rhd car

[costakid]

Does anyone know if its possible to ITV a right hand drive car or is this only for LHD cars.

[pwwm]

yes it is, I have a friend who is going through the process of changing the matricula and the car is right hand drive I also know of others who have also gone through this without problems

[Beachcomber]

There was a short period in the mid-90s when Spain tried to ban the importation of right hand drive vehicles by not allowing them to pass the ITV test but they had to retract after a few months. However, if the vehicle is a people carrier which has a single sliding door opening to the left it will not pass the test.

If you mean can you just take a UK registered vehicle for an ITV test, yes you can. They will take your money and carry out the test but even if it passes all it does is prove the roadworthiness of the vehicle. It does not make it road legal in its country of origin (one of the requirements for being allowed to drive a foreign plated vehicle in Spain for six months of the year) neither does it validate any dodgy insurance cover that may have been obtained through a Gibraltar based company.

[El Cid]

If you mean can you just take a UK registered vehicle for an ITV test, yes you can. They will take your money and carry out the test but even if it passes all it does is prove the roadworthiness of the vehicle. It does not make it road legal in its country of origin (one of the requirements for being allowed to drive a foreign plated vehicle in Spain for six months of the year) neither does it validate any dodgy insurance cover that may have been obtained through a Gibraltar based company.

My information is that some ITV centres now will not test a RHD UK registered vehicle unless it is for re-registration.

This is because an ITV certificate on a foreign car is meaningless as Beachcomber pointed out.

Sid

[kelly]

that's correct i only got my rhd car ITV,d when i was changing registration, to be honest if my car was worth more than a few thousand i would have sold it and bought a LHD here, as you do have to drive very defensively especially out of town as we have found out.

[costakid]

Thanks for that everybody.

[jpinks]

that's correct i only got my rhd car ITV,d when i was changing registration, to be honest if my car was worth more than a few thousand i would have sold it and bought a LHD here, as you do have to drive very defensively especially out of town as we have found out.

Does that mean all us lhd car drivers drive aggressively???

[kelly]

no sir of course it doesnt its just on those one lane either side roads its difficult for me to overtake

[jpinks]

There's various methods for overtaking in a rhd car on these roads.
1. Turn the left side wing mirror around so you can see ahead in it.
2. Hang well back and hog the middle of the road so that you have a better angle of view
3. Pull out and watch your front-seat passengers face

Personally - I bought a lhd car - you know it makes sense

[country boy]

I drive ( and enjoy driving) my RHD car. It is an old friend of 12 years (and been imported into Spain the last 5 years). It is road legal in all countries in Europe and I wouldn't swap it for the world. The only real difficulty is in overtaking but with a competent front seat passenger there is no real problem and the up side is that you can judge the nearside edge of the road to a millimeter when dodging the Spanish corner cutters and the mobile phone cornerers so it has definite benefits

[costakid]

So Country Boy, let me get this right, your car is rhd, spainish registered and you can get an itv as and when. I am asking for a customer who has a car that they don't want to sell for sentimentle reasons.

[country boy]

Absolutely correct, and also by the way it is a big 4x4 which some people will tell you is not possible to import, but it is...at Malaga anyway

[pathfinder spain]

that must depend on the area because 4x4s are considered as commercial vehicles and therefore can only be imported if you import within a month of coming to spain as personal belongings.

The only physical modification of the car required is the changing of the headlights.

[Guest]

that must depend on the area because 4x4s are considered as commercial vehicles and therefore can only be imported if you import within a month of coming to spain as personal belongings.

The only physical modification of the car required is the changing of the headlights.

Sorry but that's not right, I have a discovery which I imported (from Germany) as a domestic vehicle without problems.

[El Cid]

that must depend on the area because 4x4s are considered as commercial vehicles and therefore can only be imported if you import within a month of coming to spain as personal belongings.

The only physical modification of the car required is the changing of the headlights.

Sorry but that's not right, I have a discovery which I imported (from Germany) as a domestic vehicle without problems.

Normal 4x4s are registered as tourismos and treated exactly the same as any other car.

If that were not the case you wouldn't be able to import an Audi Quattro!

Sid

[jpinks]

It's all down to the number of seats in a private car. My Discovery was imported from germany, but they "forgot" to mention the two extra seats in the back, so it was registered as a 5 seater, therefore a normal private car. I just make sure they are stowed away when I go for th ITV and there's no problem. There would be a problem if someone was using the seats and I had an accident of course, because the insurance company would claim that the ITV was invalid, so I don't use them (much).

[spanish_lad]

is it spanish or english plated?

[jpinks]

It was imported from Germany by the previous owner - now it is Spanish plated.

[Beachcomber]

Normal 4x4s are registered as tourismos and treated exactly the same as any other car.Sid

I have two 4x4s. One was registered in Madrid as a Furgoneta/Mixta and is considered to be a commercial vehicle and the other was registered in Málaga as a Turismo.

I had no control over how they were registered so it looks as though Pathfinder may be right.

[jpinks]

There are 4x4's registered in Madrid which are normal cars, admittedly I know if they were imports or not. What class a car ends up in is, I believe, down to the number of seats.