_shaun_ Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 (edited) This is a brief guide on importing based of my own experiences its not complete but ill add to it and try tidy it up as i go along ive tryed to bang up a few pictures to break up the text wall but alot of things id have liked to show have personal details so ill try do some photoshoping when i have more time .Apologies for any spelling or grammar mistakes am pretty crap at them i used www.tradecarview.com of course other sites can be used. but the ones I was looking at had either jacked up the prices or wanted you to pay a deposit just to look at cars for sale.Step one of course is to register on the site and start to browse for the car your after.As I was looking for a ep95 3 door manual I just banged ep95 manual into the keywords once every week or so and had a look to see if any had been listed. The cars are extremely rare I checked every week for around 7 months with out seeing a single one and gave up and then by chance I was bored one day looked and one had been listed with in the last 24hours!. Its worth noting in that entire time I seen quite a few 5 doors come and go but never once did I see a single ep85 so rare isn’t the word for these!!.Once you have found your chosen car contact the seller with any questions you might have and personally I would ask for as many pictures to be taken as possible as it’s the only chance you will get to actually see this car before parting with your hard earned cash. Also any marks or scratches you find can be used to bargain with the price. You are free to barter as much as you want to with the seller to try get the price down there are 3 different prices you will be dealing with FOB - this is the price off just the car and nothing else. C&F this is the car + and basic shipping cost . And the one I would advise you use with is CIF this is cost of car + shipping + marine insurance which you must have. Basically CIF means you pay them and they deal with everything right up until the boat hit’s the docks in the uk then its up to you. Remember there is also other things you need to pay the main one being 30% import tax when the car hit’s the uk ill list all the fees I encounter once my car is in my hands.Depending on the company selling the car you can also ask for different things as well when speaking to the dealer I was using they owned a garage and said they would be happy to do any work such as bodywork/service. Or even try source aftermarket parts and fit them to the car prior to sending the car.Once your happy with everything and selected a port for the car to be shipped to its time to request proforma invoice, this outlines all the details of the trade and the price to be paid. Along with the bank details the money should be sent to. Tradecarview have a system called pay trade which acts much like paypal basically you pay pay trade the money and when u confirm the car has arrived safely they then pay the dealer you purchased it from. For this they do however charge a fee based on a percentage of the value of the trade and minimum fee is $150usd its highly advised you use this for some protection. If your happy with all the details of the trade you should arrange a bank transfer from your bank to pay trades bank account with the invoice number as the reference to the transfer so it can be easily traced. Your bank should give you a receipt for the transaction which you should attach a copy of and send it to the dealer to confirm the payment has been done ( the receipt might have some personal bank details you do not wish to disclose please feel free to block this out) in my case the transfer took 5 working days for pay trade to get the funds and they then took another day to assign it to the correct invoice and notify myself and the dealer that the transfer had been complete. Due to the fact I had sent the receipt of the transaction to the dealer already they had already arranged and finalised all the shipping details and my car was sitting at the docks waiting to be loaded.Now the waiting game begins the shipping company will send a bill of laden to the dealer who will send you a copy via tradecarview and then they should arrange a courier to deliver the paper copy’s of the bill of laden, all the invoice documents and any jap paperwork relating to the car namely the de-registration paper work. Once you have the paper copy’s you have two choices you can either pay a customs clearance agent to do the paperwork for you or you can attempt to do the paperwork yourself.I spent quite awhile on the phone speaking to customs about this and have decided to do the paperwork myself.The forms that need to be filled in are,C21 customs clearance requestC384 private motor vehicle releaseThese will allow you to pay the 30% import tax on your car and give you the needed paperwork to take to the docks and collect your car. My documents should be with me any day now so I will update the guide as I attempt to work my way though the paperwork and last steps of collecting my car.A few things that should be taken into consideration when importing are.1.You must make sure you have the funds to pay for things as soon as they come up not having the money at the right time can result in fee’s and the possibility of losing the car.2.Remember to take into account the time zone difference this makes communicating very slow at times so be very careful. If you just spent 10 months looking for that super rare ep85 ask yourself is it worth trying to get £100 knocked off the price of the car at the cost of a few days negotiating when someone might just swoop in and pay the ticket price and take it from under your nose.3.There are 3 ports cars can be brought into. Bristol, Southampton and Liverpool its worth getting quotes for all of them as one might be slightly closer but want £150 quid more to ship it and it will take twice as long to get there.4.Its worth reading all of tradecarviews faq’s and such as they answer a lot of questions as well5. Dealers will have reviews and will say if they accept pay trade check these to make sure your happy with the dealer before handing over any moneypayment's made to get boat loaded on boatcar- $990 usdshipping + insurance -$760 usdpaytrade fee- $150 usdtotal $1900 usd or £1,250.91 as of 03/12/12£9.50 bank charge for making the paymentso in total i had to pay out £1,260.41 for the car to be loaded on the boat the journey was suposed to be 8 weeks so gives you 2 months to start saving up when it hits the uk you then have to pay the following, VAT and duty are calculated by your invoice cost which will be in USD's. they use the exchange rate for the day the car actauly lands in the uk rather than the date on the invoice so just watch out for this.10% duty of total invoice cost £119.9320% vat of total invoice cost AND duty £300.45customers clearance £98 landing fee £85, (this will change depending on company you use for me £85 covered them getting the car off the boat and storage for 7 days not including the day of arrival.)deferment charge £35 ( the agent that landed the boat done all customs paperwork and paid it for me so i could just arrive with cash and take the car straight away so they have a small charge for that) Thats the car yours ready to be picked you just need to take the orignal bill of laden with you.since its a 600mile round trip to get my car it cost me £245 to get the car from liverpool to my doortotal for car landed in the uk all taxs and duty paid £1898.79. then my transport costs to bring it home take's me to £2143.79. my car will be sitting for awhile before its put on road so i cant realy give detail on registering it yet however. ill more than likely add that in when i start that process. hope this helps if anyone is looking into importing when i was looking todo it there seemed to be no info on it so was a bit concerning to start sending thousands of pounds not knowing what the total costs would be but in all honesty am shocked how easy it was the hardest part was waiting Edited February 6, 2013 by _shaun_ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TrisK Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 This is very interesting Shaun.If you have more paper work/images with personal details, Im more than happy to photoshop them out.Or just open them in paint and put a black square over.Thanks for sharing this bud Quote Link to post Share on other sites
micky boy Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 Good write up there bud Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted December 27, 2012 Author Share Posted December 27, 2012 This is very interesting Shaun.If you have more paper work/images with personal details, Im more than happy to photoshop them out.Or just open them in paint and put a black square over.Thanks for sharing this budthanks some things that i woulda liked to show like invoice and bill of laden are like full a4 pages and alot of it is personal so dont think ill put them up Quote Link to post Share on other sites
daniel_g Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 Good write up man, hope it all goes well. I used to spend ages looking at motors on trade car view, never once saw an ep85, not many ep82s either. Think weve robbed japan of most of their eps haha. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Malcolm GT Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 Amazing write up and really informative. If you don't me asking how much did all yours cost with a breakdown Quote Link to post Share on other sites
crazy_eyes Posted December 27, 2012 Share Posted December 27, 2012 (edited) Amazing write up and really informative.If you don't me asking how much did all yours cost with a breakdown Was just about to ask the same question as i've been looking into this for a while now, we need a new family car and my missus love the nissan largo highwaystar but i was thinking of bring a starlet across at the same time (I can not find many EP82's though) and thanks awesome / helpfull write up Edited December 27, 2012 by crazy_eyes Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted December 27, 2012 Author Share Posted December 27, 2012 Mines still on the boat so not finished paying a few things but when I get hope ill have a quik check and put up exactly prices so far Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zeldoz Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 This is interesting i looked threw, regisistered and enquired about a Glanza. Total CIF price was $3,350.. Which worked out about £2080.. Now, that was Everything, Car,Shipping,Insurance,Paytrade and Roll on/Roll off boat charges.Would there be other hidden costs to incur? Or would this now be a case of going to docks and collected when its arrived?..Also what are the legalities once in this country, im guessing VOSA need to see inspect it an class it fit for UK roads and the give it a plate/MOT.Would it be registered as a "62" or the earlier "R"Lewis Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pockrockgtti Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 To that total of £2080 you would have to add 10% import duty and then 20% VAT on top that. Because the car is over 10years old all you need to do is insure it on VIN number, get an mot and then register it with the dvla, and you would be good to go. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted December 28, 2012 Author Share Posted December 28, 2012 all my paperwork came today so spent a few hours today filling it in today. ill wait till i get word back if my forms were ok and what the costs were and then ill do a break down of costs and a guide to the form's to be filled in Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Zeldoz Posted December 28, 2012 Share Posted December 28, 2012 Sounds good! Interested in doing the same on a Glanza V! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 added a small list of prices to the bottom Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TrisK Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 added a small list of prices to the bottomreally not too too expsnive then Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 really not too too expsnive thenits almost too cheap for my liking i was quoted £4500 by a company in the uk to buy and import it for me lol. which makes me think i might be missing something but only one way to find out and thats grow a set and do it you could prob save some cash by trying to knock the cif price down with the dealer but its not easy finding the ep95s so i wasnt gonna lose it for the sake of 100quid Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted January 28, 2013 Author Share Posted January 28, 2013 as it turns out the paperwork is easy however once its emailed away its about as enjoyable as stabing yourself in the face with a spoon. spent a few hours on the phone getting passed around from person to person each one telling a different story and there take on whats went wrong. it turns out its extremely rare for someone to try clear a car themself with out using an agent and as such its abit of a grey area. as am already getting bombed by work ill be just paying an agent to clear it for me so next few days ill have a total price minus transport costs to my house which am trying to arrange now. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 total prices all added ill tidy it up and add a few more things when i get a chance. cars still stuck on bloody boat tho cause weather is so bad at liverpool Quote Link to post Share on other sites
daniel_g Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Good stuff man, you paying for a courier to bring it up then ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 Yea they were ment to get it yesterday but bad weather at Liverpool means the boats hiding behind the Isla on man lol Quote Link to post Share on other sites
daniel_g Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Aww that sucks lol. Bet you cant wait. Who you using ? Not falkirk car couriers is it ? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted February 6, 2013 Author Share Posted February 6, 2013 It's a company of anyvan there based down in England . Aye killing me waiting boats not moved for 2 days keep checking on it and it won't bloody move lol Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Azz Posted February 6, 2013 Share Posted February 6, 2013 Great guide Shaun, quite surprised really as i thought it would have cost more. should be put in the wiki section imo ! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_shaun_ Posted February 7, 2013 Author Share Posted February 7, 2013 Great guide Shaun, quite surprised really as i thought it would have cost more. should be put in the wiki section imo ! thanks yea cheaper than i expected aswell should have car monday at latest then ill try sort out more paperwork picture and such like for the guide Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pockrockgtti Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Do you have contact details of the landing agent you used??? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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