Romania - buying a car & drive to Germany - insurance?

[TodoTerreno]

Hey folks,

me and some friends considered a Romania tour the "old Top Gear Challenge" way. Means: meeting Bucarest or Sibiu, (each?) buying a reasonable priced (classic) car, touring around the Karpatian Mountains and returning via Budapest, Vienna, Prague back to Germany.

Does anyone know, if there are temporary license plates in Romania for exporting a car, which allow crossing the border and other countries all the way back into Germany? And how to get them, including insurance?

As far as I found out, there are 30-days temporary plates with insurance for use inside Romania only, but I´ve found nothing that would allow crossing borders or driving into/through other countries.

Any chance I would find short-term insurance at the borders on the way for crossing Hungary, Austria and the Czech Rep. on these Romania-only-plates or anything else?

If not: How to get insurance and local temporary plates right at the border AU, HU, CZ & GER on the go?

Thanxalot for any advise and kind regards

TT

[AnTyx]

Dude... Romania is part of the EU. It is in the single market.

>(each?) buying a reasonable priced (classic) car,

Are you sure you want one? Do you think it will be a good experience without a Top Gear technical support truck following you to fix whatever's wrong off-camera while you and your buddies drink ?

By all means do the trip, Romania is a beautiful country, but rent a nice brand-new Dacia Logan or Sandero.

> Does anyone know, if there are temporary license plates in Romania for exporting a car, which allow crossing the border and other countries all the way back into Germany?

A Romanian car will have Romanian, that is, EU, license plates. You do not need export plates to drive it across EU borders. Same with insurance: Romanian insurance comes with a green card, like every other EU country, and you can drive to Germany with it.

Also, what the hell do you expect to do with the car once you get it back into Germany? Register it on German plates? Pay the ecological taxes to scrap it?

[TodoTerreno]

Thanks for the reply.

Circulating a car within the EU doesn´t involve import/export taxes, sure.

But the regulations of insurance for temporary (export) registrations is not regulated EU wide in the same way.

As I wrote, the temporary 30-day-plates in Romania do not come with a "green card" like insurance and are limited to the use inside Romania only. Unlike for example German export plates, which include obligatory "green card" insurance for all over the EU.

Of course, a regular licensed Romanian car is covered by insurance all over EU, but afaik temporarilly registered cars are not. Your reply doesn´t convince me far enough of the opposite, to just cross Austria and else on Romania-only red-plates totally uninsured.

I had the same issues with cars from Spain and Italy as their temporary plates and insurance are not accepted in France and Austria. I only managed to drive those cars home by convincing the seller, to leave his plates and insurance on for the transit. I wouldn´t want to rely on this option with every deal everywhere.

Why buying a car?

Why not? Not every used car is bucket of rust. Just choose wisely. Wouldn´t be my first import of a classic on it´s own wheels across Europe which ended up as profit after some TLC in my workshop or as a priceless smile every time I enter the garage. Some didn´t, but I forgot about them.

1. there is quite a variety of reasonable priced models of classic cars in good shape on the Romanian market, where value for money right now is better than in i.e. Germany. Mainly because labour intensive body work repair is cheaper done already in Romania than in i.e. in Germany, but also - because of COVID collateral - the local middle class seems in need to sell some toys these days.

2. Sourcing a car would involve a brand new rental Dacia for a few days upfront. But there are different points of interest all along the way in AU, HU & CZ, which would involve connection flights and rental cars again. Even if a car would set me back 2-3k€ when sold at loss in Germany afterwards, it would be still cheaper than plane´n´rental car hopping all the way back for 2-3 persons. Especially as rental companies charge a serious extra fee, when not returning the car to the airport/agent where you picked it up. Especially across borders.

So, any Romanian here, who can confirm my Wiki-knowledge about Romanian temporary plates being valid for Romania only and how to buy/cover insurance for the rest of the way on the go?

Kind regards.

Edit @AnTyx: sometimes I find interesting cars in Estonia (vital Japan-Import scene). Can you tell, if there are temporary plates available in Estonia which allow driving across Europe and how to get them?

[PanEuropean]

Originally Posted by TodoTerreno

As I wrote, the temporary 30-day-plates in Romania do not come with a "green card" like insurance...

Todo:

Check with ADAC in Germany to see if they will issue a temporary "green card" insurance policy for a vehicle with Romanian 30 day plates.

Otherwise, the most obvious solution would be to purchase the vehicle with "regular" Romanian plates on it, and a "regular" Romanian insurance policy that is valid in the other countries that you wish to visit.

Generally, though, I think that AnTyx has answered the question well. My own take on your proposed trip is that it doesn't make economic sense. It would be far cheaper for you to obtain a vehicle in Germany (your own, or a rental, whatever), drive to Romania, drive around, and return to Germany. You would have some additional expense for the first leg of the trip from Germany to Romania, but at least you would know in advance what that expense would be... you would not be exposing yourself to all sorts of unanticipated expenses such as breakdown, disposal of the vehicle in Germany, etc.

Michael

[TodoTerreno]

Thank you Michael.

Originally Posted by PanEuropean

Todo:

Check with ADAC in Germany to see if they will issue a temporary "green card" insurance policy for a vehicle with Romanian 30 day plates.

Unfortunately, they don´t. I tried to make the ADAC sell me - a long term member - such service several times over the past years, but they refused every time.

Originally Posted by PanEuropean

Otherwise, the most obvious solution would be to purchase the vehicle with "regular" Romanian plates on it, and a "regular" Romanian insurance policy that is valid in the other countries that you wish to visit.

Sure. I went that route in Italy and Spain. Convinced sellers in the past, to let me drive on their regular plates with EU wide coverage. But it´s always a thin line to negotiate hard on a car´s price and then depending on such a favour, which asks for a huge amount of trust and good will by the seller. I would not want to rely on it. But everything in life is negotiable...

Regular registration in my name in a foreign country would require a local adress and social number. Not what I think of a quick and easy solution.

I hoped to find someone here, who has yet found a Romanian insurance which sold him a "green card"-like insurance with EU wide coverage for the use of Romanian-only-30-days-plates outside of Romania.

Originally Posted by PanEuropean

Generally, though, I think that AnTyx has answered the question well. My own take on your proposed trip is that it doesn't make economic sense. It would be far cheaper for you to obtain a vehicle in Germany (your own, or a rental, whatever), drive to Romania, drive around, and return to Germany. You would have some additional expense for the first leg of the trip from Germany to Romania, but at least you would know in advance what that expense would be... you would not be exposing yourself to all sorts of unanticipated expenses such as breakdown, disposal of the vehicle in Germany, etc.

Michael

I´m just checking practical options to explore some lined up regions in a one way direction.

Along the way, there are a good two dozend pretty rural places within five wider regions between Bukarest and Prague, we want to explore to some extend for future business develoment. These places are more or less lined up and not doable in an efficient circular round trip. We´d pass nearly every region twice, so we´d double our road time, which seems to be a silly waste of time.

Of course going by own car both ways is an option on the table, if there will be no interesting offer on the car market during the time we´ll need one. But none of us wants to bring his own pretty new car for that trip, not only because car theft rates are pretty high in Romania, but also because we´d like to blend into local traffic. Showing up with a lesser expensive car than ours in rural eastern Europe while looking for a bargain property purchase could level out the expectations of a seller during price negotiations, other than showing up in a new car that´s multiple times the value of the house and the land we had come for.

By hard earned experience we are fully aware of the risks involved in buying a used car abroad but we still have confidence that the combined knowledge within the team of over half a century of doing just that, classic car trades and restaurations as a hobby, reduces our risk of buying a lemon to an acceptable level.

(If shit hits the fan on the road because we buy a lemon, we´ll make lemonade out of it. Here finally the long term ADAC Premium Membership mobility insurance comes into play: they trailer the broken car home to Germany or to the next workshop and meanwhile pay a rental car and hotel to let us continue our journey. I wouldn´t choose a bad car or cut some wires just to use the service of my mobility insurance, but when they refuse to sell me a green card for foreign temporary plates, than they might have to carry these plates by themselves on their insured truck across borders right to my house.)

Anyway. In every slightly interesting car in the 3-10k€ region is a 1-2k€ margin to be found by just washing it and patiently waiting for the right client. If the car will be sold at a loss, the loss will be little, divided on many shoulders and forgotten after a few s.

So our options so far for this 3-4 weeks excursion are :

1- going both ways (total of min 6500km) by own car = passing nearly every region twice = waste of days & boring but comparably cheap and hassle free as long as the car won´t get stolen.

2- flying with a team member´s own little plane from region to region = 5 times rental cars + plane parking fees at airports. Unfortunately, none of the preferred pitoresque cheap little air strips in the rural areas of interest have a Hertz or AVIS agent next to the runway to explore the surroundings in a rental. So we´d be limited to bigger (more expensive) commercial air fields with such service = flexible and fast, but for a price.

3- flying charter in 2hrs to Bukarest for 60€ each at some friday instead of driving 3 days down there> clearing some car deal over the weekend > returning one-way 3-4000km on freshly bought wheels = saved 3000km and time, beeing totally flexible on route planning, blending into local traffic, ending up with a nice souvenier or a potential car deal back home. At least with a story to tell. Could be worse.

[AnTyx]

Originally Posted by TodoTerreno

Edit @AnTyx: sometimes I find interesting cars in Estonia (vital Japan-Import scene). Can you tell, if there are temporary plates available in Estonia which allow driving across Europe and how to get them?

Temporary plates technically exist, but there is no reason to get them. You buy the vehicle by signing a purchase contract. You can then drive the vehicle, on Estonian plates, into Germany; go to your local registration office and show them the vehicle registration and the purchase contract, and register the vehicle locally. Transfer of property ownership is separate from transfer of registration. By Estonian law, you can still drive on the previous owner's insurance until you register the vehicle in your name. The old owner can, at their convenience, notify the Estonian registration office that they have sold the vehicle to such-and-such person, and their name will be taken off the owners list.

If you are VERY paranoid, you can ask the seller to change the registration documents to you as well. You don't need to be a resident of Estonia (or even an EU citizen), you just need a local resident to agree that their name will be in the registration as a "responsible user". Since the import of LHD specialty cars from Japan is done by a particular company here, you can just ask the company to do that for you.

As I wrote, the temporary 30-day-plates in Romania do not come with a "green card" like insurance and are limited to the use inside Romania only. Unlike for example German export plates, which include obligatory "green card" insurance for all over the EU.

Of course, a regular licensed Romanian car is covered by insurance all over EU, but afaik temporarilly registered cars are not. Your reply doesn´t convince me far enough of the opposite, to just cross Austria and else on Romania-only red-plates totally uninsured.

You don't need temporary Romanian plates. You can buy the car and drive it to Germany on normal Romanian plates. With normal Romanian insurance.

I had the same issues with cars from Spain and Italy as their temporary plates and insurance are not accepted in France and Austria. I only managed to drive those cars home by convincing the seller, to leave his plates and insurance on for the transit. I wouldn´t want to rely on this option with every deal everywhere.

Why not?

[PanEuropean]

Originally Posted by TodoTerreno

...comparably cheap and hassle free as long as the car won't get stolen.

Funny you should mention that - the Albanian Tourist Board's marketing slogan this year is "Visit Albania, your car is already here".