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No hurdles have needed to be jumped over so far and very straightforward although it is not UK registered as yet as only just sent off the V55 as this cannot be done until the car has a valid mot but can see no problem with this. Anyway a bit of insight for any one that is considering importing from either Japan or Singapore as I have now done both Both are pretty easy and if anything it is a simpler process importing from Singapore than when I imported my Nissan Elgrand nearly 7 years ago from Japan which was bought at auction which you need a Japan agent to do for you as only Japanese companies who are registered with the auction houses can bid on the auctions The agent will bid up to the amount you instruct him to bid on the car that you want to bid on but it is up to you to decide on the maximum bid that you want to place. When you sign up and pay your deposit they will give you access to all the upcoming auctions from all over Japan. Prior to bidding they will send you translated auction sheets of any car you are interested in I used a company called Integrity Exports and they were excellent. I bid on 3 cars in total, the first 2 I placed low bids as the cars were not quite the spec that I really wanted but worked on the principle that if I got them cheap enough I could live with them and it was good practice for when I saw a car that had the spec I wanted which was quite specific. Prior to bidding I watched a lot of cars going through the auctions and with a bit of practice you can get a really good feel for what a certain car and specs will go for. If buying from Japan in my opinion it is a must to buy a Carvx report for any car you intend making a serious bid for, cost is about £20 per report Your agent will also complete all the export paperwork and arrange transport to the Japan port and shipping to the UK This is a bit more complicated than buying from Singapore as you need to learn how to read the auction sheets the difference in the various grades and read between the lines where a maybe a good grade 3.5 from one of the stricter graders may be a better car than a poor grade 4 from one of the more lax graders and the maps and be aware that not all auction houses are equal as some are stricter graders than others. You will also sometimes see the same car sold at one auction house and then reappear at another auction who are a bit lax with a higher grade and sold for a higher bid price which has been bought and flipped. You will also have far less info on the car usually just 5 or 6 pictures and the auction sheet It is also possible to buy direct from a dealer in Japan and there are a number of websites that will do this for you. Some are better than others and you will need to do your homework as some will charge a substantial markup on the dealer price and inflated transport and shipping costs and bear in mind that the car you are buying was most likely bought from the same auctions that you could buy from, given a bit of a tidy up and then sold by the dealer with his mark up on top in much the same way as buying from many dealers in the UK. In my opinion not the way to go as far better value can be had by buying at auction even if it does mean that you need a bit more knowledge and need to do a bit more work and research yourself. Whilst buying from Japan is pretty straightforward buying from Singapore is even simpler and pretty much the same as buying from a dealer in the UK apart from these dealers will normally be specialised exporters and will have compounds at the Port of Singapore as once a cars COE has run out it is legally not allowed on the road. They buy there cars from the general public and not at auction or trade in's and most advertise seeking to buy cars coming up to the 10 year old mark. You can find these dealers websites on line and the process is pretty much the same as if buying from a dealer in the UK where by they will answer any questions you may have and you agree a price with them direct normally a CIF price which includes the cost of shipping etc to the port of your choice. Most if not all will have of walk around video plus some where around 80 pictures of the car showing virtually all angles of the car as well as the interior and underside as well as a full write up of the car and they will include the vin so pretty simple to do your checks and get the service history and build spec sheet It must be borne in mind that if you are looking for a world car like an Audi it will have been made in the same plants as cars destined for the UK although they may well be different in some respects. As an example is the Q3 I have bought which has the same spec for all Asian countries and North America which is more luxury interior than cars made for the UK which are more sport interior ie S line having full leather seats, a slightly more plush interior, a reverse camera as standard, uprated air con and cooling and a DQ250 wet clutch rather than the DQ200 dry clutch which from what I can make out is a better option. The best value cars will be 10 years old or just coming up to 10 years old. The reason for this is that all cars in Singapore are required to have what is called Certificate Of Entitlement (COE). This is bought when a car is new normally for a 10 year period and can be extended for a maximum of a further 5 years only and after that the car either has to sold for export or scraped. Normally only very high value cars are extended for a further 5 years with the rest being worth relatively little and far less than what the same car would be worth in the UK. The cost of a COE is extremely high with the current cost for a Q3 for 10 years being approx £80000 although this can vary as they are auctioned with a limit on the amount available which has pushed prices up by quite a margin in recent years. This is on top of the cost of the car plus tax plus road tax and a very stringent Periodic vehicle Inspection (PVI) every year for cars more than 3 years old which from what I read is far stricter than the UK MOT. Hence most cars in Singapore are bought more as a status symbol and do very few miles and are upkept without regard to cost The car I have bought is a good example of this having done only 39000 in 10 years (which is about average although it is possible to get a car with far less) and has a full Audi main dealer service history From buying the car whether it is in Japan of Singapore the process is virtually the same. From the Singapore dealer you will receive e-mail copies of the Singapore Land Transport Authority Deregistration Certificate, 3rd Original Copy of the Bill of Lading and there invoice From your agent in Japan you will receive e-mail copies of the Japanese Export certificate, 3rd Original Copy of the Bill of Lading and there invoice. You will be sent the details of the ship and the ETA that the car is booked on and once the car is loaded on the ship you will be sent the the paper copies of these and also the 1st and 2nd Original Bill of Lading. Both times these have been sent by DHL and have arrived within a couple of days of the car being loaded on the ship. You can then follow the ship as it makes it way to you which takes a couple of months or so to get here. This time with the Q3 the ship was slightly delayed due to not being able to use the Suez Canal but as I was following it this was not a problem. There are a number of websites that will give you an exact location of the ship at any one time and it's next port of call etc Although it is possible to do it yourself on both cars I have opted to use a port clearing agent to sort out paying the import duty and vat and obtaining the Nova as it is only about £150 and both times this was completed within a day or so with them paying on your behalf and then billing you for the cost. To do this you need to send them a Original copy of the Bill of Lading which itemises what you have paid for the car and shipping etc as the cost of import duty and vat is paid on the total amount including shipping. With the Elgrand I had it picked up from the Port of Newcastle and trailered to me as for some reason it was quite a bit cheaper to have the car shipped to Newcastle and even after paying for it to be delivered to me I was about £300 better off. I arranged this through Shipley who I have used a number of times before for a variety of deliveries. This time for the Q3 I hired a trailer for a total cost of £67 including vat and went up to Port of Bristol with my son in law to pick it up with his Q7. Including picking up the trailer and the car took about 2 1/2 hours. I have insured the car on my current multi car policy from the Vin and have paid £74 fully comp including windscreen cover and coutesy car for the next 97 days up to the policy renewal To be sent to DVLA with the completed V55 £55 Registration fee plus relevant years road tax (in my case for the Q3 £190) The original copy of either the Export Certificate (if imported from Japan) or the original Deregistration Certificate (if imported from Singapore) These show all the cars details including make, model vin, engine number, date of 1st registration , colour, cc, original reg no etc Photocopy of Driving Licence or other proof of identity and address. Proof of Purchase Proof Of Insurance MOT Certificate NOVA Both cars even after paying for all the related costs were considerably less than what I would have paid in the UK with the Q3 I have just bought being well under half the cost of a comparable UK car with the same miles For me less hassle than driving to view cars with very nearly all done on line and even the bit of work that I done checking the car over and topping up the oil and coolant were not particularly hard work and done on my drive. I have also since it was mot'd given it a polish and wax. Of course this will not suit every one as you will need to pay for the car, shipping, import duty, vat, UK port fees and clearing agent, transport to you from the port, mot. (plus possible work on the car), insurance UK registration fee and a years UK road tax etc. The dealers in Singapore will not offer finance or obviously a trade in. Other potential downsides for some will be that the car will possibly have a lower resell value but as it is intended as a long term buy for my wife and will only likely do 3000 miles a year or less this is not really a concern for us I also quite understand that some would rather see and drive a car before buying it but if you are thinking of importing a car either from Japan or Singapore it is not really that difficult,

Picked up the Q3 last week from Bristol Portbury Docks which took a bit longer than first expected as the ship it came on from Singapore had to go the long way around as it could not use the Suez Canal Changed over to English and miles in the MMI and gave it a bit of a once over and everything works as it should and could find nothing obvious wrong apart from the oil and coolant being very sightly down so have just topped these up although the oil was lovely and clean which would tie in with the service history Drove it down to get it mot'd today and it drives fine and passed with no advisories. It is in stunning condition and virtually like new with just a couple of very minor marks on the alloys and a very light scratch of about 2 inches in length on the drivers side door insert that I am hoping I can polish out and if not will just replace it. It also had one of the Isofix covers missing on the rear seat and I have ordered a genuine Audi replacement from a company called LLL Parts for under a tenner including delivery. Cover - chestnut brown - 8U0887187SC3 It is very clean underneath and far better than any 10 year old UK car that I have seen and the mot tester could not believe it was 10 years old. Will get the V55 off to the DVLA tomorrow to register it. Good news is that my wife really likes the black wheels and has decided that she is not that worried about going to bigger wheels so for now will just touch up the couple of small marks on them.

The tower bar you have from Ultra Racing will not make a bit of difference to tightening up the chassis of your car Even the ones they do have have on there website that do fit Audis from strut tower to strut tower would not be my choice. On one of my other cars (not an Audi) I have a tower bar with a master cylinder stopper (which none of the Ultra Racing tower bars have) plus an additional 7 underbody braces, which whilst not so bling as a tower bar as unless you get under the car no one can see them do a far better job than just a tower bar which by its self will make a minimal difference All of these have been bought secondhand from various sources although all are made by either Cusco or Carbing and both of which in my opinion are far better than the ones on offer from Ultra Racing although I do not know whether they make for a A1 as they are Japanese makes Rather than the Tower bar you have got if you want to tighten up your chassis and want to stay with Ultra Racing you could look at there underbody braces as these would at least have some effect on tightening up your chassis.

I have just had a look at the Ultra Racing website and can see that they are showing it fitted where you have got it placed. As has already been said this is a waste of time and money and will do nothing to tighten up your car and will just add to the weight. Every other tower bar they have for Audi's apart from the A1 at least fits to the strut towers although I don't think I would be going out of my way to buy one. If it was me I would be sending it straight back and using the money towards one that is actually going to do a job or even upgrading your arbs

New to Audi's but not tower bar's as I have fitted to quite a few to my cars in the past and they are always fitted directly onto the top suspension mounts as the whole idea of them is to tie the two strut towers together. Looks like yours would further back under the windscreen scuttle panel You would normally use the original bolts.

Any plans on a club display area at Beaulieu for the 2026 Simply Audi show on the 18th July. Early Bird prices up to 01/03/26. Not been to a show at Beaulieu for the last 3 or 4 years or so. Would be good to go with the Q3 as hopefully it will be all sorted and registered by then.

Cracking looking car and some serious work gone on there. Good luck with the mot.

Assume you are looking for a indie, sorry no personal recommendations but from a quick search it seems like there are at least 2 independent garages in the Yeovil area that both get good online reviews and from there websites say they specialise in Vag/Audi. https://rcmr.co.uk/car-service-yeovil/ https://www.cornickmotors.co.uk/ If it was me I would be asking if they have ODIS with VAS 6154 or 6154A interface dionostic tool as this will them give them dealer level capability.

Bit off a calculated gamble based on several factors The car even after shipping, import duty, tax, port fees etc will have cost less than half a comparable Q3 bought in UK with the same mileage. In Singapore cars get very little use with the vast majority of cars at 10 years old having far less miles than in the UK and most are seen as occasion cars and a status symbol not a necessity plus due to the very high cost when new which with the cost of the COE (Certificate of Entitlement) means that the typical cost is somewhere around 4 times what the same car would cost in the UK and the much stricter PVI ( Singapore equivalent to MOT) means that the vast majority of owners keep them in top condition without regard to cost i have seen a video of the car with the engine running and over 80 pictures of the car including a number from the underside and from what I have seen the car looks to be in excellent condition with not a mark on the paintwork and the underside looks very clean and is in far better condition than I would expect to see on a 10 year old car in the UK One of my other cars that was also an import but bought from auction in Japan which I have had for nearly 7 years and has been one of the most reliable cars I have ever owned Worst comes to the worse even if it does need a few pounds spent on it I should still quite easily come out ahead. Picture of the car I previously imported back in the beginning of 2019 shown on the circuit at Castle Coombe in 2024 on the Parade Lap for being one of the top 50 cars in show out of nearly 2000 cars at JDM Coombe. 2004 Nissan Elgrand NE51 which has 4wd and a V6 3.5 petrol engine which is a detuned version of the engine in the Nissan 350z It is converted to a rear camper plus a number of other mods both to the engine, suspension, handling and styling and quite a few other mods since then with quite a few more planned. Edited to add that the Elgrand is a JDM car designed only for the Japanese market rather than a world car like the Audi and as such needed quite a bit more work than the Q3 will with things like rear fogs need to be fitted and overlays for dials ect plus things like the radio not being compatible in the UK and needs to be swapped out although it is possible to replace with a double din.

Will do, thank you.

Will do, 🤞, just checked and the Severn Seas Highway(V-159 which is the ro-ro ship the car is booked on is due to dock in Shanghai today after leaving Hiroshima yesterday with its next port of call being Pyeongtaek in South Korea before Singapore so looks to be on track

Hi Richard, thanks for the reply and the advise. Totally agree about upgrades not being economical as I am no stranger to making mods and over the years have spent some serious money and as much as I try to kid myself long ago realised this (and still spending on one of my other cars) but for me it is something that I seem to do with all my cars as I enjoy it and have been doing it for the last 50 years so a bit late to change now but will definitely not be spending a lot of money on this car in the way of mods as it is intended to just be a daily driver for my wife and will likely only do about 3000 miles of local driving per year as we have a couple of other cars which is why I chose this car and engine size as hopefully it will be a lot cheaper to run around town than the 650i which does not do a lot better than 17 mpg around the houses and is £760 per year road tax. Main intention is to just make it a little bit more fun for my wife to drive in traffic around town and improve the looks and handling a bit and upgrade the interior a bit to make it a bit nicer place to be. As regards the Haldex the car I have bought is the 1.4 tfsi which is fwd only and has not got the Haldex 4wd diff so no problems there although it does have the 6 speed DQ250 wet clutch transmission rather than the 7 speed DQ200 dry clutch which it would normally have in the UK which from what I have read needs a fluid and filter change every 4 years or at 40000 miles whichever comes first so as my car is just coming up 40000 it might have been done not too long ago on the time basis rather than miles. I don't think that this can be checked from the service menu in mmi so to be on the safe side will just go ahead and do it anyway as looks like a service kit dependent on make is only round about the £100 mark or less and it seems quite a simple job. As regards wheels aiming to buy a used set that are in a decent condition or need a bit of a minor refurb that I can do myself rather than buy new as my wife is not the best at parking and will just keep a look out to see what comes up that takes her fancy although no rush as it looks like the car has 4 near enough new tyres on and she may as well get a bit of use out of.

Thanks for the welcome and your advice Steve Yes had pretty much decided on Celtic as also have heard pretty good things on them and they seem to have been about for ever plus the price is reasonable and it is a mobile service so nice and easy and the warenty also seems good. Have got the build spec which shows that the car is type approved for Singapore and a quick google search shows that in 2015 whilst the UK was still on Euro5 standards Singapore had already moved to Euro 6 From google In essence, by 2015, Singapore was aggressively using policy to push for both lower CO2 and higher pollutant standards (via CEVS and import rules), while the UK was primarily operating under existing Euro standards that focused heavily on pollutants. So hopefully should be ok that it at least meets UK requirements. Also similar to the Shaken in Japan I think that the Singapore PVI is quite a bit stricter than the MOT in the UK so hopefully if any issues they would have been sorted. I Imported a car from Japan back in 2019 and had no problem registering it with DVLA and did not have a COC and was under the impression this is only required for cars under 10 years old which then also need a IVA test rather than just a MOT which is why I made certain that I bought a car that was over 10 years old as it make the whole process a lot cheaper and simpler. Nearly 6 years on and I still have and it has been perfect. Just to be on the safe side I have just done a google search and it does looks like a COC is only required if the car is under 10 years old as I thought. do you need a COC to register a car imported from singapore to the uk if over 10 years old No, you do not need a Certificate of Conformity (COC) or Individual Vehicle Approval (IVA) to register a car from Singapore if it is over 10 years old. According to the DVLA guidelines, passenger cars with 8 seats or fewer are exempt from vehicle approval once they reach their 10th anniversary from the date of manufacture or first registration. Key Requirements for Registration: MOT Certificate: Even though it is exempt from type approval, the car must pass a standard UK MOT test to prove it is roadworthy. Registration Form: You must complete form V55/5 for used vehicles. In the "Type Approval" section, simply state 'Exempt' and list 'Over 10 years old' as the reason. Foreign Registration: You will need the original Singaporean registration documents to prove the vehicle's age. HMRC Notification: You must inform HMRC through the Notification of Vehicle Arrivals (NOVA) system and pay any relevant VAT or duty before applying for registration. Insurance: You must have a UK insurance certificate (often using the VIN) before the DVLA will process the application. Note: While a COC isn't required for approval, you might still need to make minor physical modifications (like adding a rear fog light) to pass the MOT. Although google says you need the original registration documents to prove the vehicles age I just sent them the original Export /Deregistration certificate which had been sent to me from Japan which I had been advised to do and I think had the VC5 back in not much more than a fortnight. Hope I am as lucky this time😀 If the worst comes to the worst it looks like I can get a COC for about £100 but hopefully will not need it, Will keep the forum updated on this just in case any one else is tempted to import from Singapore

Bit of a intro. I have recently bought a Dec 2015 Q3 for my wife from Singapore which is due to be shipped on the 28/01/26 with a ETA of the 16/03 to the UK The car has 64000 kilometres on the clock so about 39000 miles. Car looks to be in very good condition and in my opinion would be the of a grade4.5A on a Japan auction with not a mark on it from the video and over 80 pictures that the dealer sent me and also looks very clean underneath and will have never seen snow or salt and looks to have 4 virtually as new tyres on it The car is a mid tier Premium Plus model so roughly the equivalent to a S line in the UK but as in most Asia and North America markets the trim levels concentrate more on improved luxury and features as opposed to increased sportiness This is to replace her existing 2006 BMW 650i cabriolet with 85000 miles on the clock as she is now doing less miles and more local trips and we now have a great grand daughter so my wife wanted a car with a bit more room This car is slightly modded with slightly lowered and uprated suspension, drilled and grooved discs, x pipe and slightly bigger diameter and wider wheels The q3 should be significantly cheaper to run although performance will be down by quite a large margin One major difference to the UK is that it has the DQ250 6 speed wet clutch as opposed to the 7 speed DQ200 dry clutch which from what I have read is a big plus as it seems this is a far more robust box and means that the car can be far more safely remapped Whilst not wanting to spend a load of money on upgrades I am thinking of of a remap and have had a quote of £295 from Celtic Tuning for a tune to 185bhp which seems to be quite reasonable. Currently the car has 17 inch wheels and thinking of changing these to 19 or 20 inch x 8.5 or 9. Also maybe an upgrade to the suspension by fitting the Bilsten B12 Pro kit which is virtually the same kit which I have fitted to the 650I and has the same B8 monotube shocks Would also like to make a few upgrades to the interior and maybe improve the ice a bit although do not want to go as far as power amps and would prefer just to perhaps upgrade existing speakers and may be add a small sub Any thoughts on these changes or any suggestions please. Couple of pictures of the car. It is in Glacier White metallic.