Well, I have today found the result of Brexit, and its' real implications.

I bought a set of second-hand, original ABS wheel sensors [Wabco], and a rear centre seat belt buckle, the small one in the middle of the rear seat, with a second-hand value of £50, which included the DPD carriage fee.

I received an email from DPD to say that the Irish customs have pulled the package of 4 sensors and the seat belt buckle, for inspection. Now they are looking for certificates of origin, and all this stuff - full itemised commercial invoice which clearly states country of origin, commodity codes and description of goods. The commercial Invoice must be on the sender’s company letterhead.

Being as the parts are from a P38 breaker the chances of my guy having all this nonsense at hand is probably nil. So, a first delivery never turned up, now I need to supply this documentation, and I expect to find that the delivery has been sent back to the UK. And this is a direct result of Brexit.

But I suppose that I can just pay out for new new Wabco, instead !!! Or buy the airfare to the nearest airport and collect them. Either option doesn't make sense.

It does, now, make me understand why people convert to springs. Before the nonsense that is Brexit it wasn't a big deal to get second-hand stuff sent from the UK, now it is becoming a no-no.

Oh well, at least this will push me to make a decision about my P38. I don't think that I can justify buying new parts every time something goes wrong, and, anyway, not all parts are available new. So if I can't buy used parts without all the documentation then the vehicle could, possibly, be no longer repairable.

Pierre3.

Having recently taken over 3 grands worth of equipment to France and had to jump the hoops for exporting commercial goods into the EU from UK (and pay the 2% import duty and 20% VAT equivalent), and posted P38 parts to the USA, it isn't rocket science. Origin of parts, UK, commodity code for ABS sensors 8708309190 and for seat belt buckle 8708219000 (2 minutes on the online tariff) and for the invoice there will have been one from the seller (even if only an eBay invoice).

I agree, it is a direct result of Brexit but it does seem that ROI customs are being particularly picky, a bit like Dutch Customs were seizing truck driver's ham sandwiches as you can't import items of animal origin into EU from the UK.

Hi Richard, that's the point of all this, the Irish customs are making it difficult, as usual and as they always did in the past, before the Eu rules were applied, to import anything from the UK now that the UK is no longer an EU member.

Another small example - my wife used to buy chicken stock cubes from Tesco's, but about two months after Brexit happened all Tesco's stock cubes, with the exception of vegetable stock cubes, disappeared of the shelves here. When I asked why it turned out that there are ingredients sourced in the UK and the EU but made in the UK, and to have the items sold in the EU Tesco have to provide certificates of origin for every single item used in the manufacture. So Tesco just stopped selling them here. To be able to buy them we have to go up to Northern Ireland, although recently there have been occasional times when some have appeared in some stores.

If, in my case, all that I require is the commodity codes that wouldn't be to bad. My guy has those, and they are on the customs document on the front of the package. It is the other stuff that becomes a problem, full itemised commercial invoice which clearly states country of origin, and description of goods. The commercial Invoice must be on the sender’s company letterhead. The guy that I am buying the parts from is a fairly normal P38 breaker, who supplies parts all over the UK, and having spoken to him this afternoon, he admits that he isn't set up to export to the EU.

Anyway, I have decided to email LR France, from whom I have bought before, and hopefully they will come back to me with a n affordable [just about] price for new ABS Wabco sensors, although I suspect that I will be faced with a €600/€700 bill for four items. If they come in too expensively then I will buy spurious items and hope that the two front ones, once replaced, will last.

My current issue to having to buy and fit two new fuel pipes from the fuel tank. I got a contact to pump out the tank, but when we dropped out the tank we found the pipes are badly corroded, and we had to put everything back together again - very carefully !! So that's another €500, on top of the cost of the two new rear air bags, the new handbrake pads, the new propshaft rubber doughnut, a new rear UJ. I also need a new gearbox oil cooler fan switch [£120 or thereabouts] plus the front ABS/traction control sensors !! And the possibility that I may need to buy and fit new new EAS levelling sensors, around £110 a piece - a further £600.

Unfortunately, things are getting to get rather out of hand, especially when the car spends more time being repaired than being driven these days. I have spent around €2500 with a distance driven of 120 miles this year, so far. And this month I need to pay €1100 in road tax for the next twelve months.

A BMW X5 hybrid is really starting to look cheap, as the road tax is only €170 a year here, and the insurance is the same as the P38, around €650 a year. The only downside is the cost to import a 2016 X5, in total about €30,000 including paying around £20,000 for the car itself in the UK.

So, important decisions to be made. If I could get a good price for the P38 then I probably would sell it, but even with a lot of new spare parts fitted I probably won't get much over €3000 for it. People don't really want them over here, particularly with the cr** coming from customs over import duties etc. etc.

I will give the Donkey Sanctuary a ring and see if they will do me an exchange instead !!

Pierre3.

It certainly sounds as though Customs there are being particularly picky. I generated my own commercial export invoice in Word simply with my name and address along with the buyers name and address as I don't have a company, in this respect, I'm a sole trader. Much the same as a breaker I would suspect.

I was going to suggest using RLD in France to make things simpler but their prices are a bit steep (https://www.rld-autos.com/fr/pieces-land-rover/range-rover-p38/37-abs-et-pieces). Your alternative would be to use someone like Island or Rimmers who are geared up for export. Admittedly, genuine won't be cheap though although Island do Europarts ABS sensors for £20 each. .

I had to replace my fuel pipes recently as the return had started to leak. Fortunately, as I run on LPG most of the time I was able to remove the fuel pump relay and run on LPG all the time until I could do the job. I replaced the fuel pump and the pipes from that were just as corroded as the pipes above the tank, so I at least had something solid to attach to. I used a short length of good quality 7.9mm ID fuel hose with proper fuel hose clips (not Jubilee clips as they can squash a hose into D shape) to connect to the pump then replaced the steel pipes above the tank with 8mm copper central heating microbore pipe. Total cost was £20 for 5m of copper pipe and another fiver or so for hose and clips.

The French Customs are pretty easy going compared with the Dutch who it seems the Irish have taken lessons from. I went over on the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry with a car transporter trailer to collect a car in Rotterdam and take it to SW France. Then pick up another to do a return pick up in SW France and drop off in Rotterdam. Seeing a UK registered car with an empty trailer waiting to get on the ferry to come home, Dutch Customs grilled me thinking I had bought a car over from the UK. I was tempted to take some sandwiches with me. As my missus is from Latvia she buys Latvian bread from a specialist shop here, so I could use that with Lurpak butter (Danish), Elemental cheese (Dutch) and Italian ham. Then I could tell them I wasn't importing anything, I was repatriating it......

Ha-ha, if you took your Euro sambo's with you, you would probably have to carry certs of origin for the items, with you !!!!

I think that the French generally have a "Live and let live" attitude to a lot of things, unless you really Pi** them off. Although they can be difficult about somethings, seemingly if you want to do building works from what I gather.

I have never understood the crassness shown by Irish customs over the years when dealing with anything to do with cars. I have always been of the opinion that the Irish government are generally anti-car, and always have been. The taxes on cars, and car parts, has always been ridiculous. About 30 years ago there was a very big difference in the price of new cars between the UK and Ireland, so much so that there was a thriving trade in people in the UK buying new cars in Ireland and importing them into the UK and saving several thousand pounds.

Then the EU came along, with the trade equality rules between members, and all of a sudden anyone could buy a used car in the UK and import it into Ireland. But the motor trade fought tooth and nail to try to stop imports. So they are as happy as pigs in sh*** now the UK is out of the EU. It means that they can price everything as they please, because there is no longer any cheaper alternatives. Just piracy.

I will take your advice about the fuel lines into consideration, maybe this is the best solution. Certainly a lot cheaper than buying new fuel lines.

Lastly, one thing I like about Land Rover France - when the items arrive and you look at the receipt there is nearly always a hand-drawn smiley on it !!

Pierre3.

Pierre3.

About 15 years ago I advertised a motorcycle on eBay and that was bought by a guy from Ireland. He turned up in a van with 4 other bikes in it and had two more to pick up before going back as he reckoned they were far cheaper here than in ROI. Whether they were being sold in one piece or broken down to be sold as spare parts I've no idea.

One of the major advantages of ex-UK stock is that [a] it is generally much lower mileage; [b] it will generally have been better maintained; [c] the vehicle will have suffered much less ownership abuse; and [d] there is usually much better specifications on UK vehicles, so that you will almost never find a sunroof in a car fitted with aircon, and vice-versa, because duty and VAT has always been charged on every "extra" fitted.

Top of the range ex-UK models from Merc, BMW, Land Rover etc. etc. will always have better specs than Irish sourced vehicles. For example, on a Lexus IS300h sourced in Ireland the car will only be fitted with boring, standard, multi-spoke alloy wheels, whereas in the UK there is a 300h Premier model with really nice 5 spoke alloys of two different sizes, wider on the back than the front. This model was never available in Ireland.

Again, if you look up something like a BMW X5 40e, 2016 or 2017, the one for sale here will either have well over 100,000 miles on the clock, or you won't be able to find a 40e hybrid, only 3 litre diesels, but always, always with huge mileages.

But, as I mentioned earlier, the UK is more or less off limits for good used cars due to the extortionate charges applied to used vehicles.

So a nice donkey is looking like a very attractive proposition.

Pierre3.

If the breaker cannot provide commercial invoice stating the items sold and at what price, there is something wrong with his business.

Country of origin is only for statistics unless you want to get some extra exemption from duties or something, simple enough to state UK as the parts are from there (or China ...). Tariff codes are something your carrier should know or find out.

th.

Well, I am very surprised to find that DPD have kindly delivered the said package without any further issues.

I emailed DPD yesterday and pointed out that the parts were second-hand and around twenty years old so I wasn't bothered if they wanted to send the parts back to the sender as the chances of providing the paperwork that customs are looking for are next to nil. I suggested that after five days they could just return them to the sender.

It looks like that, because the duties, VAT etc. [€15.00] had been paid, and it really isn't in DPD's interest to have send the parts back, DPD may have persuaded customs just to release the parts. Whatever the reason the parts are now in my garage.

Now I just hope that I have bought a pig in a poke, and that I can sort out the ABS/TC issue, at least for a while.

Pierre3.

That's good news. It may be that Customs assumed the parts were new and the price had been under declared in an attempt to pay a reduced duty rate. I always mark anything leaving the country as USED which explains a low value.

Richard, you may be right. I think the customs here always assume the worst !!

Pierre3.

https://landy-bay.com/ Are exporting to Ireland.