Insurance on a US car in the UK

Hi there! I'm getting ready to move to the UK and have a car question. I've been trying to sell my car here and having no luck. I've been given very low offers, so low it would actually be more cost effective to ship it over. It's a great car but it's a rebuilt title so that's why the offers are so low. I'm trying to decide to just ship it or take the loss and sell it. I was wondering if anyone had shipped a US car over and if the cost to insure it was very much higher than insuring a UK car. I've got three days to make the decision. Any advice would be great. Thanks!

I did that years ago....many years ago. The insurance was quite a lot more as I recall, and that was when insurance was (relatively) cheap.

Your 'rebuilt title' may not be recognized here - I don't know, but when you go through the registration process to have a V5 document issued, there may be some snags. Also, look at the cost of registration for an imported car. That's recently been increased. But most importantly, when you have a LHD car, it's natural to want to drive on the right. I know that from experience as well. So as a new UK driver, you may be putting yourself in an awkward situation.

The car is worth what it is worth. My advice is to take whatever you can get in the US; it's a sunk cost and just let it be part of the cost of moving.

The insurance is likely to be prohibitively expensive, assuming it is offered at all. For example, until I receive my full UK license, I cannot be insured on my husband's car -- it has a 2.0l V6 engine, and is considered "too fast".

You will also have to make modifications to the car in order for it to be road legal. Indicators, etc, may have have to be added or changed. This is going to increase your costs, possibly significantly.

You may want to use search because this has been on the forum a few times.

In a few words the advice given is don't do it, it is a nightmare.

One exception, if I remember right, one gal brought her beloved Volkswagen convertible over and she was chuff (means happy) that she did.

Sorry about the potential loss. What kind of car is it?

Hi,

It really depends on what 'kind' of car it is. If it's a car that has the exact same model here in the UK, then it's not really worth bringing over. If it's something 'interesting' then it quite possibly could be worth bringing it across!

The lady Cheers refers to was 'incredibly' attached to her modern VW Beetle and had the funds to bring it over, so in that respect, I can understand going through everything to do so even though there's lots of the modern VW beetles already here. The process isn't a nightmare really, just quite a lot to do and sort out. I have my eye on a few US cars I want to import again to here and I'm not too worried about sorting it all out.

It sounds as though you'd be better off selling your car over there for whatever you can manage to get for it. The shipping cost depending on if you are East Coast US or West, or perhaps in the Southern states is likely to be at least a couple thousand US dollars, and costs to make the car road legal here, approved and tested as well as any duties and taxes (probably fairly minimal) will also add significant amounts. Cost of insurance varies, and although the general consensus on this forum is that it'll be 'expensive' is quite accurate, it's not by any means absolute - there's some excellent car insurance deals around. As your car has a rebuilt title, this is the most important reason for selling it off within the US, if upon arriving here and during the test to ensure it's roadworthy for the UK it fails, then it'll not be allowed on UK public roads and you'll have a next to useless car here.

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Thanks for the advice everyone. It's a 2008 Lexus IS 250. So as was mentioned above, it's a V6 and considered I guess a fast car.

Looks like I'll just take the loss and sell it for the highest price I was offered.

Thanks for the advice everyone. It's a 2008 Lexus IS 250. So as was mentioned above, it's a V6 and considered I guess a fast car.

Looks like I'll just take the loss and sell it for the highest price I was offered.

another thing you might wish to consider is the fuel costs for such a car. Remember that petrol is about 3-4 times the cost in the US!
DW used to have cars that were over 2 litre engines in the US, here she wouldn't consider such a size and is looking at 1100cc cars.