New from across the pond...and may be coming across the pond...

[Railgun]

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.  

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?  



Some of you should recognize this...




I\'m also into photography.  I\'d love to get out there again and get some better shots of this place.

[trotter]

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

[Railgun]

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.

[clive]

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

[fil_auto]

welcome on board bud - lovely red 7..... although I\'m biased!

Good luck with the move.......

Phil

[Timmy]

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.

[Railgun]

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.

[clive]

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,

[Test Drives Unlimited]

Welcome to the MRC & look forward to meeting you,at maybe the Dartford Meet or Rotorstock 7

[jinx]

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

[Railgun]

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.

[BlitzBoy]

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

[jinx]

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

[Railgun]

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.

[jinx]

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