Police inspections at the 'Ring?
Discussion
This morning I got an email through from the guys who were offering that 'ring insurance package so talked about recently. There were various vague reference to the police clamping down on non-original documents and illegal modifications on foreign cars at the 'ring. If I was to be cynical I might suggest this was linked to a company that's is just about to start offering a hire car service, but does anyone know anything more about this?
Ignore it. It's simply somebody trying to drum up business...
http://z8.invisionfree.com/Northloop/index.php?sho...
http://z8.invisionfree.com/Northloop/index.php?sho...
Chris71 said:
This morning I got an email through from the guys who were offering that 'ring insurance package so talked about recently. There were various vague reference to the police clamping down on non-original documents and illegal modifications on foreign cars at the 'ring. If I was to be cynical I might suggest this was linked to a company that's is just about to start offering a hire car service, but does anyone know anything more about this?
"Illegal modifications"? AFAIK, a car that is road-legal in one EU state is road-legal in them all. The TUV (German MOT equiv) has all sorts of differences with SVA, but you can still drive an SVA'd car in Germany.
Wrt photocopies of documents, although I could not say this for a fact, it seems hard to beleive that they would make an issue out of that. The German reg document system is different; you get a compact folded reg document that you must carry in the vehicle at all times, and they wouldn't be keen on a photocopy of one of those, but you also get a larger reg document that you keep outside the car, and that's the one that matters. The fact that the UK system works differently to theirs would be a reason why they wouldn't try to apply their requirements rigidly to foreigners. I have had a number of interactions with German TrafPol, and they have always been reasonable people. With foreign drivers, half the time (it seems) they've got no documents at all, so I doubt the Polizei would get too bent out of shape if you had only a good photocopy.
flemke said:
Chris71 said:
This morning I got an email through from the guys who were offering that 'ring insurance package so talked about recently. There were various vague reference to the police clamping down on non-original documents and illegal modifications on foreign cars at the 'ring. If I was to be cynical I might suggest this was linked to a company that's is just about to start offering a hire car service, but does anyone know anything more about this?
"Illegal modifications"? AFAIK, a car that is road-legal in one EU state is road-legal in them all. The TUV (German MOT equiv) has all sorts of differences with SVA, but you can still drive an SVA'd car in Germany.
My understanding is that theyre looking closely at German cars and also foreign cars where there are concerns about the vehicles safety. This is Ben Lovejoys opinion: http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/tuv/index.html
this is an issue for which i have first hand experience!
the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries. 
I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries. I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
drakart said:
this is an issue for which i have first hand experience! the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries.
I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
I'd love to hear more about this experience. the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries. I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
You're saying that they took a UK-reg Porsche that was at that moment legal to drive in the UK and, because the car failed their local brake test, that car was summarily crushed?
The TUV rules are very specific. For example, on your German reg doc it will state which tyres (brand, model and all three dimensions) have been TUV approved for your car. Are you saying, on the basis of your experience, that if the car had come as new (and been approved) with 245 rear tyres, if you were running 255s of the same model on your UK-reg car, they would be entitled to crush it?
crossle said:
GC8 said:
This is Ben Lovejoys opinion:
...which was written in 2007, about changes expected in 2008...This post is about an entirely different matter, namely a British owned Nurburg based business scaremongering people into using their "inspection services..."
ok guys,
Well i don;t know what the email is referring too, but TUV inspectors have been very common recently, in fact my mate got banned from the track as his race spec Nova did'nt conform to TUV standards, two main reasons were the engine was not designed for the car ( 2.0 xe on throttle bodies) and would need a TUV cert to be allowed on oh and he had no sunstrip on the car as he had removed the sunvisors for the roll cage.
Basically there are a few things they have been clamping down on.
also this year they banned old fashioned bonnet pins, you now must have the flush fit aero ones and last week noise tests were back on the cards again.
Best thing to do is take all your bills with you for mods you have done ( things like cages and major changed) as in Germany all mods need to be TUV certed. So its not surprising they check them out more, however most brit cars are of a descent caliber.
Unfortunately Nurburgring GMBH itself is still missing the point that the Brits provide a huge income to them and the area, without us they would lose near enough 40-50% of their income on touristfarten days. So they still provide s
te service to brits.
anyway, before anyone calls me a liar, i am a regular there and have been 6 times this year alone so i know quite a bit bout what goes on. Oh and one thing for VW owners , never take your german style plates with you to germany, they will have a hissy fit and fine you there and then for hiding the ID of your car. heard loads of these cases this year. Police unfortunately still police in germany and just like here they will try to screw you for silly misdemeanors
Well i don;t know what the email is referring too, but TUV inspectors have been very common recently, in fact my mate got banned from the track as his race spec Nova did'nt conform to TUV standards, two main reasons were the engine was not designed for the car ( 2.0 xe on throttle bodies) and would need a TUV cert to be allowed on oh and he had no sunstrip on the car as he had removed the sunvisors for the roll cage.
Basically there are a few things they have been clamping down on.
also this year they banned old fashioned bonnet pins, you now must have the flush fit aero ones and last week noise tests were back on the cards again.
Best thing to do is take all your bills with you for mods you have done ( things like cages and major changed) as in Germany all mods need to be TUV certed. So its not surprising they check them out more, however most brit cars are of a descent caliber.
Unfortunately Nurburgring GMBH itself is still missing the point that the Brits provide a huge income to them and the area, without us they would lose near enough 40-50% of their income on touristfarten days. So they still provide s
te service to brits. anyway, before anyone calls me a liar, i am a regular there and have been 6 times this year alone so i know quite a bit bout what goes on. Oh and one thing for VW owners , never take your german style plates with you to germany, they will have a hissy fit and fine you there and then for hiding the ID of your car. heard loads of these cases this year. Police unfortunately still police in germany and just like here they will try to screw you for silly misdemeanors
This is very interesting, and a bit of an eye opener to be honest.
Are there any cases of any of these Police Officers inspections being challenged legally? Using the example of a previous posters mate with his XE Nova running a set of larger than standard Toyo 888 for the sake of arguement. This car would not need an SVA (correct?) in the UK, however the capacity and engine number must be changed on the log book. Assuming that all modifications were declared to the insurer, and the car had a valid MOT certificate tested in the current state of tune, is this car therefore legally allowed to be driven in EU member countries?
Furthermore, assuming that the person that built the car was pretty handy in the garage, it is sensible to assume that a lot of mods, components, cage, fabrication will not have any documentation to present if asked .... No problem for the UK MOT proceedure, however potentially a problem with regards to TUV.
I appreciate that manufacturer's type homologation, SVA, and MOT and 3 completely different things, but am I being nieve to assume that I can drive a car in any EU member state if my car legally complies with UK regulations for a road car?
Obviously a set of 888s in Bavaria in the winter would be a little bit silly, but are winter tyres mandatory or advisory to UK visitors?
Are there any cases of any of these Police Officers inspections being challenged legally? Using the example of a previous posters mate with his XE Nova running a set of larger than standard Toyo 888 for the sake of arguement. This car would not need an SVA (correct?) in the UK, however the capacity and engine number must be changed on the log book. Assuming that all modifications were declared to the insurer, and the car had a valid MOT certificate tested in the current state of tune, is this car therefore legally allowed to be driven in EU member countries?
Furthermore, assuming that the person that built the car was pretty handy in the garage, it is sensible to assume that a lot of mods, components, cage, fabrication will not have any documentation to present if asked .... No problem for the UK MOT proceedure, however potentially a problem with regards to TUV.
I appreciate that manufacturer's type homologation, SVA, and MOT and 3 completely different things, but am I being nieve to assume that I can drive a car in any EU member state if my car legally complies with UK regulations for a road car?
Obviously a set of 888s in Bavaria in the winter would be a little bit silly, but are winter tyres mandatory or advisory to UK visitors?
well you'd think so, but remember how it works with the UK and Europe.
They put together all the poxy rules, we are the only ones who adhere to them.
As for driving in europe, again, they do what they like in the uk, but we leave the UK and we get jumped on for anything, there is never any leniancy from their police to us.
They put together all the poxy rules, we are the only ones who adhere to them.
As for driving in europe, again, they do what they like in the uk, but we leave the UK and we get jumped on for anything, there is never any leniancy from their police to us.
Antj said:
ok guys,
Well i don;t know what the email is referring too, but TUV inspectors have been very common recently, in fact my mate got banned from the track as his race spec Nova did'nt conform to TUV standards, two main reasons were the engine was not designed for the car ( 2.0 xe on throttle bodies) and would need a TUV cert to be allowed on oh and he had no sunstrip on the car as he had removed the sunvisors for the roll cage.
Basically there are a few things they have been clamping down on.
also this year they banned old fashioned bonnet pins, you now must have the flush fit aero ones and last week noise tests were back on the cards again.
Best thing to do is take all your bills with you for mods you have done ( things like cages and major changed) as in Germany all mods need to be TUV certed. So its not surprising they check them out more, however most brit cars are of a descent caliber.
Unfortunately Nurburgring GMBH itself is still missing the point that the Brits provide a huge income to them and the area, without us they would lose near enough 40-50% of their income on touristfarten days. So they still provide ste service to brits.
anyway, before anyone calls me a liar, i am a regular there and have been 6 times this year alone so i know quite a bit bout what goes on. Oh and one thing for VW owners , never take your german style plates with you to germany, they will have a hissy fit and fine you there and then for hiding the ID of your car. heard loads of these cases this year. Police unfortunately still police in germany and just like here they will try to screw you for silly misdemeanors
A few things re your post: Well i don;t know what the email is referring too, but TUV inspectors have been very common recently, in fact my mate got banned from the track as his race spec Nova did'nt conform to TUV standards, two main reasons were the engine was not designed for the car ( 2.0 xe on throttle bodies) and would need a TUV cert to be allowed on oh and he had no sunstrip on the car as he had removed the sunvisors for the roll cage.
Basically there are a few things they have been clamping down on.
also this year they banned old fashioned bonnet pins, you now must have the flush fit aero ones and last week noise tests were back on the cards again.
Best thing to do is take all your bills with you for mods you have done ( things like cages and major changed) as in Germany all mods need to be TUV certed. So its not surprising they check them out more, however most brit cars are of a descent caliber.
Unfortunately Nurburgring GMBH itself is still missing the point that the Brits provide a huge income to them and the area, without us they would lose near enough 40-50% of their income on touristfarten days. So they still provide s
te service to brits. anyway, before anyone calls me a liar, i am a regular there and have been 6 times this year alone so i know quite a bit bout what goes on. Oh and one thing for VW owners , never take your german style plates with you to germany, they will have a hissy fit and fine you there and then for hiding the ID of your car. heard loads of these cases this year. Police unfortunately still police in germany and just like here they will try to screw you for silly misdemeanors
First, (and apologies for my ignorance), is a "race-spec Nova" essentially a road car that's been turned as far as possible into a racing car so that it's barely clinging to its original road-legality? If so, there'd be nothing wrong with that, although one can imagine why the police would pick it out for scrutiny.
Second, they banned the Nova from the Touristenfahrten, when the NS is a public road, because it did not conform, but they allowed your friend to drive away from the Grune Holle and onto all the other public roads of Germany?
You wrote that the car "had no sunstrip" because he'd removed the sun visors. I think you meant that "it did have a sunstrip", right? The same rule regarding sunstrips applies in the UK; if the sunstrip encroaches more than something like 10mm into the swept area of the wiper, you will (at least according to the rules) get an MOT failure unless you remove the strip. It's happened to me.
Do you know the rationale behind their asking for invoices for mods? The typical UK invoice does not prove MOT conformity, so one wonders what it would evidence. Is the idea that if the work was done by a professional, in theory at least it is less likely to have been bodged? Perhaps this is just a carry-over from what they would do with a German car. In Germany, normally a TUV-approved garage is not allowed to do non-approved mods to a road car. It is slightly amusing that they would ask for invoices that are in English. There is very little similarity between English and German words for various parts of a car, so unless the officer were fluent in English (and that would not be common), he wouldn't know what he was reading.
flemke said:
First, (and apologies for my ignorance), is a "race-spec Nova" essentially a road car that's been turned as far as possible into a racing car so that it's barely clinging to its original road-legality?
Flemke, I think your interpretation of "Race spec" and that of the original poster may be subtely different; given your current stable and the vast amount of research you've done in modifying some of your steeds and indeed your contact base in Germany!!!!I think the Police are trying to ensure that cars are essentially safe to use the NS on TF days, and also possibly trying to return TF days to true 'road oriented' cars, and buck a trend away from the increasingly heavily modified cars which are seeking their way onto the hallowed tarmac?
fergus said:
I think the Police are trying to ensure that cars are essentially safe to use the NS on TF days, and also possibly trying to return TF days to true 'road oriented' cars, and buck a trend away from the increasingly heavily modified cars which are seeking their way onto the hallowed tarmac?
Admirable as a philosophy, however surely there is a better way of going about it than kicking up a stink when a car comes along that is "too modified" for the ring.Our MSA Blue Book has 2 tyre lists, for example. List A being what we would class as a "normal" tyre, and list B as a high performance track day tyre. Toyo 888s and Advan A048s are on list B (So is the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup that is standard fit on GT3s and CSLs, but we'll ignore that for now). Maybe they could stipulate that on Touristenfahrt (check out my Deutsch!) days, only cars wearing list A tyres are allowed.
They could also post a static noise test if that was their aim.
I can't imagine that the large domestic population of drivers, and their Dutch neighbours would be very recieving of such regulations, and it seems unfair for them to say that restictions are for Brits only.
flemke said:
drakart said:
this is an issue for which i have first hand experience! the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries.
I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
I'd love to hear more about this experience. the german police do not care if you have an MoT (which of course you will have). Once you are in Germany, they expect your car to be within their rules. your car, if stopped has to be up to TUV standard - ie braking distances etc and if you have any modifications, they expect you to have reciepts. When in Stuttgart as part of a rally, they prevented all 80 cars from going on the road until they have examined every car. If there was anything dodgy about the car then the owners were asked to follow a police bike to the local testing station. One of the porsches failed its brake test and the car was taken off the owner and crushed!! Some of the others that were following the bike, left the convoy and did a runner for the swiss border! my car was in good condition, but they wanted to see "a ticket" for the air filter and roll cage. i explained until i was blue in the face that in the UK we do not have to paperwork for modifications and that having an MoT allowed me to visit any EU country and be legal in those countries. I was luckily sent on my way but as mentioned before, others were not that lucky. It would be bad news to see this happen at the ring, somewhere i used to visit fairly often.
The Police were very nice, but as they had a job to do they certainly weren't taking any prisoners (how times have changed!)!
Please be aware that it has happened in the past (this was in 2007) and will no doubt happen again.
AB
You're saying that they took a UK-reg Porsche that was at that moment legal to drive in the UK and, because the car failed their local brake test, that car was summarily crushed?
The TUV rules are very specific. For example, on your German reg doc it will state which tyres (brand, model and all three dimensions) have been TUV approved for your car. Are you saying, on the basis of your experience, that if the car had come as new (and been approved) with 245 rear tyres, if you were running 255s of the same model on your UK-reg car, they would be entitled to crush it?
Yes, a UK road legal car is legal as long as it has a current MoT. The germans did not see it this way!
The story behind this was that the police had seen a number of "old" cars driving around the streets of Stuttgart and came over to the campsite to investigate. There were discussions with the Police all night with the outcome being that in the morning, the Police would breath and drug test all the drivers, look at all the paperwork (MoT, Insurance, driving licences) and carry out a brief inspection on all the cars, with further tests on those that they thought looked "tired or illegal". They forced a number of people to carry out repairs on the spot, with the others having to go under police escort to the testing station to have a TUV test carried out.
The confusion lies between exactly what they were looking for. They forced competitors to take off any spoilers that were not "original", but they didnt check the cars for total originality. I believe that after i had spoken to them (mine was the first car to be looked at), they stopped this point of view as it was clear that no-one would have reciepts and "tickets" for any extras fitted to the car.
the police's point of view was that since all the cars would be looked at, if they had any doubts about the standards of any of them and if they failed their test, then they were not therefore road legal in germany at that time and will go no further.
As far as i can remember, the porsche failed its braking distance test and the police said that it would need a whole new braking system costing alot of money. the owners had two options; wait two weeks for the work to be carried out at a scary cost or hand them the car. The car was a 944 and cost the owners less than the works that were needed. the car was taken away to be crushed. One of the other teams left their car there and came back for it a few weekss later after repairs to their car was carried out.
the german TUV test is much more rigourous than our MoT as i believe it is less frequent that every year. Whether we recieved fair treatment i am not sure, but we really didnt have any choice!
I hope this clears things up somewhat, but it is slightly ironic that the stuttgart police crushed a Porsche!
AB
fergus, drakart,
Ah, okay, the pieces are starting to fit (apologies for no quoting, etc, but am in a rush).
Re the Nordschleife TF, the circuit is public property in the sense that it is owned by a company that itself is owned by public (government) bodies (90% RP, IINM), but it is not the same as a gov't agency or public park. Therefore Nurburgring GmbH can do pretty much whatever they like regarding what is/isn't allowed on TF. The Adenau police often work with circuit management (as well as on their own, obviously) in the interests of safety. If I read you right, the police were applying rules to TF that do not necessarily and in every detail apply to general road-eligibility of an EU car in Germany.
Re crushed Porsche, in your earlier post it seemed (at least to me) that you were saying that the penalty for having an EU-legal car with dodgy brakes in Germany was that it would be crushed, end of. AIUI, the police said that the dodgy brakes meant that the car was not road-legal (and fair enough), and that the owner had the options of getting them repaired in Germany to TUV standard, or (I presume, and for a foreign car this is pretty critical) putting the car on a recovery vehicle and taking it out of Germany forthwith. Either option would remedy the problem of an unsafe car on German public roads.
As the owner was not prepared to do either (perhaps for understandable reasons), the Germans were unwilling to leave the car "loose", so to speak, and therefore crushed it.
Have I got that right?
Cheers, guys.
drakart said:
Yes, a UK road legal car is legal as long as it has a current MoT. The germans did not see it this way!
I don't think that's strictly true.It must have an MOT but it must also comply with the construction and use regulations. (Compliance with C&R is not routinely monitored and would only be tested if BiB or DVLA took a special interest in your car.)
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