[Sunnyred216]

HI,

I apologize for this being specific to Ireland and not the UK. I bought a new BMW a little over a year ago, and now am being relocated for work to Dublin. Due to the amount of money that I would lose from trying to sell a one year old car, I'm looking to transport it to Dublin and register/use it over there. I was told that it is possible to register a US car over there.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Doesn't have to be experience specific to a US car, but rather a car with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car. Any resources, information about what was required to register the car, or anything like that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Chris

[IRL-MN]

Originally Posted by Sunnyred216

HI,

I apologize for this being specific to Ireland and not the UK. I bought a new BMW a little over a year ago, and now am being relocated for work to Dublin. Due to the amount of money that I would lose from trying to sell a one year old car, I'm looking to transport it to Dublin and register/use it over there. I was told that it is possible to register a US car over there.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Doesn't have to be experience specific to a US car, but rather a car with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car. Any resources, information about what was required to register the car, or anything like that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Chris

It's possible - I know people back there that have done it. You will need to declare the vehicle to Customs within 24 hours of it arriving in the state. You shouldn't have to pay any import duties as it sounds like your situation would be a transfer of residence. I believe the criteria for this is that you must have lived outside of Ireland for 1 year, and owned the car for 6 months. There is also a restriction on when you can re-sell the car after it's imported.

Having left hand drive is not an issue (except for the drive thru ), but you will need to have rear fog lights (just buy the euro switch) and you cannot have the orange corner lights in front (this can be addressed in the software).

Some other things to consider are insurance and fuel costs for a 135i. Insurance is very expensive in Ireland, especially for high powered cars combined with left hand drive, and you wouldn't have any driving history there. I would definitely check into this before making any decisions. Your yearly road tax will also be quite expensive. If your car is only 1 year old, the rate will be based on CO2 emissions. Shipping the car over there will also be thousands.

Depending on how long you will be there, when you factor all the cost and hassle you might be better off selling and just buying something over there.