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Date:         Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:45:17 +0100 (MET)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         darie@hasler.ascom.ch (Darie Duclos)
Subject:      Re: Vans in europe? (Insurance)

> Darie, did you have similar a similar problem in Schweiz? Did you > drive your bus Canada registered and/or insured in Europe? Did you > have any hassle with customs? Had to pay duties? Pass inspections etc?

Oh! Hi! It wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, you're right.

INSURANCE

> (1) Most insurance agents didn't want to deal with me at all.

Ditto. "Car not registered in Switzerland? Nope, we don't insure those. We don't care if you're *allowed* to drive it for a year on your country's registration. We've never heard of this law."

> The ones who did would: > (2) Require me to get a NY state license first, even though I'm > allowed to drive here on my Swedish license so long I'm a nonresident.

We were told we would have to get a moped license if we wanted to register our moped here. Since I haven't tried to register the van yet, I don't know if we will have to do the same. Could be that you can drive a car in Switzerland on a foreign driver's license, but you can't *own* a car here without a local license. I guess as far as they're concerned now, I don't own a car in Switzerland, I own a car in Canada which happens to be in Switzerland at the moment.

> (3) Put me in the highest risk pool regardless of prior driving experience > (10 years + commercial drivers licence education).

Switzerland seems to work differently. The price you pay depends on the power of your motor (i.e. cc). There don't seem to be big differences in premiums otherwise, everyone has to pay an outrageous price :-)

> (4) Add an "inexperienced operator" surcharge the first 3 years.

I was lucky. I finally found a company that would insure the van on Qc plates. On top of that, they accepted a letter from my previous (CDN) insurance company stating that I'd had no claims in the x number of years insured with them. This dropped my premiums by about 30%! Then, when I complained that the size of my motor was hardly an indication of the speed it could make the van go (i.e. top speed 120 km/h), my agent looked into options and came back with another significant discount based on the fact that he called the van a motorhome. He said that at the time it will pass inspection, he can't garantee that it will remain in this category, but for now we can get away with it.

CUSTOMS/DUTIES

You are allowed to bring with you anything you've owned for over 6 months (but you can't sell it for the 1st year) without paying any duties. As for customs formalities, my moving company took care of everything, I just had to show up at a customs house in Bern with the bus and sign a few papers, and they checked that the serial number on the bus matched that on the papers.

INSPECTION

<Shiver> Don't remind me. I don't have to pass inspection until May when my canadian registration runs out and I have to get swiss plates. I'm not worried about emission standards, but about everything else. It's *very* expensive to get a car fixed here.

> As for finding good and relatively cheap busses to buy in Europe I'm > not as pessimistic as some of you. When I lived in Sweden older busses > there could be had at the same prices or cheaper than in the US.

That certainly isn't the case in Switzerland, otherwise I would have tried to sell mine before I came here. As it is, if I keep the beast in good shape, I could sell it in a year or 2 and break even or maybe even make a bit of a profit!

I'm happy I brought the bus 'cause I think it's a great way to see Europe, and since Brian and I are rockclimbers, it's great to bring our home to the cliffs and stay for the weekend. However, now that I'm stuck with no clutch and the book says I have to remove the motor and garage costs are outrageous and this is ideal climbing weather.. now I'm climbing the walls trying to figure out what to do with it.

Darie '86 Westy


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