The Camaro Club (UK)

Hi all,

Looking for a bit of advise please arounding importing a car to the UK. My collegaue is importing his 5th Gen which he bought about 2years ago from a delaership in Kuwait while he was living out there. It ahs about 17k on the clock and it's been registered to his name etc but when it arrived in the UK last week they plastered a +£5k Bill on him. He knew to expect about 2-2.5 k worth of fees but they are placing a £2.5k tax on it for importing a new car with high emissions. Has anyone faced this issue? any ideas what he can do?

Thanks!!

Ray

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Hi Ray, do you know how he calculated that it's be £2-2.5K? The duty is now 10% of the value of the car & on top of that you pay 20% VAT. That'd probably bring it in line with what they're charging. Not sure about the tax on high emmissions though. hth

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

I think the expectation of how much £ to pay came from the company that he hired to do the transport etc. They said pretty same as you mentioned just there... 10% of the value plus 20% tax. bar steward government lol. But ye he is just as clueless as to the emission thing. Apparently its a tax for new cars over a certain engine size so fair enough that the law exists, but he's puzzled as its not new. Its sat in the container and he's now contesting it, so we may hear next week what the outcome is. if anyones knows what he can say to them, please let me know

Cheers!

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I don't think I'd be leaving a car in a container at the docks for very long. I imported a '55 Chevy a few years back & some nice people at the docks tried to pinch the Holley carb from it. Not only that, but not being able to get the carb off, they tried to start it up & the subsequent leaking petrol from trying to nick the carb resulted in the car having an engine fire. I've heard tales, don't know how true, of people driving the cars at the docks without permission & the cars getting damaged.

To be honest, if there is a law regarding emissions, it's a waste of time contesting it. It may not be "brand new", but it's a late model car being imported into the country, which does have high emmissions, so, if that's the case, I guess that's what they're basing their total cost on. Pretty soon it may well be impossible to get the car registered in this country anyway, as the glass doesn't meet EU spec & the government are trying to push through a proposal that would effectively ban the import of any car ie American, that doesn't meet the EU glass spec.

I'd be inclined to get the car from the docks & get it registered ASAP & just put it down to a bad experience of having your shirt lifted & being bent over

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Hi ray, I posted this query on another forum for you & I had a reply from a guy tyhat's well versed in the legalities of this sort of thing, here's his reply. he wasn't aware of a high emissions tax, I think your mate might have possibly misunderstood??

"Don't forget he will still have to get it through BIVA as well, headlights and rear lights will probably be the first hurdle ( must be converted to amber flashers , side markers dewired, side repeaters installed plus foglight , all at correct height anf distance.. Front headlights are murderous around that age to sort especially if HID as they need self levellling and wash /wipe from memory. I'd enquire about whether it s even possible to get it to go through otherwsie he may be best simply moving it on into Europe somehow ?"

cheers...Nige

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Too much power...not enough hands!!

Cheers Nige,

Appreciate that you took the time to ask elsewhere

I'm gonna see the guy tomorrow at work so i'll see if i can get some paperwork from him to see exactly what they asking for. Never thought about the lights etc. He was telling me how the U.S cars out there are a slightly different spec e.g harder plastic used on the dash to withstand the heat etc so i wonder if they do anything else in this process that may make it legal in the UK without modification. Will let you know tomorrow what he says, cheers!!

Ray

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

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Any news on this one Ray??

cheers...Nige

_________________
Too much power...not enough hands!!

Not a lot no, he had appealed against the emission charge which was about 2k, and they denied it. He had a long call with the guy on Monday and basically HMRC said they assume he will sell it so they are going to tax him on emissions for selling a car with high emissions. he can appeal it 3 times in total, so he has re-appealed to say that he is going to keep the car and not sell, then after 3 denials it goes straigh to court which he is happy about as he will have a better chance to explain, as currently it's just tick boxes on paper. So he's waiting now for the second appeal. Looks like we have to wait a couple of weeks for a decision!

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How to post pics: When writing a message, scroll down and use the "attach file" option. Where possible, a photo sharing service can be used such as Flickr, Imgur etc. The image location (usually ending in .jpg) can be copy and pasted between the ][ brackets that appear when you click the 'Img' button (you can find this button at the top of the message box).

How to post youtube vids: Click on the 'youtubeHD' button at the top of the message box and in the middle of the ][ brackets that just appeared, copy and paste everything from the youtube web address that appears after the = sign i.e if this is the url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cNqaPSHv0 just copy "K2cNqaPSHv0").