Is it legal to fix/restore cars in Sweden without a license?

Sorry for writing in english but I'm a car restorer from the USA that will be moving to Sweden.

The reason I'm asking is because Sweden is a lot more strict with cars as opposed to the USA.

Where I live and in most states there is no "Besiktning". You can drive with bald tires, rusted out body, leaking exhaust and nobody cares. You can do all kinds of engine swaps and that's ok too in most states. I don't need any license or a licensed repair shop to rebuild a car either. How is it in Sverige?

Tack sa mycket.

You can restore cars all you want without any problems, as long as you keep the engine stock (or at least so it looks stock). Smaller mods, like lowering a car, adding spoilers etc are generally no problem either. Engine swaps or tuned engines, for example cars with bigger turbos etc, are harder to get road legal, especially for model year -93 and up. Easiest / cheapest way is generally to swap to the stock parts every year for the inspection, and then swap back and hope no one will notice.

no you dont need a licens to  repair cars in sweden..    you start a  company   and when you register you company,
You typ in what you doing for stuff.. 
Like selling cars   baking pizza or what ever..     so its nothing weard shit to fixing car in sweden..   

you can get useless papper how good you are to fixing cars in sweden.. but if you need paper for that your are bad to fixing cars    they have some shit as aproved mecanic and shit.  if you are good mecanic you dont need paper on it

Mew skrev:

You can restore cars all you want without any problems, as long as you keep the engine stock (or at least so it looks stock). Smaller mods, like lowering a car, adding spoilers etc are generally no problem either. Tuned engines, for example cars with bigger turbos etc, are harder to get road legal, especially for model year -93 and up. Easiest / cheapest way is generally to swap to the stock parts every year for the inspection, and then swap back and hope no one will notice.

cars with Ls is free to mods in sweden.. no one now that you can go with a 500hp ls and its looking stock ;-)   and no one know how a Ls is stock ;-)

Growe skrev:

Mew skrev:

You can restore cars all you want without any problems, as long as you keep the engine stock (or at least so it looks stock). Smaller mods, like lowering a car, adding spoilers etc are generally no problem either. Tuned engines, for example cars with bigger turbos etc, are harder to get road legal, especially for model year -93 and up. Easiest / cheapest way is generally to swap to the stock parts every year for the inspection, and then swap back and hope no one will notice.

cars with Ls is free to mood in sweden.. no one now that you can go with a 500hp ls and its looking stock ;-)   and no one know how a Ls is stock ;-)

Yes, as long as it looks stock to an untrained eye it is generally able to pass through an inspection (doesn't make it legal, but as long as no one finds out there is no problem. Lots of modified Saabs utilise this as well). Same with old school V8 engines. They all look the same to an untrained eye, and can be heavily modified without it being especially noticeable. Especially with rarer cars/engines, as there is less chance that they know how it is supposed to look. For example everyone here knows how an old Volvo redblock engine is supposed to look as they are so common, so changes on one of those are a lot more noticable than for example on a LS.

My guess is that you will be working with older American cars, which is typically easier overall when it comes to laws.

It should be mentioned that when a car has reached the age of 30 the yearly inspection is changed to every two years instead and you no longer have to pay roadtax (vägskatt) for that car.

Laws recently changed from inspection every year, to inspection within the next 14 months, counting from the last inspection, (cars younger than 30 years)


Worth noting is that a car aged 50 and older can have a final inspection performed and never have to be inspected again, this is how we get away with leaking old cars a lot easier xP With that said you can still get pulled over and be forced to do a new inspection if the police consider the car to not be roadworthy.

Ls-swaps is difficult if you want to make the car legal, there are a ton of laws that I wont go through in this post. The best way is to swap a car that is 50 years and older that have had its final inspection, although not legal it's not considered a crime and the police can let you go in a lot of cases if you just behave.

Converting a naturally aspirated engine to forced induction is not really possible without some laws stopping you. There are some loopholes tho.

Converting from auto to manual and vice versa is really hard to do legally on cars registered 1993 and onwards, although possible, it's not really feasible.

Im not entirely sure how you view the average Swedes ability to speak English. My personal experience from the average owner of an American car (owners age ranging from 40 and up) is usually really bad, pronunciation being the biggest problem, just someting to keep in mind. I'm comparing this to my generation (born in the 90's), so older people might perceive this differently. I have had two American friends visit a few years ago and they have both confirmed this.

If you have more questions feel free to ask

christuna skrev:

Is it legal to fix/restore cars in Sweden without a license?

Sorry for writing in english but I'm a car restorer from the USA that will be moving to Sweden.

The reason I'm asking is because Sweden is a lot more strict with cars as opposed to the USA.

Where I live and in most states there is no "Besiktning". You can drive with bald tires, rusted out body, leaking exhaust and nobody cares. You can do all kinds of engine swaps and that's ok too in most states. I don't need any license or a licensed repair shop to rebuild a car either. How is it in Sverige?

Tack sa mycket.

You won't need any licens, but you will probably need to know how to fix diesel engines and manual gearboxes to be successful as a mechanic here

Utmarks-Loke skrev:

christuna skrev:

Is it legal to fix/restore cars in Sweden without a license?

Sorry for writing in english but I'm a car restorer from the USA that will be moving to Sweden.

The reason I'm asking is because Sweden is a lot more strict with cars as opposed to the USA.

Where I live and in most states there is no "Besiktning". You can drive with bald tires, rusted out body, leaking exhaust and nobody cares. You can do all kinds of engine swaps and that's ok too in most states. I don't need any license or a licensed repair shop to rebuild a car either. How is it in Sverige?

Tack sa mycket.

You won't need any licens, but you will probably need to know how to fix diesel engines and manual gearboxes to be successful as a mechanic here

IŽm not so sure about that... Going to a car meeting in Sweden means walking around looking at Bel Air, Impala, Camaro and some Volvo PV and Amazon in different colors...

DonŽt think for a minute that people in Sweden likes to restore european cars... Sadly...

One big difference worth noting however, is that once a car has entered a junkjard("skrotad") it will NEVER be allowed on the roads again. So you cant just go to a scrapyard and find a nice old car, restore it, and drive it around... Once its there, its there for good, regardless of the condition of it.

Tack for alla svar.

Xebers76 skrev:

My guess is that you will be working with older American cars, which is typically easier overall when it comes to laws.

It should be mentioned that when a car has reached the age of 30 the yearly inspection is changed to every two years instead and you no longer have to pay roadtax (vägskatt) for that car.

Laws recently changed from inspection every year, to inspection within the next 14 months, counting from the last inspection, (cars younger than 30 years)


Worth noting is that a car aged 50 and older can have a final inspection performed and never have to be inspected again, this is how we get away with leaking old cars a lot easier xP With that said you can still get pulled over and be forced to do a new inspection if the police consider the car to not be roadworthy.

Ls-swaps is difficult if you want to make the car legal, there are a ton of laws that I wont go through in this post. The best way is to swap a car that is 50 years and older that have had its final inspection, although not legal it's not considered a crime and the police can let you go in a lot of cases if you just behave.

Converting a naturally aspirated engine to forced induction is not really possible without some laws stopping you. There are some loopholes tho.

Converting from auto to manual and vice versa is really hard to do legally on cars registered 1993 and onwards, although possible, it's not really feasible.

Im not entirely sure how you view the average Swedes ability to speak English. My personal experience from the average owner of an American car (owners age ranging from 40 and up) is usually really bad, pronunciation being the biggest problem, just someting to keep in mind. I'm comparing this to my generation (born in the 90's), so older people might perceive this differently. I have had two American friends visit a few years ago and they have both confirmed this.

If you have more questions feel free to ask

Den har informationen ar mycket anvanbar. Jag ar tacksam att du vilja prata engelska med mig.

Mitt mal ar att lara mig Svenska sa snabbt som mojligt.

Jag renovera gammal merca R107a (innan 1989). De var populara har (70% av de var sald I Amerikanska marknaden)

Original skick kommer att fa mest pengar.

I "south-west" vi har manga gamla bilar utan rost for vi har ingen sno och salt pa vagen. Men manga av de har skadad inredning pa grund av hog varme och torrhet.

Intressant tråd. Följer.