Euro Diesel

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I read your article on the 63 mpg diesel Mini. Is there anyway to import a Euro Diesel, Audi, Mini or ?? that we can’t buy here?

26 COMMENTS

  1. Aren’t many of these cars available in Mexico, and countries further south? If so, seems one could import one second-hand…

    THERE’s a fun business opportunity.

    • Yeah – the old Beetle, for instance. It was sold new there until rather recently (2000 or so, IIRC). I’ve heard that people looking for a solid (rust-free) chassis would obtain one of these, then just swap VINs with a US (and rusted out) Beetle – and drive on. Who’s gonna know?

      But this would obviously be harder with any late-model car like the Euro-spec. Jetta 1.6 TDI.

      • But a newer beetle can just be driven over the boarder and disappear (assuming a new life with different papers). It gets more difficult if it has to come into a port or otherwise shipped in.

        If see a Shelby de Mexico Maverick I’d do the vin switch if I had to. However they are over 25 years old so there is no need.

        • Yeah, but it gets harder with a car subject to I/M (and OBD). A circa 1999 MY Mexican Beetle could easily pass for a 1974 US model. So, no worries in re I/M (and OBD) since the ’74 wasn’t subject to either.

          But a 2012 MY Euro-spec Jetta would be a lot tougher, for the obvious reasons…

          • From a cursory review it appears the EOBD is compatible with OBD2. Now EOBD doesn’t seem to be required on diesels in europe. So if it’s not there that might be a problem. Or an opportunity to set up a fake system.

            Odds are the test equipment won’t result in a problem vin wise. It seems that only some OBD2 systems are programmed with the VIN, so odds are the state systems don’t even look for it. What can be programmed can be reprogrammed too.

          • @BrentP:

            I’ve mentioned this before–wouldn’t it be great to find an OBD-II “always passes” module?

            Check out this thread on a Lotus forum.

            There IS such a thing, many in fact; they’re used to test OBD-II scanning tools. Several are software simulators, some are just hard boxes.

            There’s some question about a validation code the ECU generates as a checksum, but apparently it’s never actually tested.

            So in theory, you could replace your OBD-II jack with one of these, and pass a dead horse through emissions.

  2. Essentially there is no importation of anything less than 25 years old in the USA unless the manufacturer does it. These laws are in place due to Mercedes primarily. When a company sells basically the same car as a taxi cab in one market and a luxury car in the other it encourages people to import the taxi-cab version. Of course no automaker objects to this because they don’t want the products they make crossing markets outside their control.

    Any cars imported illegally will be destroyed when the government finds them. They do get in from time to time. There was a story a short while back on two Nissan Skylines in WI. These laws are also something that it seems money can’t even work around. Story is Bill Gates’ 959 sat in customs for years. As far as I know it’s still there.

    • Getting one here is tough – getting it registered/plated – and past smog/safety check – much tougher. They run the VIN (and OBD) and will find out – and then you’re screwed.

      Of course, there are ways around this (aren’t there always?). The question is – is it worth the effort?

      • I imagine I’m underestimating what needs to be done. But wouldn’t it be possible to say get it shipped to Mexico or a Latin American country with say lesser laws and just drive it through the U.S. border? Or would they see this crossing the border and do some kind of VIN verification of the car? Really curious as in the old days you could drive a car into Mexico and not have anyone do a VIN check and vice versa coming back.

        • I realize that registration would be a problem even if you could get it in the U.S. but then maybe Dom would be correct that you could somehow swap the engine into a compatible model U.S. version. Speaking of which I was reading, I know a couple of years ago though they said it was nearly impossible to remove all the VIN #’s as they are put in several hidden places. I’m thinking that even maybe some electronics like the computer might be able to spit out a VIN?

          This is fascinating because it really is a statement of freedom to find ways around such stupid laws.

          • They do in fact put the VIN in numerous places; but will they look for it? Unless the car is suspected of being stolen, I doubt it. During a routine inspection – safety/emissions – my experience has been they will take the VIN off the registration documents, not the car. I’ve never seen or even heard of them checking VINs on engine blocks, frames and so on. Maybe they’ll look at the VIN tag on the cowl – the main one.

            Replacing the engine with another would be doable on that score. But it would also mean more than just the engine. Those days are gone. You’d need to swap the ECM and related harnesses, too – at minimum. Probably the entire drivetrain (transmission, exhaust, peripherals) for it all to work properly. Major hassle – and expense – there.

        • It’s an interesting question… maybe someone will chime in who has direct experience?

          Here’s the obvious problem, as I see it: You’d need to put tags on the car and get it registered before driving across. How will you do that? Of course, you could put tags from another (US registered) car on it before you drove it across, but that risks a serious bust – including likely confiscation of the vehicle and you losing $$$$. My understanding is that they now scan/check all incoming tags, so a fake would likely be spotted – and you’d then be in real trouble.

          Unless you live in Mexico (or wherever) I see no way to get legitimate tags/registration…

          • Eric I agree with your assesment on the VIN.

            So I was thinking about your website last night and I couldn’t wait to state what I thought. Turns out that your website is about the fourth amendment. The ability to move freely without being harrassed, searched or seized. Whereas LR site I frequent is about generic freedoms including the fourth which is your expertise.

            Now what really bothered me about the fourth amendment (or lack thereof) is that in fact its the thing that will prevent anarcho-capitalism from ever being able to buck the state. I can visualize for example a state with internet fractional barter (no money) and no income tax because of encrypted and peer to peer protection. But what I cannot figure a way around is the lack of fourth amendment. How do we say get our products (non-virtual) out of state hands when in fact transportation is dominated by them. It seems to be that transportation and the desire to control movement is what is the final state nail to make sure we don’t ever get around them. And then it becomes obvious why the state is so interested in the USPS even when private carriers could address the market. Or why the Fed’s involvment in building the interstate highway system, its not out of benevolence but rather that they want control of the spigot. And interestingly, the founders posited that the Fed’s original income through customs would be exactly in opposition to the fourth amendment so no apologies from them on that. And its no suprise that the largest cause of the last civil war was over this exact issue of taxes and tariffs over state lines.

            Gary North on Lew Rockwell believes that this will be addressed by large economies where the X goods become so large that in fact the ability to control any of it will be sharply reduced. I’m not so sure as we are now seeing that RFID chips are getting so cheap that they are currently working on being able to use a Xerox printer and special ink to make custom chips to go on all products. The next step will be the USPS will demand this technology along with more computing power. Nothing in my opinion with short circuit this juggernaut of the state.

            If the internet were the central nervous system, the streets and highway would be analgous to the arteries and veins. Delivering all goods of nutrients to the body is just as important as the central nervous system. And yet there so far is not some easy way around the state here.

            Of course this is why I’m most fascinated by your site is because you discuss the reality of Clovers and how to get around the system. Yet even here I feel we all share the same enthusiasm for the fourth while recognizing what appears to be a losing battle in the freedom front.

          • May I inject one more thought on this conjecture of the fourth, transportation of oneself and products. I believe that their are three physics taught in this world. One is the conventional or Newtonian physics, two is modern or relativity (stripped down theory), and three is unified theory which by the way is not shared with the mundane.

            I say this as a matter of authority as I’ve spent many years designing electrical RF systems and learning a great deal along the way both in theory and application. And with some fan fare I’ve found that everything is electrical charge oriented, the mechanical world is in fact electrical as in coulombs law. Magnetism and gravity are relativity forces. As a side note Einstein was a fraud to relativity as the real inventors of it were Maxwell (German mathematician and the smartest man who ever lived) who founded our current world view of electronics and finally the second inventor Lorentz. There were also Michelson and Morley who were the empiralist of relativity. Both the theorist were German and I’ll let the world decide why the pre and WWII press created Einstein fiction (like so many other media derived things) to try to balance the German side of things of the times back then. Also I want to make clear when I say this I’m not anti-semite as I’ll be the first to admit that the Jews were fundamental in the the A-bomb developement and were geniuses in their own right.

            But Einstein actually was a media fabrication and did not develop relativity, and did not even derive the E=mc^2 equation they like to tattoo to his forehead which in fact came from an Italian outside of the relativity community altogether. His works on E=mc^2 were published several years of advance of Einstein by Olinto De Pretto ( a geologist). Mr Einstein its speculated copied his results two years later and could never give an exact proof on E=mc^2 in any of his treatises. Again these are facts, marked by publishings!

            I’ve noticed that LRC correctly posts regularly about plasma (moving charges) as being the driving forces inside/outside the universe (galaxies) but unfortunately LRC does not believe in relativity. Relativity is not something that can be denied because magnetism falls out of Maxwell’s equation using the relativity theory. Maxwell presented a comprehenshive theory for combining electricity and magnetism and its been validated over and over. But and here is the real but, Maxwell did not formulate the unified theory of electricity and magnetism with gravity (unified theory). Supposedly Mr. Fraud Einstein tried a General theory (unified) using tensore mathematics trying to outdo Maxwells unification of electricity and magnetism, this by copying notes from another mathematician of the time period…errmm. And still this failed to prove any other than distortion of space-time…errm.

            Finally, we have Tesla the guy who invented AC motors. Who attest that the theory of gravity is a longitudinal (compressional wave like sound) versus light which is a transverse wave like light or water ripples. He supposedly had good results inducing gravity waves with his apparatus, and yet even though his major inventions like the polyphase motor he is denied and treated as a liar, showman, and magician by the media. All in an attempt at discrediting him in all other claims, because the sheep must not know the real truth of the third physics must not be revealed to the mundane.

            And then it all comes together, charge being the fundamental force of nature. Moving charge being relativistic. Gravity being also relativistic compressional wave of the charge field medium. Plasma being a motion of charge producing the observed forces of the universe. And finally, the quark…The indivisible quark that scientist never seem to get to no matter the size of their government smashing equipment. The reason of course is because there is no fundamental matter of a quark. There is however a fundamental charge and a sub fundamental charge of 1/3. I could go on to show that I can create a statically stable molecule of rotating charge using magnetism and coulomb forces in what is called the pancake theory. But I won’t bore you any further. Needless to say I’ve done my math and I’ve concluded that in fact its all very simple and it is relativistic and everything is charges or relativistic moving charges. And this leads me to my final point that others know the same exact thing and yet nobody is sharing. Why? Well I have the incentive to captilize (call it intellectual property) off what I know, whereas the other people aware of the third physics are already working for the government. And then it might become obvious that the reason the new atomic age equivalent of unified theory isn’t being welcomed is one for defense and two because its not welcomed to have the wheel replaced by conservative forces of flotation. And when I say conservative I mean that it doesn’t take more energy to stay at the same coordinate of height indefinitely, compare this with a harrier jet engine which continues to burn fuel going nowhere . An example of conservative forces is a baloon, it takes no more energy to stay at the same energy than was expended at its initiation. And you say now Hot Rod this is all made up garbage you are posting. Your full of shit..again. But I leave you the thought what if we never had used the A-bomb would you ever have believed the government had developed something so powerful even if you heard it from an engineer or scientists mouth who worked on it. I doubt it. And so I close by telling you all that this stuff isn’t as complex and mind boggling as you might have been told. Its no more complex than seeing what the Curies saw in Uranium…(a small amount of energy being emitted over large amounts of time meaning that atomic energy was huge in small quantities of matter…welcome atomic bombs and energy. Everything is simple, so simple and so amazingly symmetric. And yet you don’t hear about what would ultimately allow real flying cars. Trajectories of transportation in 3-D without highways, and I think that this might be for a good reason. Call me for what I am but I think the third physics isn’t being shared because it would violate the lack of the fourth amendment. How would you police skies that had transportion without highways and without set trajectories. Impossible!

          • @Hot Rod–

            Some really perceptive stuff! Love the analogy of the arteries/veins (transport) to the nervous system (internet).

            They haven’t strangled the latter; the former’s within their grasp.

            Although–disruptive technologies like small local manufacturing via 3D printing and the like will seriously mess with their plans.

            Once again boys and girls, the answer is Secession and Decentralization.

            Think Local. Ignore the Leviathan; withdraw consent; act outside it–it will collapse under its own weight soon.

          • @methylamine..Thanks methylamine, and while we are talking decentralizing, did you notice the fraud they are trying to sell in “Cloud Computing”? The centralist always planning to make a bigger pyramid of fools? Peer-Peer network is the future and yet they want the “sublime” to buy in to a backwards cloud computing as we own the mainframe. I have to believe this “Cloud Computing” is government conspired at minimum because its stupid and maximum because its control freak. Geez.

            Also, I agree with local 3-D printing a way to decentralize however my thinking is that until we can 3-D print our food we are screwed unless this lack of fourth gets addressed by the freedom hawks.

          • All one has to do is look at very ancient monuments to see that there is a lost technology of an entirely different basis that is now completely foreign to us.

            What was that technology? Hard to say other than the manipulation of gravity and/or magnetic forces as involved.

            That age is long gone. It was wiped out at the end of the ice age apparently.

          • BTW I know when people hear someone talk about gravity theories, crank comes to mind. No I don’t believe in perpetual motion or free energy machines. And no I wouldn’t expect you to believe what I’m saying without some kind of proof. So here is how you’ll know I’m not a liar:

            Take 2 divide by the speed of light (from wiki in metric). Then divide by 100. Then look up the gravitation constant in metric on Wiki. You’ll find the two nearly agree to 3 decimals, this is derived from works so I know what I’m talking about on the gravity thing and you can take me to the bank as I’ll never say another thing about it except in passing on here.

          • @HotRod re: gravity theories, charge as organizing principle of universe…

            I’ve heard similar theories. Certainly the stuff on Grand Unification that’s released to us Mundanes seems a mathematically baroque system so absurdly abstract it seems designed to induce a coma.

            Contrast that with the sheer beauty of Maxwell’s four equations–which work in a relativistic frame too, years before that was a twinkle in the eye.

            I’ve always thought–in fact it’s axiomatic in scientific circles–that “beautiful” theories tend to be the RIGHT theory…almost as though the universe prefers symmetry and simplicity in its operating principles.

            I’ve also heard rumors–particularly in Jim Marrs’ books–that the Nazis had developed a science of plasmas, magnetism, and gravity that was far, far ahead of ours…and was greedily hidden by the US Thug-Gov at the end of the false WWII.

            I’m reserving judgment; but I have an open mind.

          • @methylamine

            Everytime I bring up Tesla’s name I cringe because I know the stigma that the media created. Just like Ron Paul if you are a fan of his works, you become the idol fan boy unable to see reality. I find it strange that Tesla could invent mechanical check valves that used no moving parts, invent the polyphase motor and invent the Tesla Turbine, invent the flourescent bulb and yet be dismissed for his other speculation and statements. Fact is that I found Tesla had surmised the longitudinal (Hertzian) wave theory of gravity only after I had deduced it seperately. I did a google search to see who else concluded this and there was good old Tesla.

            My account of the theory is that its actually very simple and when you follow the premises to conclusion the result is self evident. If the Nazi government had invented a device using fields to negate earths gravity as some propose, then I find this highly likely. It was in fact Maxwell and Lorentz both German and finally Von Braun. Von Braun also seemed to indicate they had developed a field flying aircraft. Again none of this stuff in my opinion is that complex once you get the right assumptions. From what I read of the accounts of the field flying craft and one people often use against the idea is why it wasn’t used as a primary weapon instead of planes. There is an obvious reason for this as you can read any articles about it. Again, I’m not saying the Nazis actually had the technology, but it seems highly probable as nothing is out of the ordinary once you get the right assumptions. The same thing can be said of the atomic bomb, the biggest discovery was that the half life of uraninum was thousands of years and that the amount of energy being released was significant, what if all the energy could be released in short time frame (bomb). The Germans were exploring the atomic bomb but missed the critical step of the Manhattan project of critical mass. We often understimate the abilities of our predecessors, which is a mistake. I’d think the monoliths such as the pyramid were probably done with simple levers and equipment. Seems the bible alludes to Jewish slave labor working on such temples for the Pharaoh. Trigonometry though amazing wasn’t necessarily meaning they understood electricity, magnetism, and especially gravity. BTW anyone ever wonder where the pythagorean theorom comes from I figured out a simple proof never offered to me in school.

          • Oh one other note I forgot to mention on Tesla was how he made oscillators without any active devices. You know us engineers have it easy these days we can put an amplifier in positive feedback and watch it sing. But Tesla didn’t have an electronic amplifier. In fact the first amplifier came later with Edison. So how did old Tesla make a washing machine fly? The answer is that Tesla used the air gap of a spark just like a modern Gunn diode. If you’re unfamiliar with air you’ll find that air acts like a positive resistor (increasing voltage creates increasing current – resistance=slope). It acts like a positive resistance until it starts to ionized and break down. At that point the The current starts to increase while the voltage decrease (negative resistance). Using the negative resistance in a tank circuit to cancel the imperfect resistances in the circuit you get oscillation.. Brilliant huh? Bet you never had anyone explain that one to you?

  3. I think it could be done, but it’d be tricky. I’m thinking it would have to be a for parts only shipment (at least say so on the paperwork). You’d have to stuff it in a shipping container (either a 20ft or 40ft). If going that route I’d try to ship a few in there(shipping price is same). Then the fun part, making the decision to swap all the parts into an American market frame with a proper VIN number, or taking your VIN plate and putting it on the imported car. I think you’d be able to make up the cost of doing all this by selling off a few extra power plants (wiring harness and everything included) to other interested parties. I have a buddy that does this with Toyota 4Runner diesel engines (but he gets his engines from the New York Block Exchange). More I think about this I bet someone is already doing it…

    Oh, forgot to mention how much fun you’ll have on emissions day!

  4. Hi Mike,

    Legally, there are two issues: DOT “safety” compliance and EPA emissions compliance. It’s – usually – pretty simple to meet the safety requirements, which typically involve things like headlights and turn signals – which are sometimes different, Euro vs. US. spec.

    Emissions compliance is the tough one. It’s the reason why these vehicles are not sold here. So, I suspect it would be illegal to import the car here. Hence, I doubt VW or Audi, etc,. will offer any help as far as US delivery (available when the car is legally exportable).

    It used to be much easier to “grey market” cars into the US. But now that the US is a de facto police state, it is much harder to do so.

    So, my advice would be to proceed carefully. You don’t want to spend a pile of money on a car you can’t use here – no matter how great its mileage may be.

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