jsk02a

Greetings everybody,

I am in the military and will be shipping my 2006 Lexus IS350 to Germany for about 3 years. Now, from what I read most US cars have to make costly changes in order for the Tüv to issue a german license plate. Such things as, adding a side turn signal, a rear fog light, removing the yellow turn signal bulbs and replacing them with white, etc....of which can run into the thousands of Euros.

My question is if anybody here has experience with shipping a car to Germany...what changes can I make before hand? I am unsure of the specific regulations regarding what needs to be changed and how it needs to be changed.

Vladi

OK here's the theory:
In Germany you can drive a car with US tags without problem for more than six months if you are permanent resident of non EC country. I know for a fact that foreign students and foreign employees can do that but not sure about the army.
If you are none of that they could tell you that car needs to leave the country but I dont know how strict they are.

This is the reality or practice:
To be completely honest I've never heard that anyone had to leave the country yet. I myself have brought a one car from FL to Europe five years ago and to this day its still with FL tags and I drive it regularly whenever I am there.

Reality or practice is that no one will say anything as long as you have valid insurance, thats all they care about. German Law says that they might ask for the date of import to Germany on customs declaration that you will get once you pick up your car from the port if car gets imported straight to Germany. But remember you can always import it trough Netherlands and Germans cant prove how long you've been in their country.

I might have made it sound complicated but it really isn't. If you want to save money just take it with US tags. If you want to do the conversion find the nearest shop to your German residence and they will do it for you. Procedure is not that complicated since IS is sold in Europe too. You will probably have to get new EU spec headlights or get current ones adjusted it all depends on a specific car model. Side turn signal is not a big investment and neither is a rear fog light witch can be retrofitted in IS. You dont have to remove yellow turn signals at the back they do that only if they came red. On front they will switch yellow position light with regular white bulb or they will disable it. Your speedo is good since it has KM/h on it. Maybe there are other little things but its not that scary it just costs some money to do a conversion. Remember there is a customs fee and a tax if you want to register car in Germany

If you convert IS350 and make it EU legal remember that you could sell it for a really good price since IS350 is not available in EU. I project that you can get at least 21K Euros for 06 if its in a nice condition and decent mileage.

caddyowner

This is a good option to consider. One lady I knew accepted a 2 year assignment in Hawaii and her company paid to ship her car. She still kicks herself for having the car shipped back to the mainland because she could have sold her old Geo in Hawaii for much more than it was worth back here.

One thing to consider, though, is the timing of the sale. You'll likely have a fixed return date and buyers can use that to leverage a lower price.

jsk02a

Excellent information! I may just do that, the car is in the excellent shape with about 48k miles on it. I did know about the 6 month thing, but I am sure the Army will force me to register it with the German government at some point.

Good info though, thanks!