Hello! Just wondering if any one has imported a Mini from the U.S. to Israel? Advice would be great. Thanks!

 

No, but I've been thinking about it since I've bought mine :-)

So, please keep me updated whatever you find out.

I once helped my ex-GF to import a car while I was living there back in 1993.

Actually we drove it all the way from Germany to Italy and boarded a ferry to Greece, then Haifa.

In Haifa we just dropped it off by the customs because from whatever reason we couldn't just drive it out of the port.

You probably will just ship it, so for you that part will be different.

After that (and you can find a lot of info about it on the web, especially if you read Hebrew - I think there is a detailed guide to importing a car on Israeli Customs website) there is quite a bit of beaurocracy.

Besides going a couple of times to different customs offices and standing in line there for a few hours you need to do a few things with the car like find a shop that is capable of taking care of MINIs and able to produce a document supporting that (that should be pretty easy since the BMW dealerships already sell MINIs there) and if necessary install a few features that are required in Israel and were not in the country of origin.

For US-originated cars it could be nothing, for a german car it was side blinkers as far as I remember.

Anyway that was long time ago, probably things have changed, you are welcome to PM me with any questions.