The Mitsubishi Pajero Owners Club®

[tigernige1]

We went out in the sunshine this morning and found our chassis number where it is supposed to be with a little bit of help from a wire brush - so onwards and upwards!

I think the Controle Technique is something that has changed this last year sometime as far as we can gather, but as usual it's something you find out along the journey.

Nearly there!

[Google]

[tigernige1]

Hi all

Got home today and low and behold I have a letter from the DRIRE already with my inspection date for next Tuesday!  Although I cannot get in to get another Controle Technique until the 12th.  I'm still going to the inspection though, the DRIRE didn't mention that the Controle Technique was a problem to them it was just the Prefecture to complete the Carte Grise application.

I've also found out that the Garage will only give you a Controle Technique which is valid for 2 months on foreign plates now and then you have to have a contra visite when you have got your new plates on.  Our last Controle Technique they gave us for 2 years, but that is not valid in the eyes of the Prefecture because it's too old.

By the way I haven't thanked you all for all your information on the site. It's been absolutely invaluable to get us this far!!

Fingers crossed anyway and we'll see how we get on next week.

PS we heard the neighbour today with an electric sander looking for his plaque near the rear wheel - I think he found it in the end!

[tigernige1]

Our update so far -

last Friday (just at the start of the bank holiday weekend) our insurance company decided that they didn't want to continue with our insurance cover, so we wouldn't be covered for our DRIRE visit on Tuesday the morning after the Bank holiday weekend had finished.  They basically gave us no time to find alternative insurance cover before our DRIRE inspection.  I was very p*****d to say the least!  

They had told us that if we sent them copies of letters etc to prove we were in the system trying to immatriculate our car and they received them before the 1st April it would be okay, so I managed to get them copied and sent by the 29th March so we should have had a couple of days easy to get there in time.  I didn't hear anything from them, so I followed it up and they just e-mailed back saying sorry the policy had already been cancelled as of 27th March and there's nothing they can do about it now!  It was also too late at that point to postpone the DRIRE appointment, their offices were closed for the weekend by the time I knew all this and to call them on the morning of the visit would really not be a good idea.  However, we did have some luck.  We had recently made friends with a guy who is in the car industry and so happens to have trade plates he was happy to lend us to get to our inspection!  Another hurdle jumped.

DRIRE inspection went absolutely fine, it was the same guy I had met when I went last week with our neighbours for their inspection.  There was just a query with the front indicators not having e-numbers but he wasn't too fussed.  The seatbelts didn't have actual e-numbers on them either, but he passed them.  So hopefully we should have something in the post very shortly.   The DRIRE were happy with our old Control Technique, by the way.  He just wanted to see that it was in-date and hadn't expired yet, so it seems it just the Prefecture that want the 2 month old or less Control Technique for some reason.  So once we have that we should be on the home run.......?  

Fingers crossed again!

[DaveMuttley]

Sounds like you're nearly there Tigernige1.  Well done!

It seems from your experience that following a few changes it's now necessary to get everything going as soon as poss so that the CT and insurance don't run out.  We would have had similar insurance probs but for a superb AXA agent in our local town.  AXA kept writing telling us to prove that the Paj was reg'd properly but it was taking ages so they threatened to pull the policy.  Handed the letter to our insurance guy and he just said to leave it with him and sorted it all out.  Using an agent has been a really good thing to do.  He's also happy to beat up AXA and give us a discount when they make their online direct policy cheaper than having him sort it all out.  Happy days!

Anwyay, good on you for getting reg'd Tigernige.  It's good to see more imported Pajs getting on the road legally!

D

[Daisy]

Great news   I don't know why but I don't seem to get notifications of new posts in this section...

[tigernige1]

We have our envelope from the DRIRE or DREAR as it is apparently now, (they are just crossing out DRIRE and writing in biro DREAR!) so just Monday with the Controle Technique to contend with.

Our local AXA won't insure on english plates for any length of time whatsoever, but we know he is good because we have our french car and motorbike with him and as soon as the pajero is done we will be going straight to him with the carte grise for the insurance for that as well!

Thanks guys, fingers crossed for Monday.

Daisy was your box ticked at the bottom when you wrote your post?  Just a thought - I noticed it when I was typing this post there was one to tick to be notified.

[Daisy]

Fingers and toes crossed for you and I got the notification for that reply as well  

DRIRE - I always thought of DIRE   or D 'rire' in French
DREAR is much more descriptive (dreary)  

[tigernige1]

We have our new controle technique all done, and we were given 2 years.   I told him that the prefecture had told us it needed to be 2 months old or less, he thought it should 6 months old or less but alas that's what it's like!    Like Dave says, it pays to just try and get it all done as soon as possible, because wherever you are in the country it could be slightly different, either things change or the region does things differently!

Anyway next stop is the Prefecture.  It's not open in the afternoons, so unfortunately cannot rush off today while the iron's hot.  Also our new found friend who lent us the trade plates says he wants to come with us to help.  I'm not going to argue with that, especially as he knows a lot of the staff there and is very good at queue jumping!

Nearly there ...................   ( I think this should be my motto, I've been saying it often enough recently!)

[Daisy]

Re queue jumping, we have a ticket system like at the deli counter in a supermarket - it's always worth looking around for a lower number ticket that someone's discarded cause they got fed up waiting!

[tigernige1]

Our system is the same like a deli counter, he still takes a number just in case.  But because he knows them there and especially he is very friendly with a women who is quite high up there he manages to queue jump.  Don't ask me what he whispers in her ear - I don't ask!

Last time I went with him to retrieve my dossier (they had kept my original documents whilst waiting for my full conformity, which I needed to take with me to the DREAR inspection so I could get my conformity) he queue jumped about 20-25 people.  I must admit I felt very ashamed and daren't even look behind me at the eyes burning into the back of my head!  

[tigernige1]

Our french friend called us this morning to ask us if we had all our documents now ready for the Prefecture and said he would be here in 15 minutes to pick them up and that he would go to the Prefecture for us.  He was going into Clermont anyway, so we didn't need to go with him.

I think if it wasn't for him we would have had more difficulties.  He called us once because my wife's name was going on the Carte Grise as well, but we had put her married name on the forms and we should have put her maiden name on and then Epouse de ...... and the married name.  Then he called to ask how come the UK V5 was already in Nigel's name, why was he buying a car from himself??    Then he called back again because they didn't understand the papers from the DRIRE that were  confirming the conformity of our car.  She said she would have to call the DRIRE to make sure that this was satisfactory because she still thought it wasn't good enough, but by that time the DRIRE would be closed and she would have to call them back again at 2pm.  Which then worried me because the Prefecture normally closes at 12.30pm themselves.  Then we couldn't believe it when we got another call at 12.45pm with our new Registration Number, and that our Carte Grise would follow in the post in about a week or so!!

Wow - we couldn't believe it, so without hesitation off we went to get our new number plates at last!

I think without our friend going for us, it would have been likely we would have been sent away again, until she could have at least checked with the DRIRE that it would be okay, that's if she would have telephoned them for us. Our friend and I  think she would have sent us back to the DRIRE to ask ourselves.  So thank you very much to everyone here on the POCUK and our french friend (Yve) we would've have taken a very long time if we had to go through all this alone from scratch.  But going through this has also given us a good understanding of a lot that could, and can happen through this process.

We also got our plates for our 750 kg trailer at the same time, luckily we had bought it in France in the first place - but that was another question from the Prefecture - why hadn't we registered it when we had bought it 2 years ago?  Obviously it was explained this wasn't required when we had English Plates.

As for our neighbours, they have to get their chassis number re-stamped by Mitsubishi because it was so worn that only a few of the numbers could be found.  They are also still waiting for their correct Conformitie Partielle from Mitsubishi Paris.  After that they should be okay (Yve is their friend) too.!!

We kept smiling though all the way through this process and kept calm - that's the main thing!      

Thanks to all again

[tigernige1]

We thought we had done it........ alas no!

Since this last post we had received our Carte Grise and have been in a little conflict with the Prefecture.  They registered our car as 2003 instead of 1993.  Please tell me everyone how did you get over the hurdle of the dates on your V5 being first registration dates in the UK?  I know there is a note at the bottom of the first page of the V5 saying it has been previously registered/used overseas and first manufacture in 1993 (in our case).  But the Prefecture refuse to correct it the Carte Grise based on a sentence in English which they can't understand!  As far as they are concerned the dates at the top of the V5 both say 2003 and that's that!

They say there is no information to prove it is a 1993 car, and of course we got charged double for the privelege as it made our car only 6 1/2 years old (446,00 euros).  If we had argued it at the point of registration (like I say our friend went for us - we just thought this part would be a formality!) then they wouldn't have registered it at all.  So now we have a registered car fraudulantly made 10 years younger and we have to prove otherwise to amend the Carte Grise and get a refund of 220 euros.  They even said maybe you should produce a copy of the registration document from when it was registered in Japan!

Is it just me or is our Prefecture completely different from the rest in France....????

I think my next port of call is to go back to Mitsubishi Paris and see if I can get anything in writing to prove our model was produced in the year 1993.  Any ideas anyone?  

Our neighbour, who is still waiting for his conformity partielle from Mitsubishi Paris, by the way, says if it happens when he gets round to that stage he's off to the European Courts!

I thought I'd been patient all the way along this, but now finally I do actually want to scream!!      

I would be grateful for any input?

[Daisy]

If nothing else seatbelts have the date of manufacture on the label. Mine is a 1995 - seatbelts were manufactured 1995. There's no way they would make seatbelts in 1993 for a 2003 car. Take pictures. Then there's the fact that 2003 models of the Pajero worldwide are COMPLETELY different!!! Mitsubishi France I'm sure would confirm this and be highly amused.....  
The V5 has 'declared manufactured overseas'. The Dreal should have established the year of manufacture quite clearly - if not I reckon it's the DREAL you need to approach, the prefecture can be as difficult as they feel like.
PS box is ticked but I still don't get topic reply notifications..just from this topic  

Keep smiling, and think about how much you could sell a 2003 Paj for in France    

and I think you should bite the bullet and do it yourselves...

Good luck - bonne chance  

[tigernige1]

Thank you Daisy

I think you are right.  That was our thoughts, Mitsubishi again and then the Dreal.  We had the original e-bay print-off with the age and photos from when we bought our car, but even that wasn't enough (it wasn't official enough and it wasn't in French).  

We had been doing everything for ourselves from the start,  Mitsubishi, Prefecture (completing forms), and the application at the Dreal, our Dreal inspection, Hotel des impots etc. It's when we started getting "help" after we had completed all the paperwork for the dossier that it started to go wrong.  Maybe with our little innocent faces at the Prefecture at the point of registration, we might have been okay with their queries!  

I usually like to see things through myself and I am kicking myself for letting someone else take over at the final hurdle!  Anyway we'll soon find out how we get on with another hurdle now put in our way.

Thanks again, I'll keep you posted!

[tigernige1]

So far so good.  

I went to the hotel des impots, who amended my photocopy and stamped it.  They won't issue another certificate once one has already been done.  Then I went to the DREAL, who issued a notice to rectify the carte grise so I could take that straight to the prefecture.  The new certificate would be put in the post as one of the manager's was not there to sign it off.  Then off I went to the prefecture in the queue, to wait for 39 people until it was my turn.

Lo and behold, they sorted it.  Weirdly enough I got the same woman (who I remembered from our first visit with our french friend  when we went to retrieve our original documents for the DREAL inspection).  I gave them an RIB so they could refund the difference of 220 euros back into my account and they tore off the bottom part of the carte grise for me to keep until the new one arrived in the post!  And I did it all in one morning all on my little own!!  

So when I receive my refund (she said it should be within 15 days) and my new carte grise, I'll then start popping the champagne!!!  

(The carte grise price here now is 40 euros per puissance plus 6,50 for costs, and of course, if it is older than 10 years old it is halved to 20 euros per puissance plus the 6,50 cost.)