I'm moving from Houston, USA to Geneva (but we will be living on the French side of the border) in about 4 weeks and I'm planning on bringing my US spec 2007 XKR with me, anything I need to know about importing it into France, or tax, registration etc, any help gratefully recieved, btw my schoolboy French as not been exercised for about 30
years!

 

Hi, I've moved your thread to the Europe section where you will get the most help.
The following thread is a bit messy but covers getting your Carte Grise and insurance.
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/e...-france-65770/
At least you don't have to change the dip beam direction.

 

Hi there, you will need to get the following documents from the following places:

1. Attestation technique - from your local French office of DRIRE - approx 120€ You may be asked to pass via the "Bureau de Mines" for an inspection.

2. Attestation de TVA payé - from your local Hôtel des Impôts - as you are coming from USA rather than a European country there will be import taxes to pay.

3. A Contrôle Technique - from your local CT test centre - approx 65€

4. A Demande Carte Grise - from the Préfecture local to your new home. The cost for this will depend on the "puissance fiscale" - the administrative power rating. I think your car will be approx 30 chevaux so this one-off cost will be approx 1290€.

If I can help any further, pm me.

Cheers
Dave

 

Thanks guys, car should be here by the end of October and then I have to start getting it all legal like anyone know if you have to fit winter tyres by law in the Haute Savoie or Ain region?

 

No, you don't have to legally, but with the amount of snow there, you would be wise to, or at least carry snow chains.

Rear wheel drive Jag in the snow on std tyres - not a great combo

 

Read the post re DREAL. I'm afraid the Carte Gise will be nearer €1500 but you don't have to pay for the CoC if you play it right.
If you start a new thread when you get the car we'll all help.
Agence Zunino will insure you on US plates for at least a month.

 

Well the Jag made it sans bumps an scrapes as far as I can tell, getting it out of the container on a French back road using only several dozen French guys, and a recovery vehicle was a joy to watch. Once I had pointed out where the battery was it even started first time........Thanks to biglad for the hlp so far, now to plunge into the murky world of the French bureaucracy

 

Bet you're glad to have the car back.

 

Bet that's a big relief.

Good luck in the battle with the Eurocrats.

Graham

 

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but registering a US car in France is going to be a PITA. You won't be able to get the usual certificat de conformité européenne from Jaguar France, because your car isn't European. Instead you're going to have to get a single vehicle approval from the DRIRE and that can take weeks

 

Aye nae bother though I can insure it for a year on US plates, and by then I may be out of here and back in the UK in which case I will try to register it there lol

 

There should be no need for SVA as this make and model of vehicle was also sold in France at the same time.

An inspection by DRIRE/Bureau de Mines will identify and note any difference in specifications (usually associated with ref. no's on lens and pollutions) and provide an Attestation de Type.


This is not the same as the situation with English people buying 'grey imports' from Ireland, registering them in England then importing them into France. The problem here is that very often the particular make/model concerned was not officially imported into France at the date of first registration of the vehicle, so the French systems have no record of them. Under such circumstances an SVA is required.

 

I brought my 2004 XJR with me to Switzerland and it took about 8 months to get the car registered. I used an import service here as well. A couple of things that caused the delay:

- an import garage might need to make some modifications to bring it up to EU code. Washers to the headlights is an obvious one.
- the Swiss required a document showing the first day the car was on the road. An insurance document or temporary license plate receipt will work here.
- a document from Jaguar in Coventry saying the car meets safety standards in the EU.

There were times when I thought this car was going to be sold cheap to some very lucky guy in the East whose country didn't require all the paperwork.

 

Another XJR imported to Switzerland

I guess you had a hard time because it was a US spec car?
No issues for me (even with RHD) since it was a UK spec & I had the EU certificate.

Burr i missed you when i was organising our trip to the British Car Meet last August, where are you located?

 

Living in little Zug right now. Getting the car took a while because we did things one at a time. Updating the car took a month or two to make it EU compliant. Gathering all the paperwork took ages. The letter from Coventry stating the US car was safe for EU roads was a couple of months. Finding a document stating the matriculation date was hard because the US doesn't track this idea. In the US, the day it's registered is usually the day it's on the road, why track both? So, finding a document to show the matriculation date took a while because we had to go back and forth with the Swiss motor department to find something that would work. I ultimately had to go to the guy I bought the car from and ask him to send me a jpg of his bill of sale that included the state's sales tax amount. Somehow this printed out jpg satisfied them here and is now part of the official set of documents for the car. We just couldn't find any other document at the time that would work.

Anyway, the service I used was Zurich Auto Import, really easy people to work I found.

 

I tried to register a left hand drive Suzuki 4x4 when we moved to France.
When they checked the details it turned out that it was originally a US import into the UK and the tossers refused to have anything to do with it unless I drove it 300 miles to Paris and basically had it crash tested.
Ended up giving it to a mate to drag hay bales around his fields.
Utter, utter morons; the Revolution did not go far enough, they should have all been guillotined (at least the ones that 'work' behind desks should have).
Impossible people to deal with in any official capacity but great freinds.

 

Hi Steve, I see your frustration with the French authorities but unfortunately you brought it on yourselves rather and your comments about the French systems are imo overly harsh.

1. Your vehicle was US -origin so not European-spec which is why you had trouble;

2. As a result you would have been asked to go to Paris for an SVA - single vehicle approval. This does not require any crash testing,it merely constitutes an examination of the vehicle for typing purposes.


Your experience echoes that of many Brits moving to France, in that Britain by comparison to Europe is very haphazard in it's vehicle registration whereas mainland Europe is much more precise.

I have imported perhaps 12+ vehicles in the last 11 years and have had NO problems at all, so long as I follow the following guidelines:

1. First and most important is to ensure on the UK V5 that the vehicle in question is 1st registered in the UK.
There are a number of Brits who bought grey imports (Jap vehicles imported into England via Ireland) who encounter problems due to the vehicle being Jap spec).

2. Ensure that you have a purchase document in English and French stipulating reg no.; VIN; as well as description of vehicle PLUS date of sale.

3. Get the "puissance fiscale of the vehicle before presenting docs to the Hôtel des Impôts for a "Quittance Fiscale".

4. Assuming the vehicle was 1st reg after 01.01.2003 you don't need a Certificat de Conformité Européan, but a Recepissé de Depot from DREAL will prove helpful.

5. Get a pair of LHD headlights before going for the Contrôle Technique (French mot) or you'll get bounced. In the passed some testers would allow beam converters but that has been tightened up over the last couple of years.

Also check your vehicle over fully before the CT - you'll save time and frustration.

6. Start the process as soon as you get the vehicle on French soil or you'll run foul of the unsurers.

Dave

6.

 

Hi biglad.
I appreciate your comments and maybe I was a bit harsh but you really had to be there to appreciate the brain crushing experience.
We had already (over the years) imported a Merc, a Porsche and a Renault (coals to Newcastle?) from the UK.
I was not aware that the Suzuki was an ex American car and to be honest I don't see what difference it makes; there were loads of identical cars around.
My gripe is with the people behind their desks who refuse point blank to listen to a point of view or believe the correct documentation: the car had previously been registered in Spain, Germany and Holland before it went to the UK (been around a bit obviously) and had the correct EU approved certification yet they still insisted on a 600 mile round trip with a fee of 1300 Euros to pay on a car that was worth 750.
I still get cross when I think about the sheer bloody-mindedness and intransigence of the people involved.
That and the racist car insurance agent and the fact that the life insurance clowns still owe us over 700 Euros 2 years after we left the country.
Maybe you have better luck where you live but it can be very trying in Normandy!
We still go there on holiday every year though.

 

Hi,

I had a similar problem when I tried to register my XK8 which was originally supplied to the USA. Jaguar France would only provide a partial CoC, Jaguar UK were not helpful at all. I had to submit the car to the DREAL for an attestation which cost about 96 Euros before the prefecture would issue the Carte Gris. In the end it was a fairly straightforward process as long as you have ORIGINALS of the documents, not copies. The tester wanted me to paint over the marker lights on the bumpers but as he did not want to see the car again, all I did was cover them in tape and paint over them before sending photographic evidence of the changes. I saw an XK8 in a scrapyard near Brive which had French plates and it g
Had all four marker lights. I am in S Outland at the moment and will not be back in France till early April so if you what any advice then I will send you my French telephone number. You may not be able to drive on the US plates for a year as the insurance companies are clamping down, one company withdrew my cove after one month, so beware.

Regards

 

Axa will insure for up to 12 months without any problem...