Ken, You've done your homework on this for sure.

Since the costs are so high, it may only make sense for unique, high value
vehicles: importing Syncro 16s, for instance.

One additional factor, since the original discussion was for ex-postal vans,
these are imported as light trucks, not passenger vehicles, and so the duty
is 25%, instead of 2.7%!

Tom F.

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   KENWILFY@AOL.COM <mailto:KENWILFY@AOL.COM>
[SMTP:KENWILFY@AOL.COM] <mailto:[SMTP:KENWILFY@AOL.COM]>
        Sent:   Thursday, September 02, 1999 10:39 AM
        Subject:        The skinny on importing German Vanagons!

        OK as of right now our importing deal for the German, 1.7l diesel
Vanagons,
        is on hold.  Here is what I found out:
        It makes your importing of a vehicle much easier if it is on an
approved list
        that the DOT has.  This means that the conformity work has been done
on this
        year vehicle and it was found to be close enough to US spec to be
doable.

        A couple of years ago no Vanagons were on this list.  Just within
the past
        two years the '90 Vanagon was added to the list and within the last
couple of
        months the '88-89 Vanagons were added to the list as well!  This
means that
        the risk of your van being destroyed by the DOT or EPA for not
conforming to
        thier regs is practically zero if you import a van from these three
years.
        This is great news for folks wanting to import Vanagons!

        The other thing I found out was that each van has to come through
customs and
        through DOT and EPA inspections after it has been modified to
conform to US
        standards.  Some vehicles are very close and may need little to no
mods.  For
        these vans I got an estimate of $5000-7000 each to bring them
through customs
        and make them conform to US regs.  This is for the 88-90 Vanagons
only since
        they are on the list.  If you want other years it could be more.  So
add this
        to the cost of $2500 for these later model vans, plus $800-1000 for
shipping
        and the 2.7% tariff and we come to a cost of around $10,500 on the
high side
        and $8500 on the low side each for these vans if we brought 10 or
more over
        at a time.  So this is alot of money to invest in a used van.  If
you took
        the van and spent an additional $3000 to camperize it I believe that
you
        would have a vehicle that you could resell for every penny you put
into it,
        if not a little more, but this is alot of money up front for a van
(let me
        know what you think).

        If you were to bring a van over by yourself, your shipping would be
higher
        (around $2500 for Detlev's crewcab which should be here in 6 to 8
weeks).

        The final hurdle is the diesel powerplant.  I talked to several
importers of
        grey market cars.  Some didn't deal with diesels at all while others
were
        positive that they could make the vans legal.  It seems that in the
late 80's
        the EPA standards for diesel emissions went up.  So our 1.7l diesel
van might
        have to have catalytic convertors and other adjustments to pass
emissions.

        So here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you still are
gung-ho on
        importing these vans after reading all of this then we can still do
it.  But
        I just wanted to let you folks know what all was involved before we
went any
        further.

        Is it worth doing?  If you have the money, yes.  If you don't then
it isn't.
        That's as simple as it gets.
        Let me know what you think.
        Ken Wilford
        Van-Again
        John 3:16