My wife and I are moving to Bern in July and we are trying to decide whether to bring over our Honda Civic. It has a little over a 100,000 miles and isn't worth much to sell, but we don't need (or want) to spend a boatload on a new or used car once we arrive. Is it worth it to import it. We are not planning to return anytime in the near future. Besides the 1500 dollars to ship, why would we spend thousands of CHF to buy?

Will you need a car every day or very often? We live in Bern (moved from the U.S.) and don't have a car. Many people participate in Mobility which is a great, convenient way to rent a car when needed. My husband gets a big discount for car rental so when we need a car for the odd weekend or visitors, we do that. Otherwise the public transportation system is awesome.

It's likely to cost you a lot more than the $1500 shipping cost to get it road-legal over here. In addition to any work required to legalise the car here (you'll need to check with your dealer to see what needs to be done, eg, fitting a rear fog lamp), a car that's 10 years old with 100'000 miles is likely to need work to pass the MFK (the Swiss version of a vehicle inspection).

The MFK is far more rigorous than a US inspection (and, for that matter, most other European inspections), and older cars will get a very thorough looking-over. If you have so much as a drop of oil on your engine, for example, you'll need to rectify the cost of the leak. Depending on where the perished seal is, you could be looking at serious $$$.

If your car was newer, I'd say that it's probably worth the effort to import it. But for an older car, I wouldn't bother.

We are actually wanting to live in Thun as we are working in Gumligen and want to be closer to the lake and mountains. I did worry about the cost of getting it Swiss road ready since it's kind of a beater of a car. Would it be easier to lease or buy in the long run?

It's qo years old, got 100k miles on it (read 160k km) quite frankly, it's worthless. Sell it and buy one over here, far less problem, far easier and probably cheaper if you cout the time and headache you're going to have to go through to get it legal in Switzerland.

Also think the Swiss authorities aren't going to be offering any roses when they come to test a car like this...

Depends on what kind of car you want. As an example, here's what it would cost to replace your car with something more-or-less identical:

2001 Honda Civic w/166k km for CHF5'900

http://www.autoscout24.ch/AS24Web/De...l=1&id=7143515

Obviously, this is a European-spec model, so might not match your car exactly. But it's just had its inspection, so you know that it's in good shape mechanically and won't need to be reinspected for at least two years. And, like many cars in Switzerland, it comes with an additional set of winter wheels & tyres for the snowy weather. Judging from the photo, it's in good shape and has probably lived most of its life in a garage.

Cars this old will only be available for cash purchase, not leasing. But there are plenty of cheap, older, good-condition cars if you're just looking for something to run about in.

If you want to lease a car, you're talking about something much more expensive and much newer.

If it's a beater, don't bother importing it *UNLESS* you're prepared to drive it for a year on it's US plates, then scrap it at the end of a year. Prepping it to MFK standard will easily exceed the value of the car, and a beater has almost zero value over here.

In short, sell it and buy something else here. Plenty of cheap cars if you're not after the latest-and-greatest model.

I have a new Honda Insight that I currently have a car payment on right now, so I don't mind having a payment in Switzerland. Right now I pay $300 USD for the lease car payment per month and $75 per month for insurance. My salary will be much higher in Switzerland, but what would an average payment with insurance be for a car in the 15,000 to 20,000 CHF range be?

Heaven helps those who help themselves.

Car leasing calculator: http://en.comparis.ch/leasing/default.aspx

Car insurance calculator: http://en.comparis.ch/auto/default.aspx

Should we call you God now ?