importing a 2015 viper TA into the uk
Discussion
cost of car
+ cost of any state taxes you may have to pay
+ cost of getting it to port ($300 just to get across Houston)
divide by exchange rate
+ shipping £1500 - £2000 east coast vs west coast
+ 10% duty
+ 20% VAT
+ conversion (£100-£200 if you do it yourself
+ IVA test fee
+ first registration and road tax
+ optional marine insurance 1% of insured value
Those figures are in the order that apply so things like duty and vat apply on the total of all items above them.
Your first big problem will be finding a dealer to sell to you as a non resident. Bernie at tomball/bj motors/viper exchange is worth a call as that's who i used. Some other dealers may work with you, many/most wont.
My car was titled in VA by Bernie and exported from Texas and i never paid a cent of sales tax in the US, I was never clear how that happened but Bernie seemed to know what he was doing. The car i looked at in CA was MSRP and would have been subject to about another 10% tax. That's a lot of money on $115k, as it was the uk gov still took enough money off me that i could have brought a nice family car with.
if you get one i think it will be the first in the UK
+ cost of any state taxes you may have to pay
+ cost of getting it to port ($300 just to get across Houston)
divide by exchange rate
+ shipping £1500 - £2000 east coast vs west coast
+ 10% duty
+ 20% VAT
+ conversion (£100-£200 if you do it yourself
+ IVA test fee
+ first registration and road tax
+ optional marine insurance 1% of insured value
Those figures are in the order that apply so things like duty and vat apply on the total of all items above them.
Your first big problem will be finding a dealer to sell to you as a non resident. Bernie at tomball/bj motors/viper exchange is worth a call as that's who i used. Some other dealers may work with you, many/most wont.
My car was titled in VA by Bernie and exported from Texas and i never paid a cent of sales tax in the US, I was never clear how that happened but Bernie seemed to know what he was doing. The car i looked at in CA was MSRP and would have been subject to about another 10% tax. That's a lot of money on $115k, as it was the uk gov still took enough money off me that i could have brought a nice family car with.
if you get one i think it will be the first in the UK
Possibly because the populace has been so indoctrinated by Top Gear (and others) into believing that American cars cannot go round corners or that there is some issue in driving on the other side of the car? Could also be the current fad for over complex soulless European machinery. Also the Gen 5 was quite expensive when initially brought out, the price realignment might have been too long coming.
Would be great to have one in the UK club though, especially a TA (pref. in Orange...)
Would be great to have one in the UK club though, especially a TA (pref. in Orange...)
The most common viper in the UK probably is the gen 2, and i would expect the reason for that is that it was affordable in the US at the exact same point the USD was weakest against the GBP. when you could pick up $2 for every £ American cars were flooding into the UK. That was still the case for the gen 3's but they only ran from 2003 - 2006 even so there are still quite a few considering the higher (newer) price at the time and shorter period they were available.
After the 08 financial thing, import numbers have plummeted and gen4 imports can be counted on a cartoon characters hand and still have a finger left over to stick up to the environmentalists. Two were imported at pretty much the same time and it equates to when the £ recovered against the $ briefly and big discounts were being offered on brand new previous years stock. One of them has a less checkered history than the other ;-) and there was a third one floating around that was used in the gumball but i don't think anyone has seen it for a while.
I think quite honestly the exchange rate, high purchase price and deviation from the core viper identity of the gen 5 are the main reason for none coming over and quite frankly dodge have been s
t at selling them anywhere let alone with the additional hassle of importing one, kissing goodby to the warranty and not knowing what you might discover when trying to IVA one as the first person to do it.
After the 08 financial thing, import numbers have plummeted and gen4 imports can be counted on a cartoon characters hand and still have a finger left over to stick up to the environmentalists. Two were imported at pretty much the same time and it equates to when the £ recovered against the $ briefly and big discounts were being offered on brand new previous years stock. One of them has a less checkered history than the other ;-) and there was a third one floating around that was used in the gumball but i don't think anyone has seen it for a while.
I think quite honestly the exchange rate, high purchase price and deviation from the core viper identity of the gen 5 are the main reason for none coming over and quite frankly dodge have been s
t at selling them anywhere let alone with the additional hassle of importing one, kissing goodby to the warranty and not knowing what you might discover when trying to IVA one as the first person to do it.Edited by ViperDave on Wednesday 8th April 20:00
lemmingjames said:
arent the new engines meant to be a bit suspect as well? I looked into importing a new gen (i have a passing interest in these) but read rightly or wrongly that there having issues.
There have been some issues with the NEW Gen V, most of the engine issues seem to be with correctly running in the engine up to first service, because of the large long oil pan if the car is not 100% level its easy to misread the oil dipstick, some cars have been using oil in the run in period and the owners have been misreading the dipstick (or not reading it at all) thinking that the level is fine, when in fact the level was far too low and some engines have failed due to this!There has also been issues with window seals as in when at high speed the wind noise is excessive. Teething issues which the factory are addressing and service bulletins have been issued to dealers.
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