Were Chrysler Voyagers ever sold in the UK (earlier models)?

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, it was written:

Nope, you're right -- there were no pre-'96 ECE-RHD Chrysler minivans sold, and UK-spec headlamps do not exist for them. The powertrain is pretty much the same on the turbodiesel 2.5s early/late, so that won't make much of a problem, but the headlamps will trip you up; MoT no longer accepts headlamp masking tape strips as legal for permanent registration, it's only legal for tourists. You could exploit a loophole in MoT's SVA regulations and install the US-model headlamps, which are considered acceptable as "neutral-dip" 'cos they don't have a beam upsweep on either side.

Contact me for more information,

-DS

If you pull your car up to a wall, turn on your lowbeams and watch, the difference in the shape that the headlights will project onto the wall is that the standard low beam is a flat line with a higher illumination to the right side, that is where the signs would be in North America and to the left hand side for UK.

____---'''''

vs

''''---____

...SO...

in UK all headlights reflectors (not the lenses or bulbs) would be designed to work in opposite ( mirror image of North America) so that the higher point will be to the left, not the right hand side, to illuminate the road signs.

For UK and Aus. the cars oncoming would be directly looking into the brighter portion of your lights if you used North American refelctors.

Not to mention Japan, southern Africa, Indian Subcontinent, and many more parts of the world :-)

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Thanks everyone for your comments and advise, thankfully I hadn't yet bought one (had my eye on a '95 td model) and am now looking for a >96 model. Apart from new headlamp units will also need to get a replacement speedo-dial which includes mph scales. Funnily enough the > later models) so I'm wondering if I could get replacement parts for the

Bulbs are the same, optical lenses and/or reflectors are different.

The UK Ministry of Transport permits US headlamps that don't have an upsweep to the right. There are many such headlamps.

Don't prattle-on about that which you don't understand.

It seems to me that if you haven't bought it yet you shouldn't until you get to Britain. I don't think the savings are that great with an older car, are they?

Furthermore, if you are moving for a longer period of time you may have to go through the 'VAT-dance' (refund in NL, pay in UK). Have you checked the used-car rules? For new cars you have to have owned it for 6 months and driven 6 000 km to import without fiddling around with VAT.

BTW, the LPG filling station network is not that well developed here.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Hmmm..... VAT refund in the Netherlands could be interesting since the rate is 19% and I seem to remember the UK VAT rate is 17.5%. Also you have to pay a rediculous amount of "special vehicle tax", called BPM, which I think I can also reclaim when I settle permanently in the UK. A quick calculation on a 06/1997 Voyager originally worth EUR 32.000 tells me that there is still EUR2.663 worth of BPM which I might be able to reclaim (I have to look into that yet). That's why importing cars from the Netherlands into the UK was so profitable a couple of years ago, that's probably why they thought of the 6 month ownership rule.

If I would buy a brand new EUR35.000 Voyager today and take that with me into the UK, I could be getting a refund of EUR7.420. Shame I haven't that sort of money at the moment :(

Cheers,

Bas

I just found out that the BPM cannot be reclaimed on used cars, only new cars. I don't think VAT will be a problem either while emigrating within the EU. So in short: not too much hassle, but also no bonusses :(

You are right about the UK VAT rate, i.e. 17.5%. I agree that on new vehicles there can be a cost advantage with a personal import from 'the Continent'. Indeed, I did that with my (new) 'premium German brand' of car in 2001 and saved about GBP 5 000 on a UK price of about 40K. I had expected to save about double that but the RHD price went up and UK price went down a bit. It was a time when the fraction of direct imports rose to about 8%+ (my calculation) overall and was probably much greater for the more expensive cars, where the saving was the greatest. For example, a neighbour bought a Porsche through an agency doing direct imports saving about GBP 10K. Not to be sneezed at...

Car dealers in the UK were feeling the pinch, no question.

FYI I bought my car in Germany, having checked with dealers in NL, France and Belgium. I could probably have saved more money by going to Denmark which famously had/has low pre-tax prices but it would have been too much hassle for me.

In your case (used car, higher VAT in home country), I would seriously look at buying in the UK. Saves you the cost/hassle of headlamps etc. BTW, the side of the steering wheel is not an issue, for me at least. I have owned and driven RHD for a long time on 'the Continent' and LHD in the UK, and regularly drive across from the UK now.

Under such circumstances, what is your incentive for buying in NL? Just so that you an carry your stuff across?

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

You're absolutely right about buying in the UK being the best option, but we want to bring our personal stuff with us and selling our NL spec car in the UK is not such a good idea I think. I have seen a couple of RHD vehicles over here which would probably the best option because we would get a better price on our current car and LHD cars are harder to sell over here meaning lower prices. Unfortunately the cars I've seen, with the possible exception of a Saab 900, aren't that practical when you want to take as much stuff with you as possible, hence the idea of a Voyager/RAM van.

Thanks for your advice, much appreciated :D

Bas

Never Prattledon DS,

Please DO read what I said and not what you imagained you thought I had intended to say. I said ALL reflectors would be built different, but I did not say ALL lenses. Reread it. I did NOT assume or pretend to assume all lenses would be.

As a former owner of SEV Marschall 7" dual reflector dual bulb North American >

And you were wrong. There are many LHD headlamps that use the selfsame reflectors as the analogous RHD headlamps.

Bzzzt! No such thing. The Marchal Amplilux was never made in a "North American Only" version. It was made in numerous different ECE-LHD versions and numerous different ECE-RHD versions, but no "North American Only" versions. Whatever you owned, they weren't what you think they were.

Arguing with me about headlamps will get you nowhere in a very big hurry. (Actually, that's not true; it just got you into my killfile. C-ya!)

Save yourself a lot of grief and sell your Voyager in Holland and buy another car when you get to the UK. It's going to be difficult enough to drive on the other side of the road, using a car with the stearing wheel on the wrong side is going to make it much much harder. If you buy a car in the UK you will have the steering wheel as a constant reminder that you are driving on the other side if the road.

Piffle. There are plenty of left-hooker cars in the UK, and their drivers get by just fine. As do postal employees in the US in their RHD vehicles.

Postal workers are a special case, they drive those things slowly on residential streets only, going from mail box to mail box. Also everyone knows to look out for mail trucks. It's also less of an issue if you learned to drive on the left side of the road, having the steering wheel on the wrong side is awkward but your instincts will still be correct. Trying to drive on the opposite side of the road from the one you learned on is different. It requires a lot of extra concentration because your instincts are all wrong. The steering wheel is a reminder of which lane you are supposed to be in because you can just keep telling yourself that the driver must be in the center of the road. If the steering wheel is on the wrong side then you lose a very important clue. If there isn't any traffic to remind you then you almost certainly are going to drift off to your normal side of the road especially if you've just gone through a roundabout (rotary in American).

And yet somehow there's no systemic problem with LHD cars in the UK. Gracious, you must be right and everyone else must be wrong.

The OP isn't a Brit, he's from Holland. If you read my last post, which you obviously didn't, you would have noticed that I was talking about people who learned to drive on one side of the road trying to adapt to a country that drives on the other. Your every instinct is wrong. If you walk around London you'll notice that every cross walk has a sign reminding you to look right before you step off the curb because American's and Europeans always look left instead of right and they have a tendency to get flattened by taxis that are coming from the right. Driving is hardwired into our brains, it's something that we all do on a subconcious level. The reason that we can drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time is because our eyes and brains are automatically scanning the environment around us without our conscious selves even noticing. When you have to change to the other side of the road you have to drive entirely with your conscious brain because your subconcious brain is going to be looking in the wrong direction. The last thing you want to do is make it even more difficult by using a car that reenforces your wrong instincts. On top of this the car in question is a beaten up Voyager, it's hardly a classic car that anyone would want to hold onto. The smart thing to do is to sell that piece of junk in Holland and then use the money to buy a similarly priced piece of junk in the UK.

And whom do you figure *brings* all those left-hooker cars into the UK?