Taking my car with me but not registering it in the UK

Hi! I'm moving to the UK by the end of July for work and I am struggling to decide what to do with one of my cars. If I sell it here in the US I will take a loss so I am contemplating bringing it over for 6 months and then sending it to family in Holland for another 6 months to avoid having to import it and making modifications to it.

Does anyone have any experience with this and how on earth do you insure it if you do bring it along without registering it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I am going a bit crazy trying to figure it out.

You can't insure it if it isn't registered.  Why would you leave it without driving it for a year?  If you're going to take a loss, why not park it in the US somewhere?

Taking the loss, to me, by selling in the US seems the far better option, as the other options cost money and effort I wouldn't want to put in with an international move. And what kind of condition might they be in if they are off the road for a year?

Some possibly useful links:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/ImportingAndExportingAVehicle/DG_4022583

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicle/UntaxedVehicle/DG_4022058

Hi there,

Theoretically you could bring the car to the UK and 'only' use it on private land. You wouldn't have to register it, nor insure it, nor pay the road fund license for it. You 'could' find a suitable insurance policy from a specialist insurer such as Adrian Flux, who I think, will do policies for car collectors and for car shows etc as often people don't want to drive the cars themselves on the UK's public roads.

I'm thinking you have a Porsche 996 from your username - and if you're thinking you'd make a loss (all cars depreciate unless you have something ultra exotic) then you need to compare the loss you think you'll make selling it in the USA with the costs of shipping it here, paying the import duty tax and the 6months parking it up costs (as you will not be allowed to park it on UK public roads.

Just the shipping costs is likely to be around £1500-1800 (USD $3000- 3600)for a sealed container as I paid around £1250+VAT for a open transport method for the F150 I imported from Texas back in 2004. I'm pretty sure you'd be liable for the import duty upon the container landing on UK shores too - that'll depend on the value of the car itself.

However, look at the rules, I think if you take the car out of the UK again within a certain time, you may not be liable for the import duty etc, but of course when you send it to Holland, you'll be liable for whatever the Dutch system is for imported cars. Another thing to remember with Holland, is you pay a tax every year you own the car based on it's 'brand new' price! so if you have a 15 year old car, and it's value has depreciated say to something like 1000 Euro, you still pay the tax on it's original value !  may mean you pay more tax than the cars worth! - that was the case when my mate was living there and of course, it subsequently may have changed in the last few years. Don't forget also you probably will need to do some modifications to it to meet Holland legal requirements and also you may need to do some engine mods to accept the higher octane fuel here in Europe.

Hope the above helps and gives you a start into researching into this

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

you may need to do some engine mods to accept the higher octane fuel here in Europe.

European fuel is not significantly higher octane.

Wiki saith

The most common type of octane rating worldwide is the Research Octane Number (RON). RON is determined by running the fuel in a test engine with a variable compression ratio under controlled conditions, and comparing these results with those for mixtures of iso-octane and n-heptane.

There is another type of octane rating, called Motor Octane Number (MON) or the aviation lean octane rating, which is a better measure of how the fuel behaves when under load. MON testing uses a similar test engine to that used in RON testing, but with a preheated fuel mixture, a higher engine speed, and variable ignition timing to further stress the fuel's knock resistance. Depending on the composition of the fuel, the MON of a modern gasoline will be about 8 to 10 points lower than the RON. Normally fuel specifications require both a minimum RON and a minimum MON.

In most countries (including all of Europe and Australia) the "headline" octane that would be shown on the pump is the RON, but in the United States, Canada and some other countries the headline number is the average of the RON and the MON, sometimes called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), Road Octane Number (RdON), Pump Octane Number (PON), or (R+M)/2. Because of the 8 to 10 point difference noted above, this means that the octane in the United States will be about 4 to 5 points lower than the same fuel elsewhere: 87 octane fuel, the "regular" gasoline in the US and Canada, would be 91-92 in Europe. However most European pumps deliver 95 (RON) as "regular", equivalent to 90-91 US (R+M)/2, and even deliver 98 (RON) or 100 (RON).

Euro regular is roughly equivalent US plus/midgrade.  Saying that it's substantially higher octane is like saying 30cm is substantially longer than 10 inches, because 30>10.

I'd imagine that any engine from the past couple of decades designed for US regular will happily run plus/midgrade and thus Euro regular.

Additionally, if we're talking about a Porsche, I'd suspect that the engine is already designed for Euro fuel anyway (I don't believe there's substantial differences in engine tuning between a Euro Porsche and a NA Porsche).

Thanks for the info! Looks like I am going to have to sell it then. I would hold it for the two years but I imagine that I would lose substantially more money on it so I guess it is time to cut and run.

Thanks for the responses as this has been a hell of a decision to make without too much information available!