Driving from the UK

just to clarify, you need to have owned the car two years AND to have been resident outside of Malta for all of the two years, so once you become resident here the clock stops even if the car is still in the UK

The drive from the UK is actually very simple.  I will PM you the details.

Julian

Hi George,

yeah that's why I'm leaving it till November before we move, that's when I would have owned the car for two years..

Thanks for the heads up..

ken

Hi Scubaboy,

Much appreciate the help.

Regards

Ken

scubaboy wrote:

The drive from the UK is actually very simple.  I will PM you the details.

Julian

Hi Guys,

May I get those details too?

Cheers,

Peter

Details of taking the car to Malta for me too please ScubaBoy.
Cheers
David

Morning Folks,

Which ferries are still running from the Italian mainland to Malta? Anyone any ideas as when I have looked on the booking sites they are saying there are still none running... is this still the case?

Cheers.

I think only Virtu ferries currently run to Malta and only from Sicily. Not sure why the other ferry companies stopped but at the moment there appears to be no choice and Virtu ferries are very very expensive.

Terry

Check Gran Navi from Genoa to Palermo seem to be running every day at 23.00 hours

Gran Navi only goes to Sicily, you still are stuck with the very expensive Virtu ferries from Sicily to Malta.

Terry

As there would appear to be no Northern Italy to Malta direct ferries running... how are the car importers bringing their transporters in? Surely they are not paying the extortionate Virtu ferry pricing!...

Or are there still any commercial ferries operating?

Or has this source of UK second hand cars now dried up!

Cars are still being imported and freight ferries still operate so I guess this is the route they take but there is nothing at the moment for passenger / car etc other than Virtu ferries.We are looking at  the moment for camping/ touring in Europe around June - July - August,via ferry and prices are frightning just to get to mainland Italy!

Terry

I did that trip in December and couldn't find any other way.
However, you can sail your car from UK to Malta with other ferry companies but it takes 3-4 weeks.

Peter 72 wrote
"you can sail your car from UK to Malta with other ferry companies but it takes 3-4 weeks"


I think Top gear tried that but never got out of the harbour

Terry

tearnet wrote:

Peter 72 wrote
"you can sail your car from UK to Malta with other ferry companies but it takes 3-4 weeks"


I think Top gear tried that but never got out of the harbour

Terry

ha, those amateurs...

UKtoMalta.com offered to ship my Passat for 900 euro, which as far as I can tell is cheaper than driving. Consider fuel, ferries and the price of all the coffees, hotels and ryanair fligh.. wdyt?

brayster99 wrote:

UKtoMalta.com offered to ship my Passat for 900 euro, which as far as I can tell is cheaper than driving. Consider fuel, ferries and the price of all the coffees, hotels and ryanair fligh.. wdyt?

Hi,
In my experience it is roughly the same price. The diffrence is the time.

This is a breakdown of the rough cost for driving down in 2011

Costs for trip were Eurotunnel: £53, travel kit and breakdown insurance: £63.72, ferry: €148, tolls: €144.80, overnight stay: €74, petrol: €200, eats and incidentals: €50. About €750 in total. ( this cost was including direct ferry to Malta, this no longer runs so there will be an extra ferry cost :Sicily to Malta).

Allowing for inflation it looks like the cost is about the same,
as Peter 72 says its down to time it takes and if you like driving.

Terry

brayster99 wrote:

UKtoMalta.com offered to ship my Passat for 900 euro, which as far as I can tell is cheaper than driving. Consider fuel, ferries and the price of all the coffees, hotels and ryanair fligh.. wdyt?

If you are still in London, then you need to add the price of your one way plane ticket to get yourself to Malta which is in the vicinity of £80 without baggage(Ryan/Easyjet) If you are planning to take furnished accommodation and not ship your household goods across - how are you planning to get your personal 'necessities' and clothing to Malta. That will add quite substantially to your costs as extra baggage on the flight.
If you drive your car you can fill it with those 'odds' at no extra cost to you. I'm assuming one plane ticket?

actually the plot thickens. I am travelling with my wife, two kids and the cat.

I am now researching the feasibility to buy a panel van ( which has proper status as a commercial vehicle ) and then having it pimped to be my oversized family car in Malta. The incidental advantage of such madness is that there would be no or very little reg tax as its a commercial.

I know for example this is fairly stright forward to do with VW Transporters and indeed the vito traveliner is a commercial vehicle ( it has a car equivalent as the Viano). If I could find a "pimper" in Malta that would be great.

I spoke to Transport Malta and they said that as long as it says its a commercial vehicle on the v5 they dont care that it looks like a camper van or car, I have emailed for more assurance.

So now i am thinking a convoy of the passat and the new van, picking up the grand parent in Milan on the way..

What an absolutely cracking idea Brayster99.......could you keep us informed of the outcome of this please. Will keep this in mind for when Rose and I decide to move across.

Ken,
I can't add to the details re costs of driving down etc that later commenters have kindly given but there is a long and updated stream of comments with insights on the whole car import thing on maltainsideout.com. One chap, Michael (19 Sept 2012) left an extremely detailed blow by blow account of the actual shenanigans once his car got to Malta! That might be quite instructive as the issues don't only relate to the getting here but the once you've got here too. The article seems to be the most popular post on the site, so it gives you a good overview in the comments of all sorts of issues that crop up with car importation to Malta. It's a topic people are very forthcoming on! Good luck! 
Liz

Just to add my tuppence worth... We drove down last Christmas. The whole trip I calculated as costing us just under £600 not including hotels and food on the way down, which is a cost you can control. We did Eurotunnel - France - Switzerland - mainland Italy - Sicily - Malta. Only a total of about 2 hours on the sea. It took us 4 days.

And then having got here, we applied for exemption with a view to driving it home at the end of our stay. We were turned down on the basis of the time the vehicle was owned, as it was 2 days under the 2 years (even though the car had been ours for three years it was registered in my wife's mothers name for the fist year). In the end I think it worked out OK as we have far too much stuff to take home in the car now, and the value of the car in Malta is easily its value at home + driving down costs + registration costs.

Hi Ken,

We drove from North Yorkshire to Malta in October last year and its not too bad. I guess the first thing is to decide if your going to stop over and sort hotels - depend if you are going to change drivers - overall we used the motorway system in through France and Italy - and crossed using channel tunnel - fantastic would recommend and issue a document that proves when you left the UK important. I drove all the way and we spend a night in hotel in Italy and in the car in Sicily which is not recommended but it was OK I used the trusty Garmin which was good and accurate, tolls are quite expensive so again do your homework.

As for Malta and car tax its a nighmare we still have to sort it and still driving on Uk plates as we cant get an answer from Malta Transport or Dept of Finance who are playing pass the buck because they gave us wrong info. This is made worse by the fact there is an election and I have tried e mailing and phoning without success but then once you are here you now it is "Just Malta". If you want to get more info mail me on lothianba@yahoo.com and I would be happy to help. Bob

"As for Malta and car tax its a nighmare we still have to sort it and still driving on Uk plates as we cant get an answer from Malta Transport or Dept of Finance who are playing pass the buck because they gave us wrong info"

I honestly can't see how its a Nightmare.. If you are having some problems please message me with the details and I will take a look for you.

I followed all the instructions on the site, and with TM, got the Jevic Cert form the UK and the Transport authority accepted a printed version from the website, got my VRT, and essentially got it all done in about 4 days

J.

Hi Liz,

Thanks for this, I'll certainly be having a read of the article.

Ken

Hi Bob,

I'm planning to go catch the ferry from Newcastle to Holland then drive through Germany, Austria then Italy.

Agree I'll have to do a lot of homework with regards to tolls and hotels etc.

Regards

Ken

MikeInPoulton wrote:

What an absolutely cracking idea Brayster99.......could you keep us informed of the outcome of this please. Will keep this in mind for when Rose and I decide to move across.

So by way of update..

I am trying to clarify the rules on n1 import and modification. As far as I can tell n1 import is relatively straight forward but if you want to modify your car, you're supposed to ask the Transport Dept and get permission and associated costs, so if they feel its no longer a commercial vehicle then they would charge and enormous amount of reg tax.

I can't see how they would know IF you didn't ask for permission as long as the mods wouldn't affect insurance declarations, I wouldn't have thought they check this sort of thing in a standard VRT.

The ruling on the declaration is any significant change in the engine or bodywork. Lots of room for ambiguity. i.e. does adding removable seats constitute significant change on the bodywork.

Alternatively there is the route of importing a n1 that has already been modified but still has n1 on the v5. I am still waiting on clarification on this from the Dept ( who I must say are very helpful).

In the UK v5, there are 3 items that refer to the classification,

1) Vehicle class
2) Tax Class
3) body style

So for a VW kombi it might look *something* like,

1) Vehicle class = n1
2) Tax Class = PGV
3) body style = Window Van

In all of the doco from the Trans. Dept. it states that the vehicle needs state n1 on the v5, but if the other elements on the v5 differ from the initial "white form" inspection then the vehicle is looked at again. 

The question is; if it says n1 on the v5 and continues to meet the description of n1 under the published EU directive does it still remain an N1 vehicle or would it be forced to reclassified as an M1 by the Trans. Dept.

So in both cases it would appear the decision remains in the hands of the inspectorate and is rather subjective. What I am now trying to do is get objectivity in writing before import.

I have to say though that the whole thing in Europe is a mess. I mean i cant really get a full understanding of it. For example, Merc make a viano and vito traveliner. which are almost identical other some small trim detail. The viano is a car (m1) the vito is a van (n1). I think that because the seats are removable, it remains to be a van ( a vehicle designed for the carriage of goods with no more than 4 seats). I imagine its because they sell them to companies who want to benefit form the VAT situations.

I'll keep you informed.

Hi all , i'm intending to drive down to malta from the uk this august but am starting to think it might be cheaper to send the dog by plane(the main reason why i'm taking the car)!! - anyone know the cost of the ferry from sicily to malta ?
cheers
neil.

http://www.virtuferries.com/http://www.directferries.co.uk/ferries_ … sicily.htmhttp://www.netferry.com/ferries-malta/

etc. etc.

Brayster99....you sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.

Thanks for the update - I can feel a plan coming together here.

Mike

Hi all i am having the same problems, most of the ferry company's have stopped there crossings as of 2013. i have been looking at a crossing from Naples to Palermo but as yet not found a cost. the only ferry company that I have found is virtu and the bloke on the phone was a great help.

we have a cat so want to do the drive all in one. so its going to be a long drive. Has anyone done this? also any clues on routes to go to miss the tolls? if not i will plod on looking.
Good luck to all! x