exporting a car to spain

We have just been looking into the very same thing.....and bringing a car over has lots of problems and hoops to jump through. So are purchasing one here.....(their equivalent to an Mot does not need to be done for 4 years on a new car. There are some good seond hand car sellers about, we have been recommended Costa Coches in Antas by many online people. 

Bringing down a car, presumably right hand drive isn't that fraught with problems. There's the financial aspect sure, partners Rhd Honda hybrid had to have new lhd headlamps before the car even moved at almost €500 each !! And with some service work we knew it needed, the all in cost of matriculation was around €2000.

Bear in mind matriculation/conversion onto Spanish number plates, tax etc doesn't necessarily need to happen for 6 months. All we did was put one of those extra blind spot mirrors you can buy on the passenger side to be aware of speeders coming at you which you'll encounter whether you're vehicle is rhd or lhd lol.

We had help with the change over process from CAT Services in Last Alfoquia as well as lots of help from the great people at "The Garage" on the poligono near the bowling alley on the way into Albox who did the headlamp conversion and service work, even taking the vehicle to Lorca for the ITV and matriculation. Matriculation and follow up ITV are separate entities. We got tax at Zurgena town hall close by Law Alfoquia. 

If/as/when we get a new car it might make sense to go back to the UK and get the replacement vehicle in the UK as the value of an original UK vehicle won't be worth that much here even tho you could possibly p/ex one for a Spanish/lhd  vehicle. Driving another rhd vehicle won't phase me, indeed a friend has gone from owning/driving a lhd car to a the car he bought from a friend who was emigrating and says he prefers it to the lhd one. It's not mandatory to have a lhd  car here.

We kept the rhd headlamps.

You don't necessarily need to use any garages etc, it's just easier and possibly cheaper.

Do you have to have the mot done in the UK each year?

will it be best to take over asap because of brexit which it appears will affect things drastically. i am just buying a holiday home completing end of this year so i am not a resident.

You don't need the ITV plus the UK not, MOT is ok for around the 6 maths before getting you're car It'd, bear in mind speed limits and the fact that Guardi civil are in direct contact with DVLA.

Hi, you need to have residencia to matriculate your car in Spain. We moved over last August and brought our car. We were in 2 minds whether to put on Spanish plates or not but decided to start process in December.

First thing that we needed to produce was residencia card.

To be honest we regret the decision now as it has been extremely expensive, although so are 2nd had cars in Spain! Personally, if we could have our time again, I would sell car in UK and buy one here.

Best of luck.

We plan to move to Spain later this year and we hope to buy a Spanish car after the six month period.It sounds like it’s similar to France. We have both our cars transferred to French matriculation and the most expensive thing was the emissions tax. We bought our LHD lights online at a very reasonable price so only paid for labour at the garage. We too have kept the RHD lights so we have the option to drive the cars back to the U.K. and get the lights put back to sell in the U.K. with a U.K. MOT.

Hi just to clarify you do not need to be resident to import a car into Spain.

I bought my car over in Feb and the total cost of my matriculation was about 1300 euros and I love driving my car here. I have now got Spanish plates and am just waiting for my spanish license as I live here. Good luck with the drive over it is amazing cheers