>
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 21:17:01 CET
Hi Avi,
> Does anyone have experience in importing a car to Switzerland that they
> owned for a few years in the states?
I sure do... Five years ago I moved from California to Lausanne and brought
my Honda Civic with me. As much as I love the car (it now has 170'000 miles
but still runs great, has very little rust, and gets very good gas mileage),
I do not think I would recommend importing a US car to Switzerland. If I
had it to do again, I personally would not do it.
The two basic problems are:
1) Swiss and US vehicle standards are different. This means you will very
likely have to add/remove items on the car in order to register it. For
example, all North American Honda's have rear, side "running lights".
Swiss models do not and it's not legal to have them on Swiss registered
cars. Thus, the lights have to be removed or disabled or covered up with
tape. There are lots of little things like this which can become fairly
expensive when all added together.
2) The more troublesome problem is getting parts. The reason is that Honda
Switzerland and Honda North America have different databases. The parts
may be the same (in fact they often are indistinguishable), but they are
referenced with different numbers. Yes, this is stupid, but that's how
it is. Thus, whenever I need a part (not often so far), my mechanic has
to call Honda Switzerland which then contacts the main Honda office (in
Japan) which then sends the part reference. Usually Honda Switzerland
then has to order the part from Belgium. As you can imagine, this takes
time, adds to the cost, and is simply not worth it for small parts. The
worst example I can think of is headlights. All North America Honda
headlights have a Stanley connector, which is *only* used/manufactured
in the US. This means that when the bulb burns out (and this has
happened twice to me in 5 years), you have to get a replacement from the
US (my solution has been to ask a friend to buy one and mail it to me).
So, if you have a Honda (and it seems from your message that you do), I
would strongly advise you against importing it. If you really like Honda's,
then the best thing to do is to buy a Swiss model (new or used) once you
are here...
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me.
Cheers,
-terry
_______________________________________________________________________________
Chance is like the Tour de France, we wait for Terry Fong <terry_at_cs.cmu.edu>
it a long time and then it passes fast. CMU Robotics Institute and
-- Amelie Poulain's Fabulous Destiny EPFL Inst. de production et robotique
Received on Sat Jan 05 2002 - 22:26:31 PST
