When you imported your car what did you have to do to make it comply

AND did you import it as household goods?

I will begin (though not completed yet)


A Car is import as household goods, declaration deadline 18 moths.
1 LHD Headlights (still looking for these, ebay seems to be the place)
2 Emissions test card completed by ford garage (140chf quoted)
3 Clean engine and underside "swiss clean" for testing
4 Car insurance - collecting quotes circa 1200chf (ouch!) fully comp.





other items i see i may have to do:
two reversing or rear fog lights not one (mondeo prob ok)

Fog light should be drivers side only

I have two foglights and two reversing lights (left and right) on my Swiss Edition Jeep.

Headlight adjustment was all that was required in the end but there was a lot of drama prior to that. I have a U.S. spec 2005 BMW 325 and as the guy inspected it, he said he'd never seen a car like it. I laughed out loud and said there were 20 other identical cars in the parking lot. A couple of trivial things and the fact the the engine number was in a different place were almost deal breakers; in the end they let it through. I still find it amusing the way they seemed so astonished by the subtle differences of the vehicle.

The other thing they wanted were the exact specifications of the car. I presented a print out showing the specs but the guy said, (paraphrasing and translating) "But this is for any 2005 325i, I need the exact specifications for THIS car." I was a little worried but more annoyed when he told me to wait and then disappeared for about 20 minutes into the building but my exasperation and annoyance quickly overcame my concerns and like I said, it eventually passed. The whole experience was however, a little window into daily life here.

I'm planning on importing my 2004 Kia Sorento from the US to CH and I need to get headlights replaced already in US. Does anyone know what the actualy specs for the headlights need to be to pass inspection in CH? I have read over and over on this board that you need to modify the headlights but no one has said HOW to modify them.

Thanks.

You may want to consider if this is really worth it, going through the process of shipping, paying for the changes necessary, it may be cheaper to sell it and buy another one here. There could also be other things that need changing depending where you get plates (it's cantonal) they you haven't calculated for.

yes and also the probably massive difference between EU homologated vehicles (easier, more likely, to import) and those from other markets.

What he probably meant was the certificate of conformity. Basically every car has a sort of 'birth certificate'. I knew about this so when I went for a swiss plate for my scooter I could provide this document. In Holland I had contacted Honda, they sent me a 1 page sheet with all the technical info of my particular scooter (official looking paper with engine and frame nr, all measurements etc etc). Honda told me they (c)(w)ould provide it only once and that it was like a birth certificate...

If you look closely at the glass of your headlights you will see some text there. A european approved headlight has a E (followed by a number) in a circle on it.

We imported our UK car into switzerland at the beginning of the year.

The wouldn't allow us to import as personal belongings as my permit was dated before we bought the car, even though it was my wifes car and she joined me later.

You need an export cert from the uk to prove (an eu1 cert iirc) without that they will charge you import tax (in zurich anyway) based on it being a US car, regardless if it is or isn't, ours is an MG, how much more british can you get??

You'll need ALL your cars docs (V5, invoices etc etc, the more the better!!)

You'll need the certificate of conformity

You'll need to remove all non OEM gear unless you have a swîss certificate confirming they are the same or better quality as OEM (I have one for my brake discs )

You'll need LHD headlights, convertors or adjustments are not allowed (for rhd cars, cars from the USA I have no idea)

The car will need to be swiss clean, so under the bonnet and the chassis have to be spotless, I mean really spotless, our engine bay looks brand new now, not bad for a 9 yr old car.

Noise and emissions are tested, I know people who have had to replace there car's ECU to pass this, that costs BIG money

the of course there is the test (like a UK MOT but much much stricter), we had to wait a couple of months for our test date, I know lots of people say take it, find out what it fails on then get that fixed, well thats fine if you have 4 months to kill! so we paid the mechanic to sort the car BEFORE hand, do a pre-test then for him (as he is swiss) to take the car to the test and make sure it passed. It took all afternoon and he had to argue a lot!! they where going to fail it on the speedo being out, so he got them to test it again (and it was 100% spot on) then they didn't like the bodykit (which came as standard on the uk cars) so he had to prove to them via a load of car magazines that it was standard.

Total cost around the 5k chf mark, that includes everything, tax, lights, garage work, paperwork etc etc

so much grief and hassle that we sold our other uk car and bought a swiss one instead.

Our car also has fogs and reversing lights on both sides and was fine, if it only had them on 1 side then we would have had to swap them, but again for a US car they should already be on the correct sides for here.

I have siad it before, unless your car is somthing special, or has real sentimental value to you then its just not worth importing, imports are worth bugger all here, so you'll struggle to sell it, should anything happen to it the insurance will pay out next to nothing and its a real ball ache!! every step of the process costs, and its all really really stressy!! you try arguing with a tax offical that your MG with the union jack plastered all over it, all the docs saying it british the fact they had to look up on the internet to get a value for it, is in fact british and not american all because you don't have an export cert!!

WHY???? Kia's are dirt cheap here, really really cheap even new they are cheap. a 2004 kia really isn't worth importing!!

I respectfully concur. If you have loads of extra time on your hands and you really enjoy talking to all kinds of possible officials and departments and being sent from one place to another, everybody telling you that this cannot be done or that maybe it can but it's some other guy who sould be doing it, but he doesn't knwo who and you need for A to get form B, but you can only get form B with a valid form A etc etc, sure. If not, I wouldn't recommend it. For example I even had to explain to customs officials (!) in my country that Switzerland is not, in fact, in the EU and yes therefore I need the export form. And then had to explain to customs officials here that my country is, in fact, in EU. So yes they got what they wanted, I bought a new car here.