Importing car from South Africa

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My search for a classic camper van turned up a VW ‘jurgens autovilla’ which appears to fit my wishes. It’s a little more modern than my usual fare but is quirky and spacious.
The selling dealer has told me they will deal with all of the importing requirements upon my behalf, for a price of course, and I’m content with that. Today I have to make the decision to buy or not, I am still a little nervous as never imported a vehicle before, even though the dealer is ‘holding my hand’. All I need to do when the vehicle lands is register it apparently. Any experiences you may care to share to ease my nerves? or otherwise!!
Dealer seems very honest :

Edited by crankedup on Tuesday 13th November 19:42

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aeropilot said:

You want to check the SA registration details on paperwork very carefully before agreeing to import, given some of the issues on recent PH threads on import from SA.

There appears to be a few in UK already though, but, again, best check the wording on its current SA registration documentation.

Edited by aeropilot on Monday 12th November 13:24

Thanks for comment. Dealer tells me they have all required papers on the vehicle. TBH what would I be looking for on the SA reg document.

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aeropilot said:

crankedup said:

aeropilot said:

You want to check the SA registration details on paperwork very carefully before agreeing to import, given some of the issues on recent PH threads on import from SA.

There appears to be a few in UK already though, but, again, best check the wording on its current SA registration documentation.

Edited by aeropilot on Monday 12th November 13:24

Thanks for comment. Dealer tells me they have all required papers on the vehicle. TBH what would I be looking for on the SA reg document.

Its what you don't want to be seeing, which is if it's been 'restored out there' from assembled parts and registered in SA as a 'Built Up' car. See that description anywhere on the SA documents and walk away as won't get date related plate by DVLA in UK.
Hopefully it has a 'continuous registration' history in SA and all will be OK.

Thank you, that’s really helpful, I will ask the dealer to email over images of the document.

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tapkaJohnD said:

Had to look up VW ‘jurgens autovilla' as I'd never heard of them.

Turns out Jurgens is an SA campervan manufacturer, so maybe I may be forgiven. Reassuring, or not? Is a campervan built on an imported chassis "built up"? There's one for sale in the UK: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-T2-Jurgens-camper-19...f:0


No connection, of course,
John

Thanks for posting and link, although I was aware of the two ‘Jurgens’ for sale in woodbridge.
Done my homework on jurgens and they are a respected coach builder, although they are still involved in camper business they no longer build the actual camper bodies. Only a 1000 campers were built apparently. They brought in the T2 rolling cab and chassis from VW and built the camper body onto the chassis.
Like you I had not heard of Jurgens prior to my considerations to purchase the van which popped up on my ipad.

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Thank yo arguti for such an informative post, much appreciated.

Sadly or fortunately, I struck upon a problem whilst I was going about my due diligence prior to
making payment for the vehicle. I noticed a discrepancy in the address between the invoice I had been sent and the emails that we had exchanged prior to invoice. Only a small discrepancy but very important for me. The business is based in a business park, the unit number you would think would be the same in emails as invoice.
This prompted me to dig deeper and I Googled the business park address and went onto thier website. The business I was dealing with was not listed within the business parks list of tenants. Final straw came from the road the business was stated to be in did not exist on the business park, although a very close name does exist.

I was convinced that my purchase would have been OK judging by website of business, correspondence and general attitude. Buyer beware!!!!

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arguti said:

No problem, I have added some extra pointers

Thanks again.
Did you read of my troubles with the proposed purchase? Decided to withdraw from the proposed deal.

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craigjm said:

Is VAT and import duty already taken into account in the price?

Yes it was, VAT was at 5%, shipping with import was just over £2k. All academic now sadly, I was really excited about buying the vehicle but just can’t get past the ‘system error’ that I picked up on.

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Decided to stick to a U.K. purchase, traditional go see and drive before payment. I have had two scam attempts on me in one week now. An ebay traditional scam and now this latest episode.

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Lucky 13 said:

Hi.. are you still looking? I have a Jurgens in the UK just about to go up for sale.

No longer looking, purchased a vintage caravan instead. Good luck with sale