How to buy car in US and export it to Europe?

Hey guys,

I'm looking for an affordable way to buy used Nissan Leaf (2013-2014) in US and ship it to Europe. Do you know companies who provide such service?

The primary reason is that used Leaf's in US much cheaper.

Thanks!

No, but you should look into whether a US car would meet all the legal requirements to operate in your country, besides all the units being in English units (miles, degrees, F, mph speedo, etc.) And, you should look into import duties and whether or not Nissan in your country will honor warranty claims. A semi-bad case is you may have to pay out of pocket and then file claims w/Nissan USA or of your country.

The above was basically what I was told when in 2001, I considered buying a new Nissan Maxima from Canada and importing it into the US. Back then, w/the exchange rate and everything, Canadian MSRP was less than US invoice.

What country are you in?

cwerdna said:

No, but you should look into whether a US car would meet all the legal requirements to operate in your country, besides all the units being in English units (miles, degrees, F, mph speedo, etc.) And, you should look into import duties and whether or not Nissan in your country will honor warranty claims. A semi-bad case is you may have to pay out of pocket and then file claims w/Nissan USA or of your country.

The above was basically what I was told when in 2001, I considered buying a new Nissan Maxima from Canada and importing it into the US. Back then, w/the exchange rate and everything, Canadian MSRP was less than US invoice.

What country are you in?

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Thanks for the answer! I wanna import Leaf to Ukraine. Yeah, I loose warranty (Nissan doesn't sell Leaf here), have to pay duty (+20%) and shipping (about $1000-1500) but even with this the price looks promising (2-3k less) compare to the available cars here.

Basically, I'm looking the company which could help me buy Leaf on one of auctions or dealers, prepare it for export and ship it. If anyone know such good company - please let me know. Thanks!

Doesn't the 2013+ Leaf, at least, have selectable units of measurement? Unless I'm thinking of my Vectrix, I swear I just saw that in the menu.

I'm from Portugal and I'm buying a Nissan Leaf from France.

You have good market in France.

see - http://www.nissan-occasions.fr/fr.FR/recherche-voiture-occasion.htm?brand=nissan&model=leaf&engine=any&transmission=any&location=&latitude=&longitude=&location-radius-val=&lowest-budget-val=&highest-budget-val=

These are all from Nissan local dealers... you have the warranty.

LeftieBiker said:

Doesn't the 2013+ Leaf, at least, have selectable units of measurement? Unless I'm thinking of my Vectrix, I swear I just saw that in the menu.

Click to expand...

Sure, those computers inside highly configurable now

sparrow79 said:

I'm from Portugal and I'm buying a Nissan Leaf from France.

You have good market in France.

see - http://www.nissan-occasions.fr/fr.FR/recherche-voiture-occasion.htm?brand=nissan&model=leaf&engine=any&transmission=any&location=&latitude=&longitude=&location-radius-val=&lowest-budget-val=&highest-budget-val=

These are all from Nissan local dealers... you have the warranty.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Seems to be they have really good prices as for Europe! But my calculation shows that having it from a USA would be cheaper for about 20%.

cwerdna said:

No, but you should look into whether a US car would meet all the legal requirements to operate in your country, besides all the units being in English units (miles, degrees, F, mph speedo, etc.) And, you should look into import duties and whether or not Nissan in your country will honor warranty claims. A semi-bad case is you may have to pay out of pocket and then file claims w/Nissan USA or of your country.

Click to expand...

As Leftie said, there should be something in the menu settings to switch from US to metric measurements. Most if not all cars with digital speedometers have that nowadays to facilitate driving into Canada or Mexico. Some cars with analog speedometers, in addition to a smaller set of numbers indicating km/hr, will even have a redundant digital speedometer that can be activated through the menu; my eGolf is like this, as is a Chrysler 200 I rented a couple of years ago.

What isn't as easy to change are the lighting requirements. US lighting requirements are different from Europe so you may have to do modifications. Things that are legal here (amber-colored parking lights on US/Canadian Leafs with all-halogen headlights for example) are not legal in many countries. If your country requires amber turn signal side repeaters and rear fog lights, the former was no longer included in US/Canadian Leafs starting with model year 2013, and the latter was never included.

The radio and nav system are another issue. XM satellite radio will not work outside of the Lower 48 US states and southern Canada. Our FM radio stations are spaced at odd-numbered intervals (101.1, 101.3, 101.5, etc.) and if you have any radio stations that lie in between those frequencies, the Leaf's radio will not pick them up. As far as the nav, I have not heard of any success stories from Norwegians who imported US/Canadian Leafs and tried to get EU maps to load.

Warranty is going to be the biggest hurdle. You can forget about trying to get warranty service outside of North America.

As I alluded to earlier, Norway is the largest second-hand market for used Leafs. If you can understand Norwegian, or can find a forum or website that is in English that deals with Norwegians importing used Leafs, you may want to check them out for some ideas and tips.