[fsbgav]

This may only have a limited audience, but I wanted to do a write up of the trouble I've had in registering my Bronco in Ireland in case any Bronco Buddies ever move to the Green Isle.

Firstly, Background....

When importing a vehicle into Ireland you are liable for VRT (Vehicle Registration Tax). This works out to be percentage (i believe it's something like 36%) of the OMSP (Open Market Selling Price). The OMSP is the value of the vehicle if it were to be offered for sale on the open market (There is a lot of discussion on this at http://www.vrt.ie).

There are exemptions from VRT, the main one concerning me was Transfer of Residence. Basically, if you can prove that you have owned and insured the vehicle for at least 6 months outside of Ireland before you transferred your primary residence to Ireland, then you are exempt from paying VRT on the vehicle.

Now this is where I made my BIG mistake. The vehicle must be registered within 12 months of bringing it into Ireland. I didn't realise this and didn't do this, just stuck it in my garage.....So 6 years later I go to register the Bronco and find out I'm now liable for VRT :doh0715:. As Broncos were never sold in Ireland, the OMSP is determined by the Revenue Commissioners (Irish equivalent if the IRS), and their word is final. So basically this is a value plucked from thin air. So from a guesstimate value of €5,000, I'd be paying €1,800 VRT:cry

However vehicles in Ireland can be converted to commercial vehicles by carrying out a number of modifications. The VRT for commercial vehicles (in my case a Category C due to the weight of the Bronco) is a flat €60. So I am now in the process of converting the Bronco to a commercial.

Also Road Tax in Ireland for passenger vehicles produced before 1 July 2008 is based on engine size, and for anything over 3 litres road tax is €1,566 per year (yes, you did read that right!). Road tax for a commercial vehicle under 3,000kg is €288 per year.

So this is why I am now getting the Bronco changed to a commercial. Subsequent posts in this thread will explain what and how I changed the Bronco.

 

[fsbgav]

Modifications Required for Commercial Vehicle Conversion

From the Vehicle Registration Office I received a list of modifications that are required for a vehicle to be registered as a commercial vehicle:

Rear Seats:
There should be no seats or seat structures (e.g. box type covers for wheel arches) which could be used as seats.
Seat holders, brackets, bolt holes to be removed.
Seat belts and fittings to be removed and their apertures to be filled.

Windows:
Side windows to the rear of the driver should be closed and permanently sealed with panels of rigid metal affixed permanently.
I have subsequently learned that if the glass is retained and metal fixed over the glass, then the metal must be fixed inside with a bead of permanent adhesive bonding around it. If the glass is removed, and metal inserted in its place then that's ok, but must be sealed so non-opening.

Floor:
Floor to the rear of the driver is to be constructed of rigid metal and fixed permanently to the original floor by means of continuous seam welding, adhesive bonding, spot welding or brazing.
The floor has to abut the sides of the vehicle.
The floor must cover any area that may be suitable as a footwell or a seatwell.
If the new floor is higher than the front floor any opening spaces between the new and old floor at the drivers end and the rear door must be closed off with blanking panels fixed permanently to both old and new floors.

The next posts in this thread will describe with photos the actual changes made.

Gav

 

[digitalbill]

From the Vehicle Registration Office I received a list of modifications that are required for a vehicle to be registered as a commercial vehicle:

Rear Seats:
There should be no seats ot seat structures (e.g. box type covers for wheel arches) which could be used as seats.
Seat holders, brackets, bolt holes to be removed.
Seat belts and fittings to be removed and their apertures to be filled.

Windows:
Side windows to the rear of the driver should be closed and permanently sealed with panels of rigid metal affixed permanently.
I have subsequently learned that if the glass is retained and metal fixed over the glass, then the metal must be fixed inside with a bead of permanent adhesive bonding around it. If the glass is removed, and metal inserted in its place then that's ok, but must be sealed so non-opening.

Floor:
Floor to the rear of the driver is to be constructed of rigid metal and fixed permanently to the original floor by means of continuous seam welding, adhesive bonding, spot welding or brazing.
The floor has to abut the sides of the vehicle.
The floor must cover any area that may be suitable as a footwell or a seatwell.
If the new floor is higher than the front floor any opening spaces between the new and old floor at the drivers end and the rear door must be closed off with blanking panels fixed permanently to both old and new floors.

The next posts in this thread will describe with photos the actual changes made.

Gav

Instead of filling in the glass with metal, can you use fiberglass instead so that you have a solid fiberglass shell?

 

[fsbgav]

Hmmm, that's a bit of a grey area.

They state that metal has to be used, and I've done that as it's the quickest/easiest/cheapest way to do it.

However I guess that if the fibreglass was done so as to be a permanent fixture and the glass was not visible, I suspect that it would pass inspection. Especially as Broncos were never sold over here, and your average jobsworth wouldn't know what the vehicle was like originally.

 

[buckingbronc88]

HOLY CRAP DUDE!!! Welcome to future America, if we don't get these "pig wigs" out of office. They're freakin taxing you to death over there.
RIP American Bronco... Moment of silent please

 

[El Kabong]

Wow, that's reversed to the situation here. We pay quite a bit more for commercial tags than for passenger vehicles.

So it sounds like can you remove the glass & install the metal in it's place using the weather strip for the glass. It seems like that would have a clean look, & be easier to change back without the "bead of permanent adhesive bonding around it", if you ever were in a position to allow it. Do the regulations allow running with the top removed?

 

[fsbgav]

Yep, you could easily remove the glass and put metal in instead, but you have to show that it is a permenent change that cannot be returned to a passenger vehicle (which is a load of bollocks really, as any work can be undone if you have the time). The guy who did the work for me said he was going to leave the glass in to provide rigidity for the thin metal he was using. Also I intend to convert it back to passenger vehicle when it becomes vintage (30 years old - €50 per year road tax) and didn't want to store the glass in my garage for the next 9 years.

You could run with the top removed, but then it would be classed as a pickup......meaning more mods to separate the cabin from the pickup bed. Also there is some rule about the pickup bed being 45% of the length of the vehicle. Not realy sure, as I wanted to keep the top on (Irish weather and all that!) so didn't investigate any further.

 

[fsbgav]

Rear Seat Removal

As we all know rear seat removal in Broncos is fairly easy. As the seatbelts and mountings all attach to the rear seat, this requirement for conversion to a commercial vehicle didn't require too much work.

1. Unbolt the seat (I'm sure this has been covered in other threads).

2. Remove the catch for the back of the seat and weld in a plate in it's place.

3. Remove the bolts at the front, roll back the carpet(I didn't find my build sheet like others have) and fill in the resulting holes with adhesive bonding.

In the bottom righ hand corner of the above pic you can see where the ho;es were filled in.

 

[Andrew James]

If you can't remove the top, what's the point in a Bronco?

 

[fsbgav]

There's nothing to stop me removing the top once the Bronco is registered.

It is just easier to get it registered with the top on, so it becomes classed as a van rather than pickup.

 

[zrxw13]

Damn. Sounds like it's a pain in the ass to get things registered in Ireland... So do you have to plug weld all the wholes in the floor from the seats and stuff too?

 

[fsbgav]

It's only a pain registering it as I fooked up by not registering it as soon as I moved to Ireland. It should be registered within 12 months of moving into the country.

The holes in the floor have to be permanently sealed with weld or adhesive bonding. Right now they have a load of black mastik in there (which will be easier to remove when I want to convert it back to a passenger vehicle). The latch for the back of the rear seat has been removed from the floor and a small plate spot welded over it.

 

[Handy_andy_cv64]

I didn't find my build sheet like others have

Look under the seat bottom of the driver's seat--that's the typical location for most American trucks with buckets; otherwise, if you have a bench, it should be in the seat bottom wherever it was put during assembly.

 

[fsbgav]

Windows

The rear windows should be closed and permanently sealed with panels of rigid metal affixed permanently. The windows being permanently closed is no problem as you can't open them anyway.

To seal the windows permanently with metal rigid panels, I have had thin sheets of steel inserted between the glass and weather stripping on the outside.

The inside of the glass was then sprayed with rhinoliner-esque stuff to obscure the glass.

In an earlier post I said that if the glass was left in place, the metal had to be inserted on the inside. I took the Bronco back to the testing station and explained that windows could not be opened even before conversion, and being a fibreglass top that was no way to permently fix metal to inside. They were happy with that and let me away with the mods as done.

 

[fsbgav]

Floor

The requirements for conversion to a commercial vehicle also describe changes to the floor of the vehicle

Floor:
Floor to the rear of the driver is to be constructed of rigid metal and fixed permanently to the original floor by means of continuous seam welding, adhesive bonding, spot welding or brazing.
The floor has to abut the sides of the vehicle.
The floor must cover any area that may be suitable as a footwell or a seatwell.
If the new floor is higher than the front floor any opening spaces between the new and old floor at the drivers end and the rear door must be closed off with blanking panels fixed permanently to both old and new floors.

Luckily the floor of the bronco from the rear seats backwards is nice and flat already, so this did not require any mods.

However panels had to be made to 'fill in' the footwell for the rear passenger seat. Two panels were welded at 90 degrees to each other, one that ran level with the floor to the rear of the front seats and one from this panel straight down to the floor.

Where the horizontal panel meets the existing rear floor, it has been sealed over with mastik. I'm not sure if there are spot welds under there aswell.

Yes, in the last picture, rolling back the carpet has revealed more rust for me to treat. There's a nice little hole there, that I can see my rear wheel through!

 

[fsbgav]

Summary

So that describes the changes...

It has successfully passed scrutiny now, and is registered officially. As it is registered as a commercial it ended up costing me €50 to register, plus another €500 to get it converted. A heck of a lot better than the possible €1,800+++ it could have cost had I registered it as a passenger vehicle.

The morale of the story here is register your vehicle in Ireland as soon as you get here. Especially if you are claiming exemption from VRT under transfer of residence!

Here's what she looks like (from ther outside) with changes in place.

(Yes, I know the front tyre is smaller than the rear...I am waiting for Santa to replace!)

 

[El Kabong]

Thanks for the update. Congrats on passing. :thumbup

 

[rhauf]

Very interesting.. what a serious pain in the ass

i think i'd have painted the windows black so it just looked like really ridiculously dark tint or something.

 

[fsbgav]

rhauf

Unfortunately painting/tinting the windows isn't enough. The glass has to be replaced by a sheet of metal or permanently sealed over.

In their eyes just tinting the windows means that the window can still be used, and thus too easily could be converted back to a passenger vehicle.

 

[Joes93Bronco]

I think he means painting the metal so that the metal sheet would look like really dark tinted windows. Metal, but still looking like glass.