UE Approval for japanese, american and european cars, imported from USA.

This is a step that always must be done when importing a car from out of UE.

Imported vehicles from the UE, can be directly driven to the MOT test, to obtain the spanish technical data sheet (it's needed one of these two documents to do it: Certificate of Conformity or a reduced technical data sheet done by an engineer). The reduced technical data sheet contains generic data as measurements, and specific data as VIN. Afterwards is mandatory to go to the spanish town hall where the car will be registered (in Spain) to pay the "circulation tax", and then we can go to pay registration tax and put the plates to the car.

Ok, this is the situation for cars imported from de UE, but, what about if they come from USA? Well, the process is a little bit more complicated, because there are different regulations. So, before beginning with the american case is important to note, that when importing a car, we must be careful about the origin and destiny of the car. There are several countries that are right handed drive and left hand traffic as Japan, Australia, and UK. This could look obvious, but it's important to consider.

Returning to our case, the approval should be done this way: first of all is important to check that the car accomplish american regulations LEV-II (California) or Tier II-BIN 5 (Federal, defined by EPA, yes, it states also the mileage of the cars), which are the equivalent to our current Euro IV. A nice web page to read about american regulations is Greenercars.org. It's not strictly mandatory to accomplish aforementioned regulations, but simplifies the process a lot (if they are not accomplished, approval must be done in european countries that are more transient - like Germany). By the way, there's a little detail that people ask frequently: european cars, even being sold here, when coming from USA, must pass individual EU Approval, as a reminder, they are US regulations compliant, not UE. Other interesting point is that every car coming from there comes with original equipment, and all the cool gadgets be installed here. The main reason is that radical modding, implies that a approval project must be done by an engineer - and it's better to have a original equipped car approved, that a highly-tuned and modded car, which isn't approved and being a circuit and over-a-truck specimen.

Once we know the car is regulations compliant (better an affirmative answer), the car is transported to Spain (i'm not going to speak here about this process, only about the UE approval), the car must be modified to be UE regulations compliant, to obtain this Approval it's a physical actuation over the car (i.e., lightning and blinks change, include a washer for the headlights if they are HID and don't include it, dismount the toweling ball if it's equipped - they have a separate approval...).

At the same time, an engineer must prepare the technical data sheet, to be approved by the competent institution if the test is passed (some time ago, they were INTA and IDIADA, now INTA only tests cars with license plates in USA or pre owned, and IDIADA, new and pre owned). Then we must ask for a date so they do the test. The competent institution do the test, and if the professional team involved in the process is good (looks like an idiocy, but if something goes wrong, the whole process must be repeated and is a pricey process: the physical adaptation, IDIADA date, and technical data sheet -baking bread is easy and no one bakes it at home, this is difficult, so it's better to have a good professional team), technical data sheet will be approved, and then we can go to register the car (paying the town hall tax, don't forget about this).

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