Importing/exporting a Supra to France, dream and reality

Alright folks, first off I'm not a professional, just a french enthusiast trying to import a supra down here in France.

Along my readings here I've came across some weirds beliefs, and I felt the need of making a point, but again, I'm not a professional import-dealer or whatever... I'm only speeking through my own experience.

I'll try to make it short, I swear, but you have to know that france is a weird country and law is sometimes more or less applied, I mean, I'll depict the fully legal thing but sometimes a dealer would "tolerate" some exceptions you know....

What happens once a french guy has bought an english supra (uk or j spec doesn't matter so far) ?

He needs to get a "carte grise", which is the french version of your V5 if I got it right, and you are charged about 400€ for a TT car.

But, prior to this "carte grise" and in order to get it, you'll need :

1 a clean french MOT

2 a paper that says that yes, the car is road-legal in France, and here is where it can get Messy.

In the perfect case, this paper is delivered by Toyota France and for that you pay 125€ and wait about 4 weeks.

BUT this paper (named "certificat de conformité") comes in two versions :

-conformité totale -> means the car IS road legal, french-wise (UK spec)

-conformité partielle -> means the car MAY be road legal but more tets have to be done (J-spec)

**********fonformité totale**********

So let's have a look first at the best and most easy case.

You get your UK-spec car (not J-spec) to a local toyota dealer, along with the paper you've been given by toyota France.

Here you have your car checked and for all the ux-spec sellers out there, here's the points that are checked and that MUST be in stock state in order to get a quick (1 month and a half or so) and easy french homologation through the "conformité totale" paper.

(sorry for the potentially poor translation, I've never pretented beeing 100% fluent in english)

1 lhd or rhd

2 commercial name

3 VIN number (at this point, J-spec car will AUTOMATICALLY get the "conformité partielle" stamp, regardless to their being stock or not)

4 country from which the car is imported

5 when was the car bought first

6 foreign plate

7 does the exhauts has cats on (little tip, if you're selling a de-catted supra to a french guy, theres' no problem as long as it's a '93 car because the french law allowed this untill late 93-early 94...if you're selling a 94+ car, SOMETIMES one cat is enough, depending on the polution-score you get at MOT).

8 number of seats

9 tyre sizes

brake types front/rear (drums or disc)

10 displacement (not sure about the translation)...you know, the 3L thing about the engine haha

11 fuel type

12 drivetrain (manual/auto)

13 number of gears

If the car gets all the "correct" answers and is a UK-spec, you get your "carte grise" very easily... By the way this all makes me believe that it should be easier to register ie a BPU ukspec than a bone-stock J-spec, as they don't check the turbos, ecu etc at all.. .. ..

Oh and I almost forget, you have to change headlights because the beams face the wrond direction here....

By now and after we stick our noses into the J-spec question, some of you may wonder why their car have gone to France on 18" or 19" rims without troubles..... well it's basicly because either the new owner bought 17" stock-size wheels afterwards or he simply "borrowed" a set of stock-wheels to have his car checked and stamped, and then put the big ones back.... or he kindly arranged something with the guy in charge of the check for some bucks, I can't think of any other option.

The thing though is that, as a french driver and car-owner, if you get involved in a crash and you don't have stock-sized tyres, your insurance will simply kick you, no matter if you are responsible for the crash or not that's all.... some drivers take the risk, I don't want to.

**********conformité partielle**********

Now, what about the "conformité partielle" thing ?

Basicly you'll get this stamp as soon as you show up with a j-spec car or a not-stock-enough uk spec as seen earlier.

Why that ? Simply because my lovely France **coughing** relies on paper rather than technical realities, in other words, you have to cope with a BECAUSE answer.

So what if you get a "conformité partielle" paper ? Then you can't get your "carte grise" straight forward, you need to get an appointment with the DRIRE services (upon availability, usually a couple of weeks during which your car is NOT road legal and has to remain in a gargae, on a trailer, whatever.... as long as you want to comply 100% with law).

This check is a much more in-depth one and will cost you 87.69€

I don't exacly know what they look for during this test but they still won't approve non-stock-sized tyres.

At this point it's really better to have the homologation-process handled by a professionnal because he will write the papers and show the vehicle in such a manner that the car will get a full-homologation from DRIRE (which is a RTI paper, standing for "Réception à Titre Isolé", basicly an exceptionnal homologation thing).

But those professional importers charge quite a lot.... I was first after a cheaper J-spec car but a 3000€ quote for the paperwork made it not cheap at all compared to a "stock" UK spec.

I don't know exactly what are the critical points, but doing some mods on the car before having it checked helps getting the right paper if you can show your good will, so you have to change some parts that must be euro-labelled and obviously are not on a J-spec car (seatbelts, horn, lights etc.. don't have the complete list).

Alright let's go ahead, what if, for some reason, the DRIRE desk doesn't give you the RTI paper ? (very likely if you attempt registrating a J-spec/modded car without professional advice), then you are askes to get a full check-up of your car from the UTAC desk, and this is what we could call nightmare.

Keep in mind that you'll probably have to wait for 3-4 months (with your car still sleeping on a trailer), pay around 1500€ to have your car fully checked.

And I DO MEAN fully checked (they even put a camera inside the car, aiming at the rear view mirors, to measure the exact angles at which items get out of the mirror, if you know what I mean....as well as MANY other weird tests).

So in a nutshell, importing a stock-uk-spec takes about 1 month, everyone can do it.

Importing a J-spec one is about 4 month with the *not free*help of a professional but may get longer for the messy cases... (was told about 1year+ homologation processes by a professional dealer from belgium).

Right now I can't think of anything really important that I'd have forgotten, thanks for reading, I hope I've not been too long and messy.

I hope this will be useful to some of you.

Where can I get my "longest-post-ever" medal ?

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in the meantime, I'm still looking for my car haha

Very informative post - and the grammar and spelling is good compared to many/most

Great info, thanks for taking the time to put that together, maybe one for the FAQ section?

Agreed Alan.

Thanks for the info Kaamos. Seems quite strict. That does mean that more French people will stick to french cars though. A good thing industry wise. Look at the state of our car industry.

Oops we don't have one anymore.

An excellent post, thanks for taking the time to write that all out

Would you mind if this gets copied to the FAQ section? We've had several French members enquire about the import rules lately (and also from British people moving to France), it'd be very helpful for those that are not aware of all the in's and out's.

Thanks for all your comments buddies, and of course I'd be happy to see this move to the FAQ section if you think it's helpful enough... after all, isn't it the aim of such a forum ?