Hi all. Well it turns out that it's easy to buy a car in the UK then export it to CH with insurance. The only question that I can't work out is that the Swiss wont insure it until it has been extertised. Can anyone tell me how much this will cost and it there is some sort of import duty I will be hit with?

Cheers

I'm not sure it's worthwhile (what with having the steering wheel on the other side and everything), but I think you'll need to drive on temporary plates from the UK to Switzerland, and there will certainly be an import duty. The amount will depend on the car and the age (new in this case). Contact your local traffic office (Strassenverkehrsamt) for details. You'll have to register the car here when it arrives, which may require expensive modifications since it'll be RHD.

Zurich Connect will probably be able to insure you, however. Call their helpline.

LOL easy it isn't!! we just imported ours from the uk and with all the paperwork, taxes, garage bill, replacement parts (new headlights, getting the noise down, emissions etc etc) it cost us around 5000chf - I'm too scared to work out the final total. plus lots and lots of forms and waiting around.

We supplied the garage with all the bits they needed, they took it for the tuv test thing and made sure it passed, which it did first time, so money well spent.

unless its somthing a bit special, or sentimental reasons I wouldn't bother!!

ok here is my problem, i borught my car from uk to switzerland, now over here they wanted me to get the swiss MOT test and it obviously failed....they said the headlights arent alligned, and the suspensions are not good etc made loads of stuff basically even though i had it serviced by mercedes in the uk before it came here...anyway with all the stuff they wanna do to it here, they wanna charge me 4000 francs....im trying to work out whether its worth it or not....what i wanna know is, does anybody know if i pay the 4000 francs and register the car here, lets say in 3 years time i wanna sell the car and assuming noone will buy a right hand drive car over here, i will have to export it back to the UK....so how will i go about with that? anybody know how i can export a car back to the UK in a few years time and whether it will cost me....

keep the uk spec headlights, importing a car to the uk is much simpler and way cheaper, not sure if you'll need to do a SVA test in the uk (a stricter mot) as it was uk registered before, but the uk sva / mot is much much easier to pass then the swiss version so you should have no problems at all.

keep all your old uk paperwork and certificate of conformity and it should be childsplay. Yes it will cost as you'll need to pay for the registration, around £300 iirc and of course an mot/sva and road tax. (and to get the uk lights put back on)

as for selling the car here, forget it! unless its really special or very rare no one will touch it, you'll literally have to give it away, or pay a breakers yard to take it.

so you are basically saying that after exporting my car from the UK to switzerland for free(no duty) i will be able to export the car back to the UK where it originally came from with no duty? because the only reason i didnt pay any duty is because ive only just moved here and i have the right to move my belongings here

The rules are more or less the same as here, as long as you have owned the car for more then 6 months (it might be 12 by now) then you shouldn't have to pay any import tax/duty etc, just keep a copy of all your uk paperwork! the swiss authorities have a habbit of taking any paperwork you give them and sending it back to the uk, so photocopy everything before you hand it over.