Howdy all.
Well, I\'ll try to be brief, but it will end up being long...er...typed...after all\'s said and done.
So I\'ve been a rotary owner for a short eight years and it\'s been a wild ride. It\'s a \'93 VR R1...with a whole lotta work. :D
So I\'m here as I have an opportunity to move to the UK and work in London. Needless to say that it\'s not a decision I intend to take lightly. First and foremost, I love driving and would definitely be defined as an automotive enthusiast. I somewhat masochistically enjoy working on the thing myself. But, as is common knowledge, space is a premium out there. I\'m not looking for a 4000 sq ft (371 m² since I should start thinking metric) pad. I\'m in half that now and admittedly, it\'s a lot of space. Especially for a single guy. But, more importantly is everything else. The little things that may make for a better experience out there. From internet connectivity to insurance costs, taxes and the like.
From what I\'ve read, the FD can be an incredible expense to insure. As a side note, I\'m not a fan of front plates either. Obviously worse being as large as they are out there. What fine exists for those kinds of violations?
The other thing I\'m somewhat looking into is importing my FD. I have other ways to not get rid of it as I really do love that car and would hate to start over again (though some things I would do differently). I\'m not concerned about LHD in a RHD country as I have experience with that and it\'s not bad. I do have experience obviously then in driving RHD and stick. Yeah, it took a little getting used to, but for those track days, it may be a whole new learning curve.
So, ultimately, I\'m looking for tales of experience for those ex-pats that have done the same move, that have similar interests and learn from them on the benefits or drawbacks of such a move. There\'s no particular time frame, and I need to talk with my company to determine whether such a move would be beneficial financially or if, like what I\'ve read elsewhere, it\'s as effective as taking a somewhat significant pay cut.
So, what say you?
(http://railgun69.homeip.net/FD_Chicago.jpg)
Some of you should recognize this...
(http://railgun69.homeip.net/Forums_Sources/Lloyds3_B&W.jpg)
I\'m also into photography. I\'d love to get out there again and get some better shots of this place.
Hi, and welcome to MRC!
Relocating across the pond eh? Not a small decision by any means!!
Not an ex-pat, but I can give you a few tips from experience.
1) Insurance, yeah - can be horrific, but depends on lots of factors such as age, experience, modifications, convictions (traffic violations), previous claims, etc. My first year on my FD (23 years old, slightly modified, no convictions / claims) was ~£1000 ($1500). However, insurance as a classic car (\'93 plate same as yourself) has got that down to £200 ($300).
2) Number plates. This is a grey area, like you guys, our cops have a lot of lee-way to make decisions \'at the side of the road\'. It\'s technically an endorsable penalty. (you get 3 points on your licence as well as a £60 ($90) fine). Over here 12 points and you lose your licence. However, i\'ve seen people be fined £30 ($45) with no points, and i\'ve been let off with nothing but a bollocking (stern warning in UK-speak!) to get it fixed. So it\'s kinda up to you if you want to risk it or not. But bear in mind, that as an import, you can legally use the small square plates rather than the big rectangle ones! ;)
HTH
graeme
Thanks. It\'s not as though it would make or break the deal, but it\'s nice to know about those little things ahead of time. Chances are I\'ll just probably bring my bike over and leave the car.
First up welcome to MRC,
Biggest thing to remember with this club is that you can ask what you like and the guys will not view it as a stupid question and always try and help,
Even though your already thinking this I would say bring the bike and get a car if and when your here because a, the cost of getting your car here, b, a LHD car will cost more to insure than a RHD car and lastly from what I see a modded RX-7 sells for a lot less money over here than in the States,
Hope this helps
welcome on board bud - lovely red 7..... although I\'m biased! ;)
Good luck with the move.......
Phil
Best bet is to ring an insurance company i think you\'ll find that almost no one will insure you on an fd. Not until you\'ve been here a few years.
Thanks for the info.
The decision has been made. I\'ll be coming out there the last week of July for my "preview" trip to figure out where I want to live, and I\'ll make the final move Nov 1.
As I\'ll have a whole new world of cars available to me that weren\'t here, that may further sway my decision to leave the car behind. But, we\'ll see what the end result will be after figuring out shipping and the like.
I will say though, as far as this site/club goes, I\'m currently the president of one of our local clubs...Rotary Car Club of Chicago (Rc³)...though slowly becoming defunct. That being said, I\'d love to take as large of an active role with you guys, or the rotary community in general as I can.
Needless to say, I\'m extremely excited about this move, and if I have any sanity by then, all the better.
But I do have one question regarding fuel. We all know here that the fuel ratings are done a little differently. As you may be aware, we do RON+MON/2, whereas you just do RON. That\'s all well and good, and I can live with that, but what other fuels are readily available there? For example, how widespread is ethanol these days? What about high octane unleaded fuels (100+)? And what are the prices of those?
I\'m just looking ahead as I\'m in the middle of tuning for ethanol. If I do ship it over, and that\'s not available, it\'s not the end of the world since I\'ll just re-tune for whatever, but I\'d like to get an idea of what\'s there.
For the record, I\'ll be working basically in Central London, near Tower of London. Where I\'ll live is way up in the air, but looking at monthly Tube passes, not too far out.
Thanks all again and I can\'t wait to see some of your rides out there.
Welcome to MRC and London when you get here,
Keep an eye on the forum and you may see something you can get along to, if not try and get to Rotorstock on Aug 21st, which is the biggest meet in Europe for Rotarys and it\'s a Show n Go as well,
Welcome to the MRC & look forward to meeting you,at maybe the Dartford Meet or Rotorstock 7 :)
101 octane Avgas used to be available from friends in flying clubs but the different tax level applied to it excited the government to increase the penalties and close the loophole. The UK\'s \'high octane\' benchmark fuel is Shell Optimax. (98RON I think) Other brands of premium petrol are available but none considered as reliable in terms of quality as Shell. (I\'m assuming we are discussing road fuel. Race fuels with higher ratings are available but not at pumps.)
Ethanol 85 is almost totally unavailable in the UK. (We don\'t have prairies either!). Ethanol 5 with it as an additive/ingredient in blended fuels is available but would not require retuning for. 85 is more readily available in mainland Europe where tax breaks encouraged its use. However, despite the relative convenience of the continent to your prospective base, a tour of petrol forecourts would probably lack the sort of cultural landmarks that make up a good slide show for the folks at home. Just my own view, I may be totally wrong.
At the end of June 2010 a litre of standard unleaded petrol cost an estimated average of $1.83.(£1.22) 1 litre of Optimax $1.94 (£1.29). There are 3.8 litres in one of your gallons. Ours are the correct size so take 4.5 litres to fill but it\'s not a surprising mistake given you\'ve lost count of the number of letters in simple words like "colour" too. :rolleyes:
Insurance rates are calculated by faceless men in suits who meet in in the lobby at Lloyds of London, cast ancient bones into a shallow hand-beaten copper dish made by vikings and then think of a number. It will reflect you, your job, your car, your address and any other stray fact they can squeeze out of you in order to make the sucking of air through their teeth and the eventual number more than is reasonable. Should you accept their \'offer\' gift-wrapped with things called bonuses that are not what they purport to be, they will encourage you (through a series of penalty clauses and exemptions in fine print) never to use the service you are paying them for. It was easier dealing with the original Vikings to be honest. At least they didn\'t pretend pillage was a loyalty bonus you got from your friendly Danish rapist.
We try not to write the numbers for this sort of stuff down too much as the sight of grown men crying is not a spectacle we encourage in England. (World Cup defeats trump this reserve, which is an odd anomaly given the frequency of them.) Anyway, if none of it puts you off...look over your shoulder. That queue of people (it\'s our real national sport) are all off here and want a job doing whatever you do wherever you work! Welcome to the forum and the old(e) world(e) where, as you will find out, we no longer use the \'e\' suffixes except in low end marketing of things called \'attractions\' that rarely live up to the description. :2eek
Good luck with the new job.....
What was it you said you did again? (I feel a possible queue coming on :))
Heh...we drop letters in words since we\'re just lazy Americans. :p
We have what can be considered E10, which is a year round blend. Similar to E5 as you mentioned, though in our experience it\'s not enough to make any necessary tuning changes. IIRC, avgas was leaded, but I may be thinking of another aviation fuel.
Based on the 98 RON, and from what I\'ve found, it looks as though Shell\'s Optimax is the same as our "premium" in terms of octane rating.
I can\'t tell if your post is half joking (the last half) or there\'s some resentment (the first half). Eh...
As far as what I do, I haven\'t mentioned it before. But, I\'m in IT, if that isn\'t generic enough. Specifically a network engineer.
BTW There is no such thing as Optimax anymore,its called Shell V Power and its 99 RON
http://www.shell.co.uk/home/content/gbr/products_services/on_the_road/fuels/v_power_pkg/overview/overview.html
Railgun
Yes Avgas was leaded - I\'ve no idea what they use now as we had to give the key to the pump back long before lead finally disappeared from aviation fuel...if it ever did! It was extremely useful for cars with high compression ratios from the 60\'s. UK and Italian sports cars were designed with high compression ratios assuming use of the leaded 101 octane petrol that was available everywhere in Europe back then.
Apologies for misleading you. I\'m clearly in a deeper time warp than I imagined. For Optimax read V-power and I\'m sure Blitz is right about the RON. I should pay more attention but if I did I\'d have to note how much it costs every time I fill up....
In fact, that is the only resentment you should read in the post but as I don\'t have to use the RX7 for A to B transport mostly I am only required to be resentful about the cost of diesel for the sensible car!
Your career is quite safe by the way...I\'m a Mac user!
Good luck with the job!
A
Heh...no worries...
I do have one question though that I can\'t seen to fine a lot of information on.
So, I now have the paperwork necessary to begin the import process. However, in regards to emissions, how is that handled? I know that certain costs are associated with the amount of emissions that are produced, but what about general requirements? For example, I am running an open exhaust. As we all know, rotaries are notorious for spewing tons of emissions. Would I need to retrofit before I get it out there just to save myself from any headache or do they not care and they just tax at a huge rate?
Secondly, has anyone herd about importing but immediately doing so via SORN? I ask as that may be a more viable option if I know ahead of time that there will be difficulties getting it registered properly the first time around.
I also understand that they would send it to some shop for "remediation." I suppose the question there is are there specific shops they require or are we at liberty to choose one?
Thanks again.
Have you had a look here:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/BuyingAndSellingAVehicle/ImportingAndExportingAVehicle/index.htm
You already know about SORN so I guess you have found The Driver and Vehicle License Agency (DVLA) in Swansea but they do an information pack on importing a car that should have all the answers OR try this link for what looks like handy reading: //www.import-car.info/images/dftguide.pdf
The contact numbers on the DVLA web site might not work from the US. If there\'s no e-mail contact available, ask on here and I\'ll ring them to get a copy of the pack if it would be useful. If it is only available as hard copy (and isn\'t 400 pages long) I can scan it an post on here if needs be.
Info mostly from here: //www.import-car.info/worth-it.shtml
Someone on here will have a recommendation for where to get any conversion work done if it comes to it. Only the SVA (single vehicle approval) testing station is \'official\' you can have the work done anywhere you choose. I\'ve only skimmed the pages but it looks like the car will, at a minimum, have to pass a standard UK vehicle test (MoT) and there are plenty of threads on here about failing the emissions test. MoT tester\'s have very little room to wriggle on the test but some manage to be friendlier than others!
Question:
By the time you finish diving through all these hoops, paying the shipping costs and getting it passed for use on UK roads..... would it be cheaper to buy one here for the duration of your stay and store the one at home? RX7\'s do not always command premium prices and you already know what to look for and avoid. The for sale pages on here would give you an idea of values/spec or goto: //www.pistonheads.com where there are normally several available.
Best of luck
A
The differing cost of road fund licenses (road tax) linked to emission levels should not affect you. (I think). I am pretty sure it applies only to cars much newer than your RX7 which is, if a US spec car, presumably pre \'95?
It is not applied retrospectively...unless Blitz or somebody else who lives in \'the now\' cares to correct me? AFAIK...an owner of a new RX-8 pays much higher rates of road tax than me (97 RX7).
A
Good to know. Thanks!
As far as the cost to bring it over compared to selling and starting over, it would be so far one sided against my favor that even the ease of doing it wouldn\'t be worth it. I\'ve done a lot over the last 8 years on this thing. Granted, finding a newer one is a very enticing thought, not to mention other vehicles that are available there. However, it is for sale here but given the market, I don\'t know whether it would sell for the price, which IMO is low.
Looking at that PDF, I think that works perfectly in terms of getting the information required.
I also appreciate the offer of getting that info, but I\'ll be there the last week of the month for my preview trip so if I need to pick anything up, I can do it then. :Thumbsup!
It is a 93, and judging by what I\'m reading now, I\'ll have to retrofit a cat back in there. I\'ve been meaning to redo my exhaust anyway. I\'ll look for the standards and see what others are running and compare notes.
Appreciate the info.
Text from web site of the UK embassy in the US:
Temporary Importation of a Motor Vehicle
Visitors may temporarily import their vehicles into the UK. Vehicles do not need to be registered in the UK if the following criteria are met:
The vehicle will not be in the UK for more than six months.
You hold a valid foreign registration permit.
The vehicle displays a foreign registration plate bearing letters or numbers that can be identified in the UK.
Regulations pertaining to insurance requirements, exemptions from customs and duty payments, as well as further information on the registering and licensing of vehicles in the United Kingdom can be found on the following internet site:
HM Customs and Excise Customs Notice 3: Bringing belongings and private vehicle to UK from outside EC.
Permanent Importation of a Motor Vehicle
The following internet sites provide comprehensive information on the permanent importation of vehicles into the UK:
1. Department for Transport
How to import a vehicle permanently into Great Britain. (This publication explains the procedures for importing, licensing, and registering vehicles purchased outside Great Britain).
2. General Guidelines for importing a motor vehicle
Most USA and Canadian design and construction standards will be accepted as being equivalent to Single Vehicle Approval standards. There are, however, two important exceptions in addition to the above lefthand traffic requirements.
Most North American cars follow a different convention for the color of their external lights. Front side lights, and all turning indicators are likely to require modification - including the addition of frontside repeater turn indicators.
There are no standards on external projections in North America. Beware of vehicles with features such as "bull bars," non-retracting mascots, and protruding exhaust pipes. Modifications may be necessary for use in Britain.
The following is general guidance on the most common problems you are likely to encounter. It is not exhaustive and you should always seek the manufacturer\'s advice in relation to individual models.
1. Lefthand Traffic
If your vehicle is left hand drive, it will probably need to be modified or adjusted for use in left hand traffic. In particular:
Headlamps will need to be replaced or adjusted to produce the required dipped beam for left-hand traffic. The alignment requirement must be met without the use of masks, beam converters or adapters unless they are an integral part of an approved headlamp.
For vehicles first used on or after April 1, 1980, at least one rear fog light must be fitted on the center-line or the offside of the vehicle.
Rear view mirrors must give the required field of view for use in left hand traffic.
2. Speedometer
Great Britain uses English imperial (mph) as opposed to metric units (kph) for speed measurement. The law requires that speedometers must include a miles-per-hour display. Please note in particular that any modified display must be visible in daylight and in darkness.
3. Emissions
Vehicles must meet European emissions standards. Please note that gas-fuelled cars manufactured after August 1992 are required to meet standards that can currently only be achieved by a catalytic converter.
Please note: the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs cannot advise on whether a particular vehicle is suitable for use in Britain. You should always consult the manufacturer or his agent for advice, especially about whether any modifications are necessary and whether they can be made. You should give the manufacturer as much information as possible about the origin of the vehicle so that he can give appropriate help. Ideally, this should include the Vehicle Identification Number - usually 17 characters - stamped on the chassis.
If you are importing or buying a vehicle which has not been type-approved - e.g., one built for a non-European market such as Japan or North America - you are advised to check (before purchasing) with the person or company supplying it that the warranty, servicing arrangements, availability of spare parts, product liability and recall arrangements satisfy your needs. You are also advised to check that your vehicle insurance is valid in such circumstances. This applies in particular to vehicles which have been subject to Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) and imports from outside the European Union, which are unlikely to have been type-approved.
Further information is available from the Department for Transport
4. Customs Duty and Tax
Motor vehicles imported into the United Kingdom are normally liable to customs duty and Value Added Tax (VAT). Customs duty is 10% for automobiles and between 6% and 8% for motorized caravans, motorcycles, motor scooters and mopeds. The VAT rate on all goods is 17.5%. Detailed information on customs regulations, as well as specific criteria for receiving exemptions from customs and VAT payments, is available from HM Revenue and Customs Notice 3: Bringing belongings and private vehicle to UK from outside EC.
//end
Get the above notice from the revenue.
The car is surely exempt from most duty as it is already your property?
I\'ll stop following links now I promise
Levi (username Fendamonkey IIRC) was a Yank...err, gentleman from the Colonies who brought his FD over here and then took it back with him when he went back to America. Can\'t remember if he was on Mazda Rotary Club, but he was on FDUK so it may be worth joining up there and digging his old threads out about how he did it?
Thanks. I think I am on there, though not a full member as I guess you have to actually live there for that (if that\'s the same site I\'m thinking about).
Thanks again.
Jinx....many thanks!!!