Buying a car in Germany and driving to UK!

[Zeus]

Oh and normally you will be properly ensured with the red plates, you won't need to sort this in the UK

[scottishscott]

It would be Romania I would be driving the car to, not the UK.

I would drive, Germany - Austria - Hungary - Romania

These Red plates are news to me. So I would have to be there during the week, I am planning on just going at the weekend when I am off work, in and out and back to work...

[bartolomeus]

Both RED AND YELLOW number plates come with insurance, so you don't have to worry about that.
@Zeuswastaken, red number plates would be better, I agree, because they are valid for one month and cost only pennies more than the yellow ones, but you can't get them if the car doesn't have valid MOT (TUV)
@scottishscott
Documents:

First be sure to make a sales contract with the Seller. Then:

1) If you get red number plates, the office who will give you the number plates will write your name and address on the GERMAN Fahrzeugbrief (we call it just BRIEF in Romania). You can write on the BRIEF 2 owners of the car.
If there isn't room on the BRIEF to write the new owner, then they will make a new BRIEF for you.

This is how this Brief looks like:

http://www.kanukassel.de/mediac/400_...rzeugbrief.jpg

You can see that there is a guy Kessel Gere or something who owns the car. Your name and address and new number plates will be filled out in the right.

Along with this BRIEF, you will be getting a smaller BRIEF as well, this is always made new when getting the red number plates.

This is how the smaller BRIEF looks like:

http://www.kanukassel.de/mediac/400_...gbrief0001.jpg
http://www.kanukassel.de/mediac/400_...gbrief0002.jpg

So be sure to have this papers: Big BRIEF, Smaller BRIEF, sale Contract.

2) If you get yellow number plates, you can simply buy the yellow number plates from an office, and then put them on the car and drive away.
As I said before, the yellow number plates come with a blank registration form which you can fill out with your pen with the details of the car.

Be sure to get the BIG and SMALL BRIEF from the owner, the sales contract and that's all.

About Romania:

- the red or yellow number plates are only temporary, you can't use them anymore after they expire.
- it's very complicated to registrate a car in Romania. But not impossible.
But the biggest problem is that you have to pay a polution tax. This tax is very very very very veryyyyyyyyyyy highhhhhhhhhhhhh .

For example: you buy an Audi S2 from 1991, which has a polution norm of EURO 1. You will have to pay a 5000 EURO tax to registrate the car in Romania

You can check out how expensive is the tax here:

http://www.autovit.ro/index.php?sect=service&sub=taxcalc

About good insurance companies in Romania, well, here in Romania if you can get
-basic insurance (if by your fault make an accident, your insurance will only cover the other's car damage)
-extensive insurance ( this is another insurance that you buy extra, and will cover the damage to your car if you do an accident from your fault; or if you find our car damaged in the parking space; no matter what the circumstances are, you get your car fixed)
You can't buy extensive insurance for cars more than 10 years old.

For basic insurance it doesn't matter which company you use. You can simply go to an insurance stand (they are all over the place) and they will search to see which company will give you the cheapest insurance.
You don't have to worry about insurance in Romania because we have such low prices (compared to the UK) that you might think that it's a joke

For example, for a BMW E90, 335d, 2006, I paid 110 GBP basic insurance for one year. How much would that cost in the UK?


My advice for you for registrating a car in Romania is to get a car with a high polution norm (Euro 4, Euro 5) and small engine (under 2000 cm3).
I gave you the link below, you can check out for yourself how much is the polution tax.

If you're moving to Romania, then I can tell you how to get the polution tax back, but that's a story for another time

[bartolomeus]

I want to make just a final note, even if you don't speak German, you can go ahead with no worries in Germany to buy your car.
German people are friendly and they will help you with the papers. I bought lots of cars from there and they always came with me at the registration office and helped me. Always!
If you buy the car from a dealer, it's even better. The dealer will handle all the papers from you. You will simply "cash and carry".

[scottishscott]

Thank you so much for all this information!!

I am guessing that the registration office wouldnt be open on a Sunday? Would I have to go during the week? Someone local ould maybe answer this question.

Very quickly: I have already moved to Romania, I pay tax here and I have a certificat de inregistrare, would this mean I could claim the pollution tax back?

[bartolomeus]

You're welcome
They are not open during the weekends.

Where are you staying in Romania?
I don't know what "certifcat de inregistrare" you have... Maybe you can explain to me more... or send me a picture... You can email me for faster response :emi at asconet dot ro

In order to get that tax back you need to open a lawsuit against the Romanian State (the tax is illegal) and then in one - two years you will get your money back with interest and also with the legal expenses as well.
I know it's a long process but it's worth it, you don't have to do a thing, your lawyer will take care of everything and you will win the lawsuit 100%.

[4WheelDrifter]

I imported a car from Germany a few years ago.

From what I remember, I went to the ADAC to get temporary export insurance, which is available for a variety of different lengths of time, took the details of this the car's registration, HU and AU documents to the local traffic office. There I had a load of forms to get stamped to then get the red export plates, with the insurance expiry date stamped on them. I could then drive it home.

When I got the car back to the UK I had to get evidence that the headlights dipped to the right, speedo read in mph and that the O/S fog light worked, and get an MOT and a COC.
I had trouble getting UK insurance on a car that was not registered, but found one that would cover it from the VIN number, as long as I didn't drive it. For some stupid reason you have to have an MOT and valid UK insurance to be able to tax the car, to be able to register it. But almost all UK insurers will not insure a car that is not registered.
The annoying thing was with 84g/km of CO2 output, the car tax is free anyway.

The DVLA however were very helpful in the process, as were the people at the German end.

Finding a helpful UK insurer was the biggest PITA, and having looked into importing another car, it seems the problem has got worse.
The other annoying thing was having a reg plate ready to go on the car, but it had to be registered with a random one first, then I had to pay to get it transferred.

HTH