[dharder]

As promised, here the question.

Here's what happened: I imported a car from Germany to the UK 4 years ago and had it changed at our local garage to conform to driving on the wrong (the left, that would be :)) side of the road. That included new headlights for the price of £280 (looking at the invoice right now).

The car has been MOTd four times in the UK, I have UK license plates, statement of compliance, etc pp.

Said car is now in Auckland, with the AA compliance people as we speak. The guy calls this afternoon to say that the lights are not right, they are headlights for driving on the right hand side of the road, and he thinks I need new ones.

So have I been driving illegally in the UK for the past 4 1/2 years because my east London car mechanic (who we've used for 10 years and three different cars and never really had issues with) ripped me off, or is the NZ AA guy trying to pass some work over to his car mechanic mates?

Sigh. I know I will have to fork out the money again, but it kind of irks me to pay twice for the same headlights!

Daniela

[incredible hulse]

I've just imported a car for my wife from Japan and this had to go through an AA inspection.
I had to fork out an extra 500 dollars as they found evidence of panel replacement which meant it had to have a structural survey on a jig. I had to get this done before the compliance certificate would be issued. What annoys me is they could not show me evidence of this work ( as they had put the vehicle back together), did not take photos, and the fact that this is not required if the supposed accident had happened once the car was in NZ. The car was inspected in Japan prior to purchase and no issues found.

Either it's a nice little earner or they are very, very thorough.

[james the mechanic]

Sorry to hear about you problems, thieving mechanics.:laugh
It’s the East London one that has robbed you Allegedly; although I’m amazed that you never noticed that your lights were pointing the wrong way. But were they? What model of BMW is it? Some European cars have headlamps that are swichable between left and right hand drive.
As far as the for MoT’s are concerned... Did the same mechanic carry these out?
Provided that the lights were fitted with beam benders (or black tape so long as it didn’t adversely effect the beam pattern) they would pass. Were you present for these MoTs? Could the beam benders have been fitted and removed afterwards without your knowledge?
I personally very much doubt that the NZ tester is attempting to rip you off, it would be way to risky a maneuver for him, if he really was that way inclined he could ‘find’ / generate fault without the potential for redress.
I would lay money on the fact that unless your headlights are switchable they are for a left hand drive car.
Good Luck:nice1
James

[ourquest]

James...with cars being cheap as chips in New Zealand and the issues which the other folk on this thread have had can I assume you would generally NOT recommend self importation of a vehicle? Not that I would consider it, but as you are our resident honest mechanic I thought your opinion on this matter would benefit us all.

[dharder]

James...with cars being cheap as chips in New Zealand and the issues which the other folk on this thread have had can I assume you would generally NOT recommend self importation of a vehicle?

Obviously, I am not the resident mechanic :) but I would think that entirely depends on what you want. We have a VW van, and I looked for the equivalent and couldn't find anything in a price that appealed to us.

As I've mentioned before, we calculated shipping costs, registration costs here (well, minus the new headlights, of course) against what we would have got for it had we sold it in the UK and what we would have to spend for something equivalent here. For us, it worked out better to bring it.

So far, it's only been lots of paperwork and waiting for holidays to be over, but apart from that, I don't find it particularly difficult. Of course, it ain't over yet, who knows, maybe they find yet other problems with it...

Daniela

[dharder]

Provided that the lights were fitted with beam benders (or black tape so long as it didn’t adversely effect the beam pattern) they would pass. Were you present for these MoTs? Could the beam benders have been fitted and removed afterwards without your knowledge?

It's a VW (1998 van), and the invoice said it had 'new inner headlamp deflectors' fitted. The AA guy here said he didn't know what 'deflectors' could be, and I couldn't help him there.

No, I have never noticed the lights not working the correct way, although I have noticed driving in Germany recently that it seemed to be like all the other cars... Never noticed it before, though, in the four years we've had it. I've been wrecking my brains trying to come up with when something could have been changed without us noticing.

And no, it wasn't the same guy doing the MOTs :)

Oh well. I just hope it doesn't take years for the parts to arrive, I really need the car!

Thanks for your thoughts, James

Daniela

[incredible hulse]

James...with cars being cheap as chips in New Zealand

Personally think this is a bit of a myth. There are plenty of high km, old cars that are cheap if you convert back to sterling but in real terms car prices are quite expensive. I sold my UK import today for 50k (it was worth about 19k in sterling) and that 50k to me after being in NZ for 2 years is a lot more in the pocket than 19k in the UK. So for me importing was definitely worthwhile; especially as the import cost was near on nothing as I had space in the container

[dharder]

Personally think this is a bit of a myth. There are plenty of high km, old cars that are cheap if you convert back to sterling but in real terms car prices are quite expensive

That was the impression that I got from looking around, that you can get old-ish cars with lots of km for relatively little. As soon as you look at newer ones, or fewer kilometres, I didn't really think they were so spectacularly cheap.

But I assumed I just looked for the wrong thing in the wrong places :)

Daniela, who might or might not get her car on Friday, after paying an enormous amount that she hadn't budgeted for new headlights...

[james the mechanic]

Hi there,
Sorry I took so long to reply,
God only know what inner headlight deflectors are or what made me think it was a BMW for that matter, he could mean reflectors or these could be some form of beam bender that fits in side the headlight perhaps on the inside of the lens. If this were the case it would explain how it passed its MoT’s however it would be dependent on whether such a device is available and if the lights lenses are removable/replaceable as most are not. As far as I am aware they are not swichable, I am guessing it’s a Transporter; I will certainly be looking at the next one we have in at work of similar vintage.
To answer Our Quests, question I think it is fair to say that I would generally NOT recommend self-importation of a vehicle. However I would defiantly not agree that cars are cheap as chips in NZ when compared with the UK. I think that the vast majority are not that far off the same price when converting dollars to pounds, but I would tend to agree that, once you start earning NZ dollars they may be far more valuable to you. If you have a prestige or sporty vehicle in mint condition that you wish to keep for a long time, ship it otherwise sell it.
Having said all that I actually don’t actually think dharders totally bonkers importing a 1998 VW van; light commercial vehicles with the exception of pick-ups trucks; are not cheap in NZ. 4x4’s seem to represent pretty good value in NZ but I think for the vast majority of vehicles in the UK, importing, just doesn’t’ make financial or practical sense, in most cases.
Best wishes :nice1
James

[dharder]

Just as a quick update, I got the car now :) :)

I have not added up what it actually cost us in the end, and I don't think I will for a while, feel to scarred by the whole experience.

I think we've been ripped off not only by our car mechanic in the UK, but also by the AA in the UK, who managed to sell us a car battery about a car ago (on a call out) with an expiry date of 2004... Of course I should always check all these things, but to be honest, some just don't occur to me. I would never have checked if the mechanic actually put in the lights, nor would I check if the car battery the AA guy just put in has an expiration date in the past...

Let's hope the guy who fixed the car here for the compliance people is more honest...

But I am very, very happy to have my car back!

Daniela