Any 530e owners out there?

Ahh very good. Won't have to worry about the summer too much if the last few are anything to go on.

Not a chance... The g30 will get abused over the next few years by the wife and family and the e46 will be minded and still be worth a few quid.

Haha that's in the pipeline for April hopefully so should be sorted.

You may also need to apply to Dublin City Council for vehicular dishing. Basically if you want to reduce the big kerb on the footpath down to a small kerb as your driveway will now be wider.

Hey lads,
I’m looking at a 530e/181 to buy from Japan. Should I have any concerns? Basically, I want to do this to gain experience with car importing since I’ve never done it before. The car currently has 55k km on the clock and would cost me roughly €22k to ship it to Ireland, including all taxes, VRT, etc. That is the price of the cheapest 530e on donedeal currently with the millage way higher.

I calculated the VRT, and I’m a bit shocked that it’s only €2,600. However, I’m not getting too excited, as the boys at Revenue might add some extras... I went through this thread, and it seems that for the next 50k km, I shouldn’t worry too much about decreasing battery life. I’m assuming it has already lost about 10% of its battery life, so I guess within the next 50k km, it might lose another 20% or so. This would give me about three years of use, as I drive approximately 15-20k km per year.

Has anyone imported a Japanese 530e themselves? I also read that it will need the charging port replaced—any idea what the cost of that might be?

Why would you import a €20k+ car to gain experience? If you want to gain experience you should import a cheap car.

I need to change my old car; it's been quite a while now. Since I have to do that, I thought, why not upgrade and buy a Japanese import as well? I would like to do the paper work myself, so I am up for a little challange. 😂

For what its worth, I’ve imported a 330e and a 530 Active Hybrid from Japan. Still waiting for them to sell but will definitely make several thousand in profit between them. But I got them both cheap from auction.

Would you mind PM me what you have for sale? What website do you use for bidding?

I should of expressed myself better €2600 is just the VRT itself

Yeah, I have been on a lookout for car purchase for a year already, and I’m overwhelmed by the number of baseline options available on the Irish market. Have you gotten a quote for the EU maps installation for your 530e?

Register on bmw.jp, that should work, another way I am not 100% on is to

try change the country in the app/car

type 1 charger or a type 2 to type 1 cable is what you need, don't worry about the socket on the car,

I would compare like for like, when I got my 3 series a few years ago for 18k vrt etc. included, I checked done deal for the same and they were 28k, funny thing was they were also Japanese imports.

Battery degradation is not a problem,

The car does about 20 to 30 km on electric and about 40 mpg on petrol, 15000km suggests to me that you have longer commutes than 20/30 km, work place charging might be required.

The Vrt calculation is fairly accurate in my experience, they wont go after extras on a 7 year old car.

As for warranty, I would keep any savings you made for repairs, if it breaks down your covered if not then happy days,

Aim for something with a little higher km, 80 to 100k km and a few dents and scratches will bring the price down,

Japan has kinda the same system as the UK car registrations, so the next few months more cars will be bought and sold, more choices at auction and cheaper prices.

Your 5 series is going to cost you around 13k and that is the extent of your gamble, the rest is paid here and is safe.

Range will depend on what year it is and battery capacity. Also will depend on what time of year it is 🥶🥶🥶

that’s great- it’s the newer model alright I think I read somewhere it can do up to 100km in on a charge but am dubious about that of course. I don’t have a charging port at home as I never had electric plug in before so if I can charge from a normal socket that will do me for the time being. It’ll have to be an extension lead out the window!
Sounds like a great way of saving on fuel for the short runs around town like going to the gym or shops