Hello all,

I am planning on moving with my wife (Polish) to southern Poland in the next few months. Where we will be will need a half decent 4x4 and I have been looking at getting a Defender 90 or 110 - ideally something that I can learn to maintain myself, nothing fancy something for local driving and can get us out of trouble in bad weather as we have only dirt roads up to our land. I plan to drive it from London with some of our belongings.

I am looking at purchasing a Left Hand Drive Land Rover TITHONUS 110 from Witham. I have read the advice about ex mod purchases and like the idea of getting a well maintained landy. But getting a little concerned with the ever increasing bid amounts and now starting to question the value for money.

I have a few questions i hope the community can assist with...

• For Witham, can anyone recommend a good garage who can pickup and make the vehicle roadworthy? Also, I am not an expert and would not mind them reviewing the lots in advance for their expert comments (paid for their time of course).
• For Poland, any advice for owning such a vehicle? What are the road tax and insurance like?

Any other advise would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Tim

where shall i start?

I'm going to have a punt here and say I'm your man on all things Polish, lived here for over six years now with my Polish wife and currently run a couple of Landies.

First of all is this going to be your first Landy?
Do you really need to buy one from Withams?


There are places over here selling landies, they will already be Polish plated and registered usually come with some insurance on them when you get em and lastly are considerable cheaper than what you would pay for one in the U.K when it comes to defenders. Parts places I can hook you up when you get here and need parts at reasonable prices, dont trust Polish mechanics unless you know them very well indeed and you will pay Angol Tax once they realise you are English on every small job they do for you.

What area are you moving to?

Get back to me and I can answer any questions you have on the place and possibly send you some links through for Polish plated defenders, most are imported from Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands, remember if you bring one from the UK you are going to have to pay to re-register it and get fresh technical tests done and sort out insurance, honestly I would be looking at getting one over here and driving it back if you need to load up with possessions from the Uk for the move.

Pol

Hey Pol, thanks for your message.

First Landy - Yes
Need to buy from Withams - No
Moving too - Krosna, not far from Limanowa, hour from Krakow

Thanks for your advice, reregistering etc costs I thought maybe an issue. If you have some links I can review would be great.

Where are you based?

timmywo said:

Hey Pol, thanks for your message.

First Landy - Yes
Need to buy from Withams - No
Moving too - Krosna, not far from Limanowa, hour from Krakow

Thanks for your advice, reregistering etc costs I thought maybe an issue. If you have some links I can review would be great.

Where are you based?

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Im up in the big smoke (warsaw) as far as links re costs well one thing you will learn about Poland is that it is very difficult if not impossible to get any concrete answers on anything, even legal or constitutional issues, which usually means that finding relevant info on the net is bloody difficult, but as a guide the last one i imported from belgium cost me an additional 500 zloty for recycling costs, 283 zloty registration, 100 zloty przeglond (mot), 2% (of their estimate of value) importation tax, then insurance. There isn't any road tax as such, it is included in the tax on fuel.

insurance wise there are two options OC and AC OC is third party cover and AC is fully comp basically. the insurance cost is based on engine size, age of vehicle, usage and value. The insurance covers all drivers or better wording would be any drivers but is in the name of the registered keeper so if somebody else bangs it whilst driving it with your permission it still goes against you on the next renewal. Price wise it is very reasonable once you have built up some no claims discount , you can bring a letter from your UK based insurer stating your current NCD and have it translated and most decent companies will give you some discount if not all. 60% is maximum for example i have a couple of discos both the same vintage (95) but one is a V8 3.9 and the other a 2.5 diesel the V8 costs me 800 zloty a year OC (third party) and the diesel 583 zloty both with 60% discount already deducted. be aware it really is only third party insurance, no theft or fire included in that.

Give me a bit of time and Ill do some searches for defenders for sale over here and post the links for you so you can see what you would get with your money over here, what is the budget if you dont mind me asking?

just a quick search shows this http://otomoto.pl/osobowe/land-rover/defender/?search[new_used]=on this is a bit like autotrader, will have a poke about for you.

Hey, thanks Pol

I will be in Warsaw in a few weeks for the second part of my wedding, the first part had a little issue! http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-married-hospital-after-groom-6072747
After the Wedding we were going to book the train to Krakow and then hire a car - very tempted now to buy a defender for the trip!

Great tip on the no claims, I have not owned a car for the last few years being in London - so not sure if ill be able to get any letters.

We are in the processing of building / rebuilding a house on our land so already having fun with the lack of info online and sniffing out Angol Tax. Time to brush up on my Polish.

Budget, as you would expect cheaper the better, I would be over the moon with something in sound condition for 2.5k GBP - but will push to 3.5k for the right car. I do not mind the cosmetic condition as long as its structurally solid, I have read a lot of scary stories with rust.

timmywo said:

Hey, thanks Pol

I will be in Warsaw in a few weeks for the second part of my wedding, the first part had a little issue! http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/couple-married-hospital-after-groom-6072747
After the Wedding we were going to book the train to Krakow and then hire a car - very tempted now to buy a defender for the trip!

Great tip on the no claims, I have not owned a car for the last few years being in London - so not sure if ill be able to get any letters.

We are in the processing of building / rebuilding a house on our land so already having fun with the lack of info online and sniffing out Angol Tax. Time to brush up on my Polish.

Budget, as you would expect cheaper the better, I would be over the moon with something in sound condition for 2.5k GBP - but will push to 3.5k for the right car. I do not mind the cosmetic condition as long as its structurally solid, I have read a lot of scary stories with rust.

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So around 15-20 k zloty, 90 or 110? fuel preference and body type? Don't be scared of a v8 lpg is cheap and plentiful here and conversions cheap as chips.


When you're over in Warsaw feel free to buy me a coffee and ask any questions you have

Ideally a 90 hardtop \ station wagon would be ideal.

Oohhh, LPG never crossed my mind, are both of yours LPG? Was thinking of diesel, dont need anything too powerful, will be the local runaround and to the airport now and then.

Coffee, yep watch it, may take you up on that!

http://otomoto.pl/oferta/land-rover-defender-land-rover-defender-90-ID6yaWsz.html.

http://otomoto.pl/oferta/land-rover-defender-1987r-2-5-tdi-4x4-oplacony-w-orginale-ID6ykYYb.html

http://otomoto.pl/oferta/land-rover-defender-ID6yiXXl.html

There's 3 all open to negotiations on price, hard cash works wonders.

Mine is an iced coffee when you get here.

Thanks Pol, I'll be in Warsaw 14th - 17th, will give you a yell to settle coffee debt owed

Few more quick questions....

• When making a purchase what documents should exchange hands?
• What insurance would I need in place before the purchase? Is this even possible? Sounds like the existing insurance on the car should cover me if I have permission from the old owner?

timmywo said:

Thanks Pol, I'll be in Warsaw 14th - 17th, will give you a yell to settle coffee debt owed

Few more quick questions....

• When making a purchase what documents should exchange hands?
• What insurance would I need in place before the purchase? Is this even possible? Sounds like the existing insurance on the car should cover me if I have permission from the old owner?

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Documents needed are passport and thats it for a foreigner, but if your wife still has her ID its just easiest to get them to do it in her name and then register it later in your name, it saves a load of face pulling when they can just copy her PESEL number onto the receipt, you will get next to bugger all from the seller just the car documents and a slip of paper with the insurance details on and a receipt. the registering the car is all up to you to sort out it isnt like the uk where they must have V5s signed and stuff. Insurance wise if it comes from a private seller then it will come with whatever is left on the insurance still to run, it is not unheard of to leave registration up until to the date the insurance expires

sp basically they want to see your ID or preferably the wife's so they can take a copy or at least the details so they can deny the fotoradar ticket they get after they have sold it to you (bare in mind non of the speed cameras here are working at the moment whilst they settle some issues with ownership between the police and the straz mieska) and you want a receipt with their Pesel number and NIP if you wish to claim the tax back if you are self employed. Thats about it.

If you are going to look at anything around me give me a PM and if im about i will happily come and poke around it for you.

good luck mate

Thanks Pol, this has been very helpful! Will give you a yell in a few weeks

DiscoPol said:

just a quick search shows this http://otomoto.pl/osobowe/land-rover/defender/?search[new_used]=on this is a bit like autotrader, will have a poke about for you.

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Thank you for sharing this link it was very helpfull!