Sorry about that @TaxmanHog
contract signed, the money I already had transferred to the agency and they did the wire transfer within US
Welcome to the forum!Hi all,
I can share my experience as I just a few weeks back received my Lightning Platinum. I did the full exercise exporting it from US and shipping it to Germany.
So first of all - yes you can order the truck in Norway or Switzerland maybe also somewhere else but as far as I know it is always the Lariat with cost of > 100K €.
As it is my first import car I was working with an local agency. After been through that now I probably would organize all myself the next time.
The agency is mainly supporting with the contractual part, organizing independent inspections and aligning the transport with the shipping company.
Once you have found a car you need to convince the dealer to sell the car for export - means without sales tax and clarify the terms. That part was the most annoying:
- found a car, dealer would sell for export, did the inspection (200 €) -> smoker car, and some technical issues
- found a car, dealer would sell for export, did the inspection (200 €) -> all good great car, signed the contract, but dealer was not willing to wait for the payment (roughly 7 working days) -> clarify how they can receive money and how you can pay (also with you bank)
- a few cars in between - found a car, first was told yes we sell for export, afterwards they told no, manager will not sell for export -> try always to get the GM approval before taking the next step
- lastly found a car in October, dealer would sell for export, did the inspection (200 €) -> all good
Note: Please always check for clean Carfax (Use VPN to US and you can see the details in most cases for free), also check for open recalls and Customer Satisfaction Programs - all should be done by the dealer before delivery! You probably don´t want to start discussing this with Ford in Europe
The shipping company did all the paperwork - customs and so on. In parallel I ordered some spare parts like tonneau cover and some additional rims which should be shipped with the car and are difficult to get in Europe or much more expensive here.
The shipping itself also took some time as the docks where full. Almost took 2 months to get it onboard.
The next steps where quite smooth:
- car did arrive in Bremerhaven around new year
- it took 2 weeks to receive the tax and customs invoice (19% + 10% -> keep that in mind will add to the sales price)
- after the payment was received by the shipping company they released the car to a company also located in Bremerhaven which is specialized in doing the required adjustments to get the car registered in Germany, I also got it sealed to prevent rust
- end of February it finally was ready to get picked up - now I am very happy
- so far not seen any other Lightning in Germany
- afterwards I got a replacement TCU from a guy located in Poland which is required to get OTA and also to use FordPass
- also bought some OBD adapter to make some Software adjustments (esp. glarefree)
Overall it was still quite expensive but still less expensive than buying the car somewhere in Europe.
Only question (I hopefully don´t need to get answered) - what happens if something is wrong with it. Mechanically I think it should be no problem at all. And for the HV system Ford in Germany should be able to support as the Mach-E is sold here. So keep that in mind too!
Additional remarks:
- you need an combined type 2 charging adapter
- DC charging is working - no difference as you would charge without adapter
- AC charging is working but as the car has only single-phase-charging ability (which in US is standard) you are limited in Germany at least, we do have 3-phases in most cases with 16A or 32A, with a normal home charger of 11KW you still would be only able to charge via 1 phase (3700kw), with a 22KW charger this value would double to 7400kw -> charging at home can take a while
- Radio: Satellite Radio will not work in Europe, not sure if replacing the unit with DAB is possible - didn´t do that as I mainly use CarPlay
In Norway or Switzerland you first of all can only get the Lariat as far as I know. New this one would cost you > 100K € (new car imports from US or Canada - there is no factory in Euope). Getting a used Platinum trim from US will be around 70-90K. Depending on the cost of the car itself tax and customs are calculated. If your organize all on your own you could also save money. There is also some room to save in doing the country adjustments (navigation maps, conservation/rust protection,…)
many months ago I read that they were available in Norway didn’t know about Switzerland, but I thought they were making them somewhere in Europe not just importing them from here-thanks for the info
