Hi, I drove my RHD 90 over to Finland last september. I don't know what the rules & regs are in Poland, but here's what I had to do.....
1. Take ALL vehicle documents - you need to show the V5 at the customs place. Get a form from the Post Office so you can send your tax-disc back and claim whatever tax is left on it when you leave the UK.
2. One of the speculations for importing a vehicle to Finland is that you MUST have owned it for AT LEAST 2 years in your home country prior to moving over. This is to stop people nipping over to other countries, buying a vehicle there that is much cheaper than over here, then importing it and selling it for huge profit without paying any tax. Example: I saw a 1996 Discovery TDi for sale at almost 20,000 Euros - thats about 13,000 Quid to you and me!!!!!
3. Get a Certificate of Conformity from Land Rover, stating the vehicle engine emissions at the time of manufacture (I ended up getting this through the Finnish garage that MOTd the vehicle; they got it thru a place in Germany that specialises in such documents).
4. Once I had the Certificate of Conformity, I could then get it MOTd to Finnish standards.
5. Once I had the MOT, I had to go to the Finnish Customs (I'll backtrack here: when I arrived off the ferry, I had to go straight to a customs place at the terminal that gave me a form to get the vehicle registered in Finland. They gave me one month to do it). At the Finnish Customs, I had to argue the fact that it was a hardtop vehicle with no seats in the rear, and it was a diesel, so I could get it done as tax-free. Cars here are ridiculously expensive - in fact, everything is!!! And the old hag at customs was rude, miserable and totally unhelpful. They didn't like it that I wasn't paying them any tax on importing a vehicle. AND I had to fit small 'restraining barriers' on the 'seat' section in the rear of my 90 so you CANNOT have passengers in the rear......this country is very anal!
6. After waiting a few weeks, I was sent the 'new' Finnish vehicle documents, then had to go to a garage to get the number plates sorted out. I think that was the end of all the import stuff.
7. I took an abundance of spares including LHD headlamps, and after 4 months the gearbox packed up! Check my ongoing saga of what I'm up to!
8. There has been no problems with it being RHD in a left hand country. It is obviously much easier to drive if you have a passenger to act as an extra pair of eyes at junctions. There were no extra insurance costs due to it being RHD neither. The insurance company in your new country will check with your previous UK insurance company your NCD and transfer it over once it is confirmed.
9. Check to see what Polish winters are like. If they are as bad as this place (minus 20 to 30 for at least 4 weeks, and winter last over 4 months) then fit a webasto thermotop C heater. You can get the ones that plug in, but there are no gaurantees that you will have access to a socket to plug it in! The webasto one takes its' fuel source from the diesel tank, so it is a 'self-sufficient' unit. Also consider getting a heated front screen, radiator muff and snow blinds. I also found that the door & fuel locks froze with monotonous regularity, so I am trying to 'design' a flap to cover these during winter.
10. There may be a law that you have to have studded tyres during the winter months. Over here that is the case, as the roads are basically compacted ice for 3 to 4 months. I took a second hand set of Land Rover rims and shotblasted them. The studded tyres will be cheaper in Ploland than if you buy them in the UK (I don't even know if they are available in the UK).
Thats is all the barriers I faced upon importing my 90, obviously you will have different things to face in Poland. Would I have drove over in hindsight? I doubt it! Land Rovers are rare here, therefore spares are extortionate. It was cheaper to import a recon gearbox from the UK, along with clutch & input gear, as opposed to getting a just second hand gearbox alone over here! And I wish I had never moved here, but that's another story!
Anyway, good luck with whatever you do!
Naz
