What’s important for a new car? For one, it should be stinky. Also a steering wheel that doesn’t fall off when you’re driving.
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Yes you can import but not vintage (any car over 9 years old)
Must be LHD with kph odometer, no older than 9 years, owner has to registered owner for 1 year in country of original sale.
Tax, VAT and import duties calculated from value of motor can add 50%+ value can be decided by Taiwan ministry as Taiwan value!!
If they don’t agree with yours. Plus few other rules I can’t think from top of my head.
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Very interesting. I suppose that fits almost perfectly with the governments push for more sales/economic stimulus coupled with crippling pollution levels and their subsidies for buying new cars. Cheers for that,makes sense.
A fun aside, though only half relevant due to public vs private land usage, many machines, especially used ones, are shipped stripped. They remove engines and certain parts and ship that way to avoid such hassles. Also for cheaper tax brackets. But most are not registered for public roadways so its not 100% useful to this thread. Though for vintage cars not intended to be driven on public roads, you can save a boat load and is 100% relevant.
Yeah a mate of mine used to strip and export JCB machinery, forklift trucks various other heavy machinery to Asia.
Little did I know most of it was stolen!! He got 10 years prison for it as he’d done so many.
Manual gearbox. Automatics are for wankers and girlybike “riders”.
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I’d assume the second version is more accurate. The shorthand version is accurate for me, which in context, is really all I give a tinkers damn about.
I don’t have a bizniz. Thus, in Taiwan, according to the second version, I can not have a truck. The common UK practice (very common in the US) of running a light commercial vehicle as private transport is thus technically illegal here.
Which is a PITA
If it isn’t nationality related that makes it more equitable, but still a PITA. I was going by what I was told on two separate days at my local DVLC centre. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn they don’t know their own regulations.
Oh, and here
and lots of other places
If sulavaca (who has a long-established reputation in the local motor trade scene) can get this wrong (assuming it is wrong) then I don’t feel too bad if I did.
Its a Taiwan smoke-and-mirrors-thing
Regwagon is quoted above saying its fine, but I think he was wrong, which admittedly didn’t happen very often.
How about paddle shifters?
Well, of course I’m trying to convince myself I did right not to get it, but on reflection the 30 year old truck I just looked at had a very shiny engine compartment, which is not what I hope to see on an old and allegedly neglected vehicle.
I find it suspicious.
So I’d ad “Dirty engine bay” to the list.
Maybe it was flooded before.
Stolen machinery is common.in taiwan as well. The gov will match VIN with engine ID as a matter of course.
To note on the truck. You need it for ~work~, not you need to have a business.
Example. If you dont open a business you are allowed 1 truck per person. It still must be work related. If you are an engliah teacher but own a plot of land (or if you are a foreigner, your immediate family, based on HR) owns land you canclaim you work the land and require a truck. This is ok.
As far a i know, its not nationality based. Its more pollution based as the same rules apply to locals. Or, more accurately, local laws are the same for foreigners.
If you have legitimate use for atruck to make money, you can have one. Be it farming, logistics or whatever. Farming is the easiest as you dont need to argue with them about a van not working. But must have land in the family.
Wood working or other such things work fine as well.
Not likely recently, given there havn’t been any floods, AFAIK.
I think it may have been tarted up for sale. This would be expected, but doesn’t go with the “hasn’t been started for a few months” explanation of why it initially sounded like a tin can full of shrapnel.
Anyway, it was probably still a reasonable buy, given that these things are hard to find, but too late now.
GF had a fantasy bizniz plan which took all her savings and some of mine, and AFAIK she still has the moribund company, so it might have been an opportunity to extract some benefit from it.
There is a staffer here who has a commercially registered Freeca estate/SUV (not the pickup truck version) which was done simply to get the lower tax bracket, and I THINK she registered it under some kind of trading cooperative work-around ruse. It isn’t used commercially.
It would make some sense (not that making sense is much of a requirement in Taiwan) if it were nationality based, since it would tend to exclude foreigners from some classes of commercial activity. I think I’ve heard food trucks mentioned in this context.
It does not seem to make any sense as “more pollution based” (not that being less pollution based is much of a requirement in Taiwan, where pollution is an integral part of the religion). You can, for example, register the crew-cab version of the bloated gas-guzzling US-style pickup trucks as private vehicles, but not the little Varica sub-litre forward control blue trucks, and the common bonneted pickup trucks (Zace and Freeca) as well as the rare Sunny pickup I looked at, have private car equivalents which are heavier.
This appears to be mindless Taiwan-style “You can’t do that because nobody does it” compartmentalised thinking, and a regulation for its own sake.
But as the great Redwaggon (who was seldom wrong) once said. “If it made sense, they wouldn’t do it that way”
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Well, I’ll be buying an older truck (2004 Toyota Zace Surf pickup)in the next week or two. Will attempt to put it in my name. Hopefully won’t be a problem. We have land, in my wife’s name, and that will be the main purpose for it. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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It’ll probably go vroom, vroom, only in Taiwanese.
To be picky, I don’t THINK they make a Surf pickup. That term is, I believe, restricted to higher trim SUV version.
Zace pickup then. Vroom vroomy vroom vroom!
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I basically agree with you more or less . Just stating .out the rules. Clearly all muscle cars should be limited as well to 1 per person if the truck thing is in fact due to pollution (the pollution thing was my opinion on why the rule exists, though i am not sure). Frankly they could be banned outright if pollution is the concern. Ford trucks should have the same rule. Or any of the western styled pickups. Gmc, toyota, volkswagen etc. Those style trucks are so completely useless it boggles the mind. If taiwan had a huge towing~shit culture, maybe. But it doesnt and even bike racks need permission here. So those dumb trucks have little use here. Just ego. Apologies to the few folks actually towing things.
However it is worth stepping back and being a bit lenient as far as it takes time for the government to take action. Which is, by proxy, the people allowing the government to take action.
Scooters are a similar issue. The government is slowly transitioning away from the old style. Imagine if they said everything in xyz is banned this time next year. Taiwan is free and has options. More like the west than say China in this regard. Taiwan could act faster and more logically, i 100% agree. There are numerous cars that are polluters. Frankly ,volkswagen should be out of business. Globally. But they arent. That said the shitty little mitsubishi trucks. Suzuki, hyundai, ford (OEM), toyota and the like arent great for the envronment. But when.used for actual logistical purposes they are clearly WAY ahead of other designs. So i supportthe only for work and 1 per person wihout a company type regulations. In fact, i support stricter reulations. But taiwan actually tiny and there are realities. Mitsubishi motors wont change entire assembly lines to fit a 22 million population. Its not right, but its not wrong either. its hard for taiwan sometimes due to lack of market force.
Back home 30 years ago we laughed at people buying SUVs that dont trek jungle. We sarcastically called them “grocery getters”. I think its good to get rid of that shit. No one needs a ford ranger to drive around the city. One can buy an LV bag if they so wish to falsely advertise their penis length and/or girth.
Basically, if you need to truck, you are allowed 1 per person. Need meaning work. If you want to go 4x4ing, buy a jeep/suv instead. If you want to look cool, buy an equally sellfish air contaminating car (mustang perhaps?). Trucks are not off limits, just need to explain why you need it.
+respect to the first non asian looking foreigner to say they need it for a stripper pole to display half naked women in public in the name of their church. Temples already do it with fords. But i hvave yet to see if christian churches take on such woke prerogatives of feminism 
Keep on truckin (only when logistically necessary)!
How about full electric trucks? Ford’s is selling like hotcakes.
Issue is those designs are very muh useless. Like VERY useless. The are essentially cars for egos with more trunk space. Of we could have fods engine and chassi strength with the japanese beds it would be a game changer for industry.
I am pro electric. Once charge times speed up i am willing to rewire my houses panel to allow for such draws and go electric. But in reality one would need 2 as i t is now. While one is charging the other can work. Not financially for many.
Currently the mitsubishi delicas can haul over the ton and the bed is actually very functional. 550nt new. Fords dont come close. On eficciency, price or usefulness. Again, unless you tow stuff. I like fords and western pickups for HP and torque. Literally nothing else.
Edit. Note the backs.
Useless ford albiet sexy.
And a functional truck bed that will make you money
Lots of Ford’s where I live. Most are used to carry tools and small equipment, and with the extended cab four people can travel job to job. They don’t need a large bed. If you need a large bed, just get a wagon and pull it with a tractor. Much more useful than any truck bed will ever be. I think you are viewing this too narrowly.