LHD to RHD

riskky

Is there anywhere in Ireland u can convert a LHD car to RHD

ds20prefecture

riskky wrote:

Is there anywhere in Ireland u can convert a LHD car to RHD

It depends on the car, but this tends to be a massive job, and not worth the effort unless the car is particularly unique/hard to source.

Assuming the model of car is available in both LHD & RHD forms, you'll generally need a new or replacement
Dash/console
Pedals & linkages
Wiring loom
steering rack
Wiper motor & wipers
Gearlinkage
Throttle linkage
Clutch linkage.

Obviously if you have a donor car, the job is easier but still significant. Probably better to sell the LHD and buy a RHD.

If the car is not available anywhere in RHD form, you'll be looking at a custom dash and a pretty huge piece of engineering work to get the rest right.

If the car is something special/rare, you'll probably remove any value in the car by doing such a piece of work, and probably get shot by any originality freaks.

May I ask why you want to? I use a LHD car daily in Ireland with no problems at all. I do know one guy who converted his 1970s Citroën DS from LHD to RHD, but he's an expert mechanic and had a donor RHD car to use as a reference & source of parts.

Ernie Ball

ds20prefecture wrote:

I use a LHD car daily in Ireland with no problems at all.

Surely you exaggerate. Some problems:

1) toll plazas and drive-through anything;

2) difficulties overtaking;

3) higher insurance.

Guy:Incognito

Ernie Ball wrote:

Surely you exaggerate. Some problems:

1) toll plazas and drive-through anything;

2) difficulties overtaking;

3) higher insurance.

Theres an awful lot of eastern european immigrants who brought their cars and seem to do ok.

Ernie Ball

Stekelly wrote:

Theres an awful lot of eastern european immigrants who brought their cars and seem to do ok.

Do you know what the incidence of head-on collisions while attempting to overtake in a LHD car is relative to a RHD car? Without that information, one can't fairly say that they 'do ok' no matter what seems to be the case.

I'd say the incidence of all kinds of accidents is higher, which is why the insurance companies charge more.

Guy:Incognito

well by do ok, i mean that they are still alive and driving the lhd cars they brought with them, so id consider that "getting by" on a day to day basis.

Insurance companies charge more for whatever they can get away with. I was trying to insure a Civic I got for free a couple of years back and because it was a jap import they quotes I got were €5000, whereas for a larger engine Irish model civic I was quotes €1800.

Ernie Ball

Stekelly wrote:

well by do ok, i mean that they are still alive and driving the lhd cars they brought with them, so id consider that "getting by" on a day to day basis.

How do you know how many are still alive (or not injured or not facing criminal charges for injuring or killing someone else)?

Guy:Incognito

Ernie Ball wrote:

How do you know how many are still alive (or not injured or not facing criminal charges for injuring or killing someone else)?

Well Im going by the ones around my area, which are the same ones I see everyday, so I'm pretty sure they are alive and well. Do you have statistics or links to back up the claim that they are more likely to have an accident?

Ernie Ball

Stekelly wrote:

Well Im going by the ones around my area, which are the same ones I see everyday, so I'm pretty sure they are alive and well. Do you have statistics or links to back up the claim that they are more likely to have an accident?

No. All I have is the fact that insurance companies charge more. Given that the cars are, all things being equal, less desirable to thieves and at no greater risk of being lost in fire and the like, I conclude that actuarial tables would confirm that they are more likely to have an accident. Which does stand to reason even if one only considers the difficulties in overtaking.

ds20prefecture

Ernie Ball wrote:

Surely you exaggerate.

Surely not.

1) toll plazas and drive-through anything;

I don't even have electric windows, yet this is not an issue. I use the east link almost daily, and park in a ticketed car park. You just lean across or ask your passenger. It really isn't an issue.

2) difficulties overtaking;

granted, if you have a high powered car, this may be an issue. However whether LHD or RHD it is getting to the point where overtaking is becoming pointless unless on a motorway. My car has about 60bhp per tonne on a good day, so I tend to just keep pace or get overtaken.

3) higher insurance.

Not in my case. The insurance on my 2.0 RHD Alfa was €1300. On my 2.0 LHD Citroën it is €430 because it is a classic.

The OP did not specify, but I suspect it might be a classic. If not, it certainly isn't worthwhile changing from LHD to RHD.

Ernie Ball

ds20prefecture wrote:

Not in my case. The insurance on my 2.0 RHD Alfa was €1300. On my 2.0 LHD Citroën it is €430 because it is a classic.

Obviously I meant higher insurance everything else being equal. Yeah the insurance on a LHD Suzuki will be less than on a RHD Bentley. That doesn't mean much.

AMurphy

I'd go with the majority on this one. ie leave it LHD.

Tolls; Electronic Pass.
Overtaking; Stay well back so you have some warning of oncoming traffic, equally relevant even in a RHD. If it is a reasonably powerful car, then not a problem.

Insurance; They may take more objection to a botched-non-qualified conversion than to OEM LHD condition.


My cos. had a US LHD Golf for years with no problems, other than the luny in another LHD driving on the wrong side of the road.
So maybe get the official quotes and answers before cutting metal.

ds20prefecture

Ernie Ball wrote:

Obviously I meant higher insurance everything else being equal. Yeah the insurance on a LHD Suzuki will be less than on a RHD Bentley. That doesn't mean much.

What an unusually argumentative approach for you. Both the cars mentioned are the same value and the same CC. The difference is that I am perceived to be of lower risk because I drive a classic. I only ever referred to myself having no issue with LHD, obviously it comes down to personal preference and circumstances.

Again, the question is on what car is this conversion being proposed? I suspect it is a classic, mostly because anybody I know that has done this has done it to a classic. If it is a classic, then the insurance will not be much different one way or the other, particularly compared with the cost of conversion.

ambro25

I drove a LHD in the UK for 2 (whole) years. Never had an accident, never a problem with booths/car parks/tolls (just as DS20 said), overtaking was marginally trickier and certainly required you to think your manoeuver a lot more carefully than in a RHD car, though no more difficult than that, and my insurance was -hold on to your collective seatbelts- €124 fully comp' with roadside assistance from my French insurer. Quotes by Brit insurers at the time went beyond £2k, so not quite a photo finish.

As far as (e.g. LT) plates and the like are concerned, they are in exactly the same situation I was, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to 'get by' as previously posted (since I did), and I would like to think that they have green cards from their (e.g. LT) insurers, which are probably a damn sight cheaper than them IE daylight robbers

To the OP - what DS20 said. If a classic, you'll get roasted alive if you ever contemplate shows/resale. If not a classic, well, I just can't think of any car worth the hassle and expense (I did get quotes for my FR car back in the UK at the time, out of interest, a smiley suffice: :eek: ) compared to a "sell/re-buy" approach.

ambro25

-ignore 2ble post-

unkel

ambro25 wrote:

I drove a LHD in the UK for 2 (whole) years

ambro25 wrote:

€124 fully comp' with roadside assistance from my French insurer

Yeah and I bet the typical Latvian pays the equivalent of €6.99 to his Latvian insurance company for his early '90s Audi with blacked out windows. He's in the exact same situation. Illegal but the guards do nothing about it...

bmoferrall

ds20prefecture wrote:

I use a LHD car daily in Ireland with no problems at all.

I think you mentioned elsewhere that you also own a modern RHD saloon. Does it get confusing switching between the two? Ever driven both on the same day?

ds20prefecture

bmoferrall wrote:

I think you mentioned elsewhere that you also own a modern RHD saloon. Does it get confusing switching between the two? Ever driven both on the same day?

I regularly drive my wife's RHD Škoda, often on the same day as the Citroën. There aren't any similarities between the two cars, so it's difficult to get confused. My clutch control has gone to pot since getting used to the semi-auto in the Citroën and occasionally I get into the wrong side of the Škoda to drive away

shagman

I switch back and forth between LHD and RHD all the time and find no bother at all. You'll be used to LHD in a week. Cos my LHD is a big chevy Ateam type van I actually find the LHD to be usefull cos its fairly wide and on narrow roads and boreens you can pull right in to the ditch to let other cars past without any guesswork.

Yeah and I bet the typical Latvian pays the equivalent of €6.99 to his Latvian insurance company for his early '90s Audi with blacked out windows. He's in the exact same situation. Illegal but the guards do nothing about it...

Good point , I intend to do something about this myself.
Does anyone know how I would go about getting Latvian citizenship?

ambro25

unkel wrote:

Yeah and I bet the typical Latvian pays the equivalent of €6.99 to his Latvian insurance company for his early '90s Audi with blacked out windows. He's in the exact same situation. Illegal but the guards do nothing about it...

Nothing illegal at all if their insurance policy is EU-wide (the proof of which is the "green card", which is given de facto with the insurance cert' in France), as mine was back in the day. TBH, my mum pays €90 fully-comp a year on her twingo, and I wish to God some French ins. company would insure my IE and my GB cars...

unkel

I have been switching between LHD and RHD over well over 10 years and I find it very easy, almost fully automatic. Walking towards the passenger seat instead of the drivers seat and trying to use the door handle with my left hand as the gear knob after a prolonged spell of RHD are the only exceptions :rolleyes:

ambro25 wrote:

Nothing illegal at all

Go away out of that

It's fine for a tourist but not if you live and work here. If you claim and your insurance company can prove that you have lived here for years, I doubt if they'd pay out

The guardai don't do anything about it when stopping you at a checkpoint, because they'd have to prove that you live here. Doing this is too "intrusive" compared to the level of the offence of driving without insurance. Surely this should be changed so that YOU have to prove you DON'T live here to get away with using foreign insurance - similar as when you plan to get a VRT exemption when moving to Ireland from another EU country

riskky

The question remains unanswered.can it be done or not and if it can,who can?

Ernie Ball

riskky wrote:

The question remains unanswered.can it be done or not and if it can,who can?

I think the question was answered by DS20Prefecture at the top of the thread. In general, it can be done but it's prohibitively expensive to do it.

When discussing switching between RHD and LHD I think a further distinction has to be made. There are 4 different scenarios among which one might have to switch:

1) RHD in Ireland, UK, Japan, etc.
2) LHD in Ireland, etc.
3) LHD in France, USA, etc.
4) RHD in France, USA, etc.

I presently frequently switch between (1) and (3) without a problem as I often travel to the US and France. However, I'm not sure I'd find it so easy if I found myself in (2) or (4) precisely because, when I'm driving, it feels like what I do is largely determined by where I'm sitting. In other words, I don't have any difficulty driving in a hired car in France because, when I'm sitting on the left I immediately go into 'drive on the right' mode. If I had my RHD car over there or a LHD car over here, I think I'd probably get confused.

On the other hand, if someone switches regularly between (1) and (2) then they might not have a problem unless they were confronted with (3) or (4).

ambro25

unkel wrote:

Go away out of that

unkel wrote:

It's fine for a tourist but not if you live and work here. If you claim and your insurance company can prove that you have lived here for years, I doubt if they'd pay out

They would if you disclose full details of where you 'live' and they provide you with an insurance contract on this basis. Enforcing compliance with IE law in respect of VRT, IE plates etc. is not their mandate.

unkel wrote:

The guardai don't do anything about it when stopping you at a checkpoint, because they'd have to prove that you live here. Doing this is too "intrusive" compared to the level of the offence of driving without insurance. Surely this should be changed so that YOU have to prove you DON'T live here to get away with using foreign insurance - similar as when you plan to get a VRT exemption when moving to Ireland from another EU country

Well, then, perhaps the 'Gardai' should be trained in elementary skills of foreign documentation reading. It's not as if they're short of people to stop to exercise those, around Dublin, is it? UK cops who spot-checked never had any problems/compunctions stopping me on a FR license plate... and were reasonably skilled, enough to check the validity and legality (we're in the EU, guys and gals, you can drop the insularity act) of my (foreign) paperwork. :rolleyes:

tbh, not bothered about fattening IE insurers at all (which appears your main concern so far - you an insurer, unkel? ) so long as the foreign insurance is valid, as opposed to no insurance at all.

I've availed of the VRT exemption and have since the IE insurers to thank for a 125% hike in my premium :mad: - that's compared to the UK, where I already thought premiums were astronomical.

In that respect - to the OP - if you're considering shifting a LHD car to a RHD to reduce premiums, that's a false economy if ever I saw one / heard of one...

ds20prefecture

riskky wrote:

The question remains unanswered.can it be done or not and if it can,who can?

Yes it can.
I will do it for you.
Please send a purchase order for €17,576,348.00 to "Happy Dude, 342 Evergreen Terrace, Dublin 19"
Also, I will need a 30% deposit up front, and perhaps a hint at what car it will be done on.

riskky

ds20prefecture wrote:

Yes it can.
I will do it for you.
Please send a purchase order for €17,576,348.00 to "Happy Dude, 342 Evergreen Terrace, Dublin 19"
Also, I will need a 30% deposit up front, and perhaps a hint at what car it will be done on.

Thanks but no thanks,with that sum I can get myself a brand new car :eek:

ds20prefecture

riskky wrote:

Thanks but no thanks,with that sum I can get myself a brand new car :eek:

Ok, I'll try one last time. What kind of car are you proposing to do this with?

Type 17

ds20prefecture wrote:

Ok, I'll try one last time. What kind of car are you proposing to do this with?

This is highly relevant as to whether it can be done, or is worth doing:

I considered doing it on a Mk1 Golf, and it was easy, so I did it - from RHD cars, I got:
Dash
Pedal Box
Dash Loom
Brake linkage (master cylinder remains on left on RHD Golfs)
Wiper Mechanism & Arms
Throttle & Clutch cables
Steering Rack & column
Sun Visors (vanity mirror)
Headlights

With a few brackets from the RHD car (cut off with a grinder, and welded to the LHD shell), I was able to make the swap easily, and to factory standards.

However, when I considered getting a cheap-but-high-spec LHD Audi 80 S2 from Germany, and converting it to RHD, I found that the following additional items would have to be changed too:

All looms and fuse and relay boards (all located on whichever side the steering wheel is on)
Heater and fan motor (swaps places with fuse board)
Door locks (central locking is different on driver's side)
Electric Connections to illuminated sunvisor mirror
Height-adjustable driver's seat (fixed-height passenger one)
Trim fittings around pedals (clutch rest, kick-plates, etc)
Electric window loom (all four switches available to driver)
Master cylinder, ABS unit & it's loom, and brake pipes

The additional complexity meant that this job wasn't worth it, so I didn't bother...

riskky

After all that has been said,I don't think it's worth my while.Thanks all!

DubTony

[sigh]After all that[/sigh] .... and we still don't know what car it is