hi all,

first of all, very sorry that i am writing in English, and sorry also if this is in the wrong place.

i am from England but have just moved to Sweden, i like car modifying a lot, and i brought two cars with me and still have two cars to go,

but i am trying to find out what i can do here,

i understand that to import a car it has to be standard? how standard? non of my cars are standard, but that goes from just having a new sound system and custom suspention, to duel engines in the boot!

also i have seen no modified cars since being here, just american cars. is it difficult to modify cars in Sweden? or get them legal?

i didn't really think of it when i moved here. in England it is common place to get that extra bit of power by dropping in a new engine and a roll cage etc. but if i can't modify cars then i big part of my life is in trouble.

at the moment i am driving on the UK plates, and i haven't been stopped yet, but its a matter of time,

thanks for all the help (in advance)

Well, anything considered "fun" is pretty much all illegal and, even though you can jump through a bunch of hoops, won't get too far performance-wise. I believe you're allowed to increase the engines output by 10% or so, but after that it gets harder.

People do modify their cars, but it's mostly illegal.

RustyNeX skrev:

hi all,

first of all, very sorry that i am writing in English, and sorry also if this is in the wrong place.

i am from England but have just moved to Sweden, i like car modifying a lot, and i brought two cars with me and still have two cars to go,

but i am trying to find out what i can do here,

i understand that to import a car it has to be standard? how standard? non of my cars are standard, but that goes from just having a new sound system and custom suspention, to duel engines in the boot!

also i have seen no modified cars since being here, just american cars. is it difficult to modify cars in Sweden? or get them legal?

i didn't really think of it when i moved here. in England it is common place to get that extra bit of power by dropping in a new engine and a roll cage etc. but if i can't modify cars then i big part of my life is in trouble.

at the moment i am driving on the UK plates, and i haven't been stopped yet, but its a matter of time,

thanks for all the help (in advance)

w
Why not register your cars on a friend that lives in the UK,, Then drive them here for 1 year at the time & then take for their yearly MOT back to UK ? (if this is legal in the UK, it is in Sweden.)

100% stock is the demand when registering a car in Sweden, you also need to change the headlights beacause we drive on the other sida of the road.

But you're not really importing any cars, you bring along your own as you're moving here. Probably different rules then. If the cars are legal and MOTd in the UK I can't see any reason for them not being legal over here.

http://transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Im … of-origin/

caromania skrev:

But you're not really importing any cars, you bring along your own as you're moving here. Probably different rules then. If the cars are legal and MOTd in the UK I can't see any reason for them not being legal over here.

http://transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Im … of-origin/

Quite true - Its called. FLYTTGODS , the car that is.  if the rules apply for non-swedes aswell ?

We do modify cars in Sweden but its illegal, Many Volvos are verry verry tuned but you cant look at the exterior and say its not modified , We have some BMWs and some Supras that have around 1000hp and still drive on the public road. A good advice is to keep your orginal parts and if SBP say that you cant drive it just put in a stock engine and some stock parts. If sbp says its okay police cant do anything

An english friend of mine brought over his Mini Cooper S from the UK, he has been working and living here in the cold for many years now and he still has his english plates AND he can get the swedish type of MOT, he has to drive to Norway(this is where it gets funny..) once a year however, for it to be legal. I'm unsure as of how this works but could try and ask him next time I see him.

Welcome to Sweden !

Here its a little bit different from England and in many cases better for you if you like driving a car to the limit. The English roads are crowded 24h all year by cars, here youll find your own roads empty of cars now and then. You will have time to expand your driving skills on snow/ice and gravel....

Be aware that cars with low chassis and stiff springs doesnt work well on many of our roads. The winters kill the tarmac making the ground underneath expand, cracking the tarmac. To build a really fast car over here youll need to build it more like a rally car. Absolutely not as a car built for the curcuits.
Many modern cars suspensions arent build for roads as bad as some of the swedish roads.

About tuning and the fact that your Impression that the cars here arent tuned...
Youll see by time that there are a lot of cars with 500-1000hp on the roads, Volvos and BMWs mostly.
Its funny that this is youre impression of tuning in Sweden.
My impression of tuning in England is that there are not any advanced tuned cars on the Island.
My collegue that has a Caterham explained that a guy close to a genius mapped his car.
But the problem is the black smoke and the impossibility to get it through the MOT.
Im not a genious and I mapped my car by myself like many swedes and it has no problem goin through the MOT. Youll be surprised by the level and knowledge of tuning there is in this coutry.
And also the level of driving skills, if you will go out on the icecurcuits of our lakes during the winter.
Youll see farmer boys in old Volvos go fast against BMWs , Subarus...
If I tell this  to people in England they just look at me.....

Ps

I have a rollcage waiting in the garage...

Welcome!

When it comes to modifying cars, Sweden has alot of rules! But as long as there are humans doing the inspections, there will always be some wiggle room...

Take mine for example... The law says:

You canŽt have taillights nor signal lights painted black
You are not allowed to increase the output by more than 10%

And further on I believe there are crap about changing the dimension of the tires, and I probably fail in some way by having changed the exhaustpipes.
Changing the colour of the car and not register it might be frowned upon as well... The rear number plate? IŽm not sure, IŽm not a cop =P

Anyway those are all things that might give me trouble when at the rego, but if you find nice guys
"human guys" you might get a free pass on minor things. Not that the cops wonŽt bug you the next day....

To sum up, luck is a factor when judging how legal your car is.
And I bet the majority of the cars on this forum are "illegal" in some way...

If you are puking out pollution, if you have a tinted windshield, if you have a supercharger coming through your hood in a N/A car you will of course get banned from the roads.
But what cranky inspector doesnŽt see, doesnŽt hurt cranky inspector....

Also for them ignorence is bliss

And I also want enhance what "endorfinslaven" told you. We do not have good roads! Of course the major highways are somewhat smooth, but your average road wonŽt be nice to a stiff sports car!

I forgot, WELCOME TO THE BEUTIFUL COUNTRY OF SWEDEN, VÄLKOMMEN

Continues with this !

My car has until today passed the MOT,,,,
My car has much bigger brakes !
The subframe/suspension parts in the back and the front is as on the 2WD/RWD rallye and rallycross cars except one thing, I dont have 4-link.
No rubber in the brushes just what we over here call uniballs Im not sure if you call em rodballs(USA). Really good difflock Ive tried the cheaper ones, shortened steeriing gear/ratio, bigger turbo intercooler, ported motorhead another camshaft, different cranksjhafts and a tuneable(mappable) fuel ignition system and I run the car with E85 with gives a lot of moore torque and hp compared to gasoline.

So ofcourse its possible to get the car to pass the yearly MOT.
But they look for robust solutions and, not to much increase of power.
I often give the MOT guys tip of what to look for, because theres so many 500-1000hp cars on the roads with standard breaks and chassis. I dont like that..

If you modify your car its your responibility to make it as safe as possibly. 
Reason is you dont want to cause any unneccesary accidents resulting in killing people.
If you kill yourself on a lonely countryside road in midwinter with -25 degrees below its OK, but dont take anyone down with you.
I dont have to say this to you its more pointed towards many of the swedish garage tuners
All motorheads from England that I know have a higher moral, regarding safety than the Swedish motorheads.

Enjoy your stay in Sweden and start living your life to the fullest.
This is a land with many opportunities and a lot of free time...
You dont have to be rich to have fun in this country,,,,

Best luck

Holiace skrev:

Well, anything considered "fun" is pretty much all illegal and, even though you can jump through a bunch of hoops, won't get too far performance-wise. I believe you're allowed to increase the engines output by 10% or so, but after that it gets harder.

People do modify their cars, but it's mostly illegal.

thats what i was afraid of, 10% engine power is not good enough for me, i am more used to throwing in the biggest engine i can fit.

KHRacing skrev:

RustyNeX skrev:

hi all,

first of all, very sorry that i am writing in English, and sorry also if this is in the wrong place.

i am from England but have just moved to Sweden, i like car modifying a lot, and i brought two cars with me and still have two cars to go,

but i am trying to find out what i can do here,

i understand that to import a car it has to be standard? how standard? non of my cars are standard, but that goes from just having a new sound system and custom suspention, to duel engines in the boot!

also i have seen no modified cars since being here, just american cars. is it difficult to modify cars in Sweden? or get them legal?

i didn't really think of it when i moved here. in England it is common place to get that extra bit of power by dropping in a new engine and a roll cage etc. but if i can't modify cars then i big part of my life is in trouble.

at the moment i am driving on the UK plates, and i haven't been stopped yet, but its a matter of time,

thanks for all the help (in advance)

w
Why not register your cars on a friend that lives in the UK,, Then drive them here for 1 year at the time & then take for their yearly MOT back to UK ? (if this is legal in the UK, it is in Sweden.)

100% stock is the demand when registering a car in Sweden, you also need to change the headlights beacause we drive on the other sida of the road.

its the cost of driving back which is the problem, its a very long way to drive just for an MOT, also i have been told that my insurance doesn't cover me abroad for more than 2 months, and sweden wont let me visit with my own car for more than 3 months. i don't know if thats true or not, but i have had my cars here for a year now, no problems.

i have a set of replacement lights to go on, but for now i have these filter stickers that redirect the light

caromania skrev:

But you're not really importing any cars, you bring along your own as you're moving here. Probably different rules then. If the cars are legal and MOTd in the UK I can't see any reason for them not being legal over here.

http://transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Im … of-origin/

it is ok if i am visiting, but because i am living here, they need to be registered, they would only be legal in the UK for one year, then i would have to go back and get them tested etc, so to keep them here longer i need to make them swedish, which is the same as importing i suppose?

KHRacing skrev:

caromania skrev:

But you're not really importing any cars, you bring along your own as you're moving here. Probably different rules then. If the cars are legal and MOTd in the UK I can't see any reason for them not being legal over here.

http://transportstyrelsen.se/en/road/Im … of-origin/

Quite true - Its called. FLYTTGODS , the car that is.  if the rules apply for non-swedes aswell ?

but soon the cars will not be leagal in the UK as the MOT will run out, so i either go back to the uk and re MOT them, or i try and do something here.

i can get away with the UK not caring because the car is not in the UK, and sweden not caring because they think the car is registered in the UK, but if i crashed, or the police decided to do a bit of checking, i would get a lot of problems

InX-Engineering skrev:

We do modify cars in Sweden but its illegal, Many Volvos are verry verry tuned but you cant look at the exterior and say its not modified , We have some BMWs and some Supras that have around 1000hp and still drive on the public road. A good advice is to keep your orginal parts and if SBP say that you cant drive it just put in a stock engine and some stock parts. If sbp says its okay police cant do anything

that really sucks! you guys are missing out, there are huge events in england devoted to modified cars. the problem with my cars or at least one of them is the engine is not in the front any more its in the back, so putting it back to standard is not possible. i suppose it looks like there is nothing i can do about it, i either run the car illegally or i sell it... really don't want to do that, i put so much work into these things.

Mechanimal skrev:

An english friend of mine brought over his Mini Cooper S from the UK, he has been working and living here in the cold for many years now and he still has his english plates AND he can get the swedish type of MOT, he has to drive to Norway(this is where it gets funny..) once a year however, for it to be legal. I'm unsure as of how this works but could try and ask him next time I see him.

oh wow now that sounds really interesting! that could be something i can do, all my cars have the UK plates on them still, Norway is only 3 hours away which is not so bad once a year...

another thing i wanted to deal with is my trailer, its made out of the back half of a car, i understand in sweden they cut off your balls for something like that! maybe i could get through a loop hole with that too?

endorfinslaven skrev:

Welcome to Sweden !

Here its a little bit different from England and in many cases better for you if you like driving a car to the limit. The English roads are crowded 24h all year by cars, here youll find your own roads empty of cars now and then. You will have time to expand your driving skills on snow/ice and gravel....

Be aware that cars with low chassis and stiff springs doesnt work well on many of our roads. The winters kill the tarmac making the ground underneath expand, cracking the tarmac. To build a really fast car over here youll need to build it more like a rally car. Absolutely not as a car built for the curcuits.
Many modern cars suspensions arent build for roads as bad as some of the swedish roads.

About tuning and the fact that your Impression that the cars here arent tuned...
Youll see by time that there are a lot of cars with 500-1000hp on the roads, Volvos and BMWs mostly.
Its funny that this is youre impression of tuning in Sweden.
My impression of tuning in England is that there are not any advanced tuned cars on the Island.
My collegue that has a Caterham explained that a guy close to a genius mapped his car.
But the problem is the black smoke and the impossibility to get it through the MOT.
Im not a genious and I mapped my car by myself like many swedes and it has no problem goin through the MOT. Youll be surprised by the level and knowledge of tuning there is in this coutry.
And also the level of driving skills, if you will go out on the icecurcuits of our lakes during the winter.
Youll see farmer boys in old Volvos go fast against BMWs , Subarus...
If I tell this  to people in England they just look at me.....

Ps

I have a rollcage waiting in the garage...

hey ya,

thanks for the welcome

when coming to sweden it was almost better in every way, but this car thing is really getting me down, i do love these empty country roads in sweden, but it was the same in England too, we have some incredible drives, i recommend anyone to drive the countryside around glasgow in scotland too, you wont get a better driving experience, long open roads you can see for miles, with twists too loads of fun.

i did have some real fun in the winter this year too, drifting around on the ice was great and the snow tyres really did a great job.

yea i was very shocked at the state of the roads over here, i was heading a little further north and managed to turn my wheel square with a nasty pot hole! and unfortunatly all my cars are as low as it goes, one of them has a brace bar along the bottom which makes it about 8cm from the ground, luckily the car i want to bring over is going to be a rally car, if sweden will let me finish it, so that should help!

that is very interesting about seeing the differences between england and sweden. from my point of view i know so amazing tuners in England who have build some stunning cars, full carbon fibre chassis custom cars etc, because you can build a car from nothing in England. and the Arial atom, which was built not too far from where i lived, is one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world. where as coming to sweden, i see normal cars, pretty much only volvos, and some shocking driving, the number of people who just pull out infront of me on round abouts and junctions, i have had more near crashes in sweden than all my years of driving in the UK. but i am sure its not like that really which is the problem, to understand the car scene in your country you need to be a part of it. which is what i was in England, but in sweden i don't know anyone who is into cars, so it all seems a bit slow... and with modifying being illegal that just makes it worse. i think that is going to drive me mad, i cant leave anything standard.


awesome, what roll cage? weld in or bolt in? and what car? i have had some fun fitting roll cages, it really makes a difference.

Rushman skrev:

Welcome!

When it comes to modifying cars, Sweden has alot of rules! But as long as there are humans doing the inspections, there will always be some wiggle room...

Take mine for example... The law says:

You canŽt have taillights nor signal lights painted black
You are not allowed to increase the output by more than 10%

And further on I believe there are crap about changing the dimension of the tires, and I probably fail in some way by having changed the exhaustpipes.
Changing the colour of the car and not register it might be frowned upon as well... The rear number plate? IŽm not sure, IŽm not a cop =P

Anyway those are all things that might give me trouble when at the rego, but if you find nice guys
"human guys" you might get a free pass on minor things. Not that the cops wonŽt bug you the next day....

To sum up, luck is a factor when judging how legal your car is.
And I bet the majority of the cars on this forum are "illegal" in some way...

If you are puking out pollution, if you have a tinted windshield, if you have a supercharger coming through your hood in a N/A car you will of course get banned from the roads.
But what cranky inspector doesnŽt see, doesnŽt hurt cranky inspector....

Also for them ignorence is bliss

And I also want enhance what "endorfinslaven" told you. We do not have good roads! Of course the major highways are somewhat smooth, but your average road wonŽt be nice to a stiff sports car!

thanks

i think you covered just about everything my car has there, tinted windows, blacked out rear lights and side lights, banded widened wheels with stretch tyres, widened track, engine swap, and scraping the ground suspention...

i hope i can find some people near me who are into cars, maybe they can point me in the direction of these nice inspectors

InX-Engineering skrev:

I forgot, WELCOME TO THE BEUTIFUL COUNTRY OF SWEDEN, VÄLKOMMEN

thanks! it is a stunning place, i have already been cruizing in the convertible and taking photos, it is great, just these little things that are getting to me, the rules of cars being the worst one,