garage may have had the car pre-inspected and they can register it whenever it's sold. The garage may also have future VRT bookings made (if they were lucky to get them)

If they don't have the above they will most likely be waiting for an appointment for registration.

michellie

epopnomis wrote: »

Hi, I'm having an issue ringing around for a new quote as I have imported a car from the UK. My current insurer is looking for 800€ for a Audi A6 S line Avant year 2015. I've rang FBD and they refused to quote me as its a UK reg. I cannot get a VRT appointment as there are none available.

Anyone else having a similar problem to me. Anyone manage to change insurers while they had a UK reg car.

I would have got this VRT'd months ago if I could and now I feel I'm being penalised for COVID19 timing.

Stalk the website tomorrow, bookings normally open of a tuesday

colm_mcm

User1998 wrote: »

If the car was in stock before Covid it is most likely pre registered, so they just register the car in your name and you get the car on Irish plates. If this isn’t the case you could ask your insurance will they insure you on the car for 14-21 days while it still has the UK reg. Depending on the garage they may not sell you the car and let you leave on UK plates as technically they are not allowed sell un registered vehicles. Better to just call and ask them really.

Garages don’t preregister imports.

deezell

colm_mcm wrote: »

Garages don’t preregister imports.

True, but they were able to get it inspected and VRT paid fairly quickly so you wouldn't be waiting too long to collect with your shiney new reg. What with the deluge of imports and then covid, I guess they're waiting as long as anyone to get inspected, paid up and reg'd. Like Michelle suggested though, they're probably sharper at grabbing a vacant spot on the day, and won't turn up with incomplete documents etc. I'm still smiling thinking of the two Romanian lads ahead of me last August protesting because the VRT officer wouldn't accept their dodgy address ID or the big 2k wodge of oily Euro notes they wanted to pay with. He told me after that the private inspection rate fail was horrendous.

tabby aspreme

Apart from the vrt, the nct would need to be done also.

User1998

colm_mcm wrote: »

Garages don’t preregister imports.

Sorry I meant pre inspect not pre register, if its been done they just go onto ROS and put the car in the customers name

michellie

deezell wrote: »

True, but they were able to get it inspected and VRT paid fairly quickly so you wouldn't be waiting too long to collect with your shiney new reg. What with the deluge of imports and then covid, I guess they're waiting as long as anyone to get inspected, paid up and reg'd. Like Michelle suggested though, they're probably sharper at grabbing a vacant spot on the day, and won't turn up with incomplete documents etc. I'm still smiling thinking of the two Romanian lads ahead of me last August protesting because the VRT officer wouldn't accept their dodgy address ID or the big 2k wodge of oily Euro notes they wanted to pay with. He told me after that the private inspection rate fail was horrendous.

Haha laughing at that

He's right, it is very bad with private individuals

epopnomis

Hi all,

When I go to VRT inspection what do I need to bring with me, I know bills and ID and form that I got when I bought the car, anything else I need to bring?

wassie

Its all on the VRT website: https://www.ncts.ie/1155

Atlantic Dawn

epopnomis wrote: »

Hi all,

When I go to VRT inspection what do I need to bring with me, I know bills and ID and form that I got when I bought the car, anything else I need to bring?

Ferry ticket if not brought in from NIRL.

tabby aspreme

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Looking at a few cars over the weekend, one of which has a UK reg, can the garages fast track the vrt and nct, or could it be weeks before the car can be put on the road, I didn't think of asking when in the garage. Thanks

Called them, and they said they could sort the vrt immediately, and I could pay for the car and drive it home, and they would sort out the nct as soon as possible, but it could take a few weeks

jc11

Has anyone been able to get an appt for vrt? They've changed the message on their phone line saying you can now book online, but can't seem to get a booking when I try on NCT website

All in all

Is there any waiving of interest on VRT given current situation?

I made an appointment after 9 days of car arriving in country and will be completed on day 31. I presume the amounts would be small on this anyway.

Also the car I am importing is Jun 2019 so there is no Nox listed on V5c, I have pulled the car spec from manufacturers website, will this be sufficient to prove it or will I need something further?

crystalbrite

jc11 wrote: »

Has anyone been able to get an appt for vrt? They've changed the message on their phone line saying you can now book online, but can't seem to get a booking when I try on NCT website

I just booked now in Cork. The site has a list of centres open.
I had just imported at the start of COVID in march. Booked an appointment and then it got cancelled a week or two later.

https://www.ncts.ie/1155

Paul Kiernan

All in all wrote: »

Also the car I am importing is Jun 2019 so there is no Nox listed on V5c

Why would there be no NOx listed for a 2019 car?

All in all

Paul Kiernan wrote: »

Why would there be no NOx listed for a 2019 car?

From April 2019 its not listed on V5c.

Paul Kiernan

All in all wrote: »

From April 2019 its not listed on V5c.

Any idea why not. Presumably you'd need the individual CoC for that particular car? Revenue don't seem very flexible on NOx!

deezell

Paul Kiernan wrote: »

Any idea why not. Presumably you'd need the individual CoC for that particular car? Revenue don't seem very flexible on NOx!

Probably to do with Brexit, and removing anything that was an EU requirement, even when it's in the public interest. Hopefully, the car has a Euro6 CoC code on the V5, this limits the nox to less the 80 diesel, 60 petrol, so max charges of €600 and €300 respectively. Revenue also have a spreadsheet, posted here before, which you can quote.

deezell

Here it is
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zig2407cRrC2i6HTPlKsVQuPydMazvjM/view?usp=drivesdk

All in all

deezell wrote: »

Probably to do with Brexit, and removing anything that was an EU requirement, even when it's in the public interest. Hopefully, the car has a Euro6 CoC code on the V5, this limits the nox to less the 80 diesel, 60 petrol, so max charges of €600 and €300 respectively. Revenue also have a spreadsheet, posted here before, which you can quote.

That's good to know. £200 for cert of conformity, so not worth paying that. Have technical spec from manufacturer which has nox at 0.036 so should be €180. Can't find the car on the spreadsheet.

crystalbrite

Car Import Report (long post incoming):

Summary:
Imported 2016 BMW 330e M-sport high spec, ~50k miles, ~£16750, https://www.phoenixcarcentre.com/
RAC check £250
Shipping company to Cork €400 (I didn't see the car in person)
VRT+Nox: Expected ~€750
Used revolut premium for exchange rate and paying

I decided in January I wanted to upgrade my car. I spent 2-3 months on this site during the whole thing which I found very helpful so I thought I'd write up my experience. I wouldn't have been big into cars before starting but I like to do my own research and appreciate a nice car.

Started in January. Had a 03 Audi A3 1.6L petrol 3-door, still driving fine, starter car, had for 8 years, bought cheap, just wanted something newer/flashier. Spent first weekend or two just going around to all car dealerships looking at all types of cars and test drove a few but mostly looked trying to get an idea of what I wanted.
Since I had an A3 I was inclined to upgrade to a an A4 2016+ to future proof it a bit. I liked the interior of the A4 and seemed cheaper than a BMW or Merc.

Next I started looking at price, specs, engine, import vs local. Since I'm not doing massive milage I decided on 1.4L turbo petrol and was looking for an s-line spec. I saw some nice s-line spec 2017 A4 1.4L Turbo petrol manual for ~£14000 on autotrader.co.uk which I thought seemed good compared to prices here. I was looking to spend ~€20000 max. After looking into improting I was seeing that the VRT was ~£4000! Note most 2016+ engines have low Nox charges so this is all VRT, diesel is similar. After adding this in and the £:€ conversion it was coming to €20000+ and seemed like it was only an extra €1000-€3000 to buy in Ireland for somehting similar and I'd also have a warrenty and not have to worry about the hassle of shipping, RAC check etc. So after this I was humming and hawing a bit.

After reading around here and commenting a bit I saw that hybrids have a big VRT import discount. I started looking at the 2016 BMW 330e and MERC 350e and became very impressed with what I saw. I'd be getting a nicer looking car, better specced, automatic, more power. Also I have a relatively short communte to work with electric charging at work so the 20-30km range of the batterys would suit my mon-fri driving perfrectly. Also the VRT was <1000e for these cars so it actaully was working out cheaper than the Audi.

Next I went and test drove a 2016 BMW 330e and 2018 MERC 350e. Initially on paper I was leaning more towards the Merc (higher base spec car, better finish, looks more expensive) but the BMW really grabbed me with the driving experience. I was excited driving it. The Merc didn't have the same feeling. After a bit of thought my heart was set on the BMW. The fact the Merc dealer was a bit of a dick too probably didn't help. I was looking for a 2016 but the oldest he had was a 2018 so I could just see he wasn't interested in trying to sell to me. Also he seemed clueless about the the car. I asked some probing questions about it which I already knew the answers to and he was clueless. The BMW dealer was much better. He was also driving the new 2019 BMW 330e model himself which helped.

Anyway, dealerships didn't matter too much as I knew I was importing. Since I don't change my car often (had previous for 8 years) I was going to look around, spend the extra money and try spec the car out as much as possible. I went on autotrader and made a list of 20-30 cars I liked the look of in Excel with prices, year, milage, and specs that were improtant to me. After doing this I was then able to whittle them down to ~5 cars where I was getting good bang for my buck and ticked as many boxes as possible.

In the mean time I also looked at https://flippingbuddy.co.uk/cars and https://ukcarimports.ie/. Flippingbuddy can buy a car from auction for you. Ukcarimprots can also do this but also a lot of the autotradercars also appear on ukcarimports and they'll import it for you. I was having trouble with flippingbuddy as there website wasn't updating with any BMW 330e. After emailing them for over a week and no updates to the website I just forgot about them. Ukcarimprots seemed okay but I had already put in so much research myself I kind of wanted to just finish it off myself and not pay the surcharge.

So next I contacted the 5 garages in the UK with the cars I was interested in. My top choice got back to me stragiht away. Smaller independant garage south of london https://www.phoenixcarcentre.com/. 162 BMW 330e M-sport nearly fully specced out. ~50k mi ~£16750. Heads-up display, Pro-nav, white leather, tinted windows, heated stearing wheel, all the driving assitance lane check stuff, folding rear seats. The only things missing are the upgraded speakers and 19" wheels (which I didn't want).

I was emailing the dealer back and forth. He sent me copies of V5, HPI, AA report. All looked good. They bought off a leasing company a few months before. I asked next to do an RAC check which he agreed to. He actaully asked if I would consider an AA check instead as they had trouble with the local RAC guy before being too pedantic but I insisted on it as an AA one was already done. He had no issue with this. I paid a £250 deposit to the dealer and rang RAC. After looking up the logisitics of flying over and transporting the car back myself, cost of flight, ferry, time, hassle I had decided I was going to pay for someone to transport the car back for me instead. I didn't mention this to the car dealer yet as I still wanted him to think I'd be seeing it in person just incase he'd try pull something although from the phone calls he seemed like a decent chap. Because of this I decided to pay for the more expensive comprehensive RAC check. Note it's advertised as £189 but this is for a small car. I had to pay £250 for the BMW 330e. Also I don't know that much about cars myself so I didn't think there was much advantage to me looking at the car in person myself. What would I spot that an expert from the RAC wouldn't?!

The RAC check was organised for the following week. Got a call from the RAC guy afterwards. I didn't actually find the chat with him too useful. Sounded like he was just regurgitating what he had wrote down in his report and get off the phone as soon as possible. I had to interrupt him several times because he wasn't giving me a chance to ask questions. I suppose I was kind of looking for an insider guidance on what to do next e.g. for him to say "based on this I'd go back back to your dealer and make him fix x x and x". More details here: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=112576588
It was all fine in the end though. I spoke to the dealer about the issues that came up in the report. Some oil residue in the rear diff which he sent to a local BMW specialist to get fixed and also got a wheel realignment for some slight wheel feathering.
Also I got the dealers to send pics of any scrathes or damages from the report and they were all minisucle. I got him to buff out one thing on the front bumper.
Not sure if all these fixes were 100% necessary but the dealer did them with no issues and spent roughly the same pirce as the RAC check so it paid itself off and gave me the piece of mind to import without flying over to see the car myself.

While this was going on I also looked up companies to import the car for me. I just googled and emailed about 10 places the same message to get quotes. NVD came back with a qutoe of €400 including VAT and would deliver to ringaskiddy in Cork which was perfect for me. This was by far the best quote I got. A lot only import to Dublin too. Also I was working out €350 to fly over and transport back myself, not including a day off work and full day travel, this was a no-brainer.

Once dealer came back with invoices of the fixes, I paid him, the shipping company and got things underway. I never got any money knocked off the car during this whole process. I tired a small bit but he wasn't budging. I also read UK dealers don't do this much anyway. Also between the fixes and price I was happy enough anyway. Note between first contacting the dealer, the RAC check, fixes, payment all took around 3 weeks. Bit longer than expected. Just takes time to get stuff done. Back and forth. I told dealer to include V5C, proof of sale, 2 car keys when handing over to shipping company. All arrived with car.

Next that was sorted I had to get rid of my current car. I was actually going on holidays for a week when the car would be imported over so ideally I wanted to get rid of my current car before going and arrive back to a new car. I had a 03 Audi A3 1.6L petrol 3 door with NCT. 130 miles. Car still running perfrectly and apart from 1 or 2 quirks (minor warning lights) was showing no signs of stopping. Also had just replaced timing belt, back break discs, front tyres, and taxed till July for NCT in january as I wasn't sure if I was going to go ahead with buying a new car or not. I put it up on donedeal for €750 which I thought was a good price considering the money I put into it recently but was willing to let go for 500e by the end of the week. Had 2 test drives but didn't hear back. Someone contacted me the day before holidays then showing interest. I said if they could collect tomorrow I'd give it to them for 500e. They came, quick test drive, exchanged money, signed log book, done. Easy. All done in less than 30min. Felt a bit like giving it away for 500e but it was a 03 which isn't desirable for insurance, and also I didn't have anywhere to really store a 2nd car so good to get rid of it. Also probably lucky I got rid of it then because covid kicked off once I got back.

Once back from holidays I was just able to collect my car from NVD in ringaskiddy before they closed due to COVID. Delighted with the car. Looks great. Massive upgrade in every way compared to my old car. I love the heads up display on the windscreen and extra power. It's great being able to put the foot down on those long steep two lane inclines and easily fly past other cars. I still havn't played around with half the things in the car yet. Loads of small things too like adaptive headlights, heated steering wheel, heated leather seats etc. It's also great to have a nice looking car. I still get rush of joy when I come out of a shop and see my car parked there. I do find the car a bit bumpy on bad roads, proabably due to the harder m-sport suspension. I don't mind when driving on my own and having a bit of fun but I'm a bit more concious of it if I have passengers.

Since I've been working from home I've found I haven't been charging the car much as I don't have a convienient setup and only lasts ~20km. I do miss not having the battery when it's not charged though. Once I'm back to work I'll be charging it daily though as we've and external charging port. I had to order a 10m charging cable for this (~£150 https://www.evcableshop.co.uk/) as only a 3-pin plug comes with the car.

Anyway due to Covid still havn't got the Irish reg yet. The insurance company normally only cover 1 month on the english reg but rang up and no issues. They couldn't find 330e in the insurance car list so it's currently insured as a 330i. Once VRT'd I'd expect this to be fixed. NCT back open now so booked in. I'm expecting VRT to be ~€750. Once that Is paid I'll have paid ~€20000 total. I got the exchange rate for ~£1:€1.16. It had dropped from €1.20 but if I waited anohter few days I think I might have got €1.14 or €1.12 but you'd wreck your head trying to time all that correctly. I upgraded to a premium revolut account just before I made the exchange. I also needed it for some other exchange rate stuff so handy. Just recently downgraded back to standard account and they charged me 16e termination fee.

So currently delighed with the car. I haven't had to deal with the cost of BMW servicing or repairs yet so we'll see how I am when that happens. I kept my old car running pretty cheap with minimal fixes from a local mechanic working from his own garage so could be in for a shock.

Thanks for all the help and info!