General-Confusion
Junior Member
Hi my name is Steve , I am an English guy and live in Sw France for the last 8 years. I run my own business where I rent out and operate a 58 foot tracked cherry picker doing all sorts of work at height . The trailer and the machine weigh a total of 6200 lbs on a trailer with a gross weight of 7700 lbs (the maximum allowable in europe without using an actual truck)
I currently tow (don't laugh) with an Audi Q7 4.2 tdi , this car has been brilliant, 340 bhp and 590 lb ft of torque the max gross weight of the car and trailer can be up to 14,400 lbs and I run at 12,350. Sadly the Audi is now 14 years old and starting to go wrong so I want to change to a less complicated vehicle (No dpf , no air suspension , no adaptive headlights , all of which have/ are going wrong with the Audi.)
Now come the hard part....registering American trucks in France is a difficult, time consuming and expensive thing to do , read 6-8 months and easily 10,000 dollars by the time import taxes , registration test costs and the actual reg document tax are included. That said the French (and I ) love these trucks and they continue to be imported and sold . BUT the 1500's are common the 2500's are like unicorns and the 3500 unregisterable (maybe as an actual truck but not a regular vehicle)
I would really like a 3rd Gen 2500 but there are none correctly registered in France for sale at the moment, there was one an 03 Hemi 2500 quad cab but the guy took down the advert and won't tell me if he sold it.
Sorry for the waffle , but my question is should I wait for another 2500 or can an upgraded 1500 do the job , bearing in mind it will be towing everytime I drive it doing about 20,000 miles a year.
One last thing the european trailers are set up very differently regarding tongue weight
I currently tow (don't laugh) with an Audi Q7 4.2 tdi , this car has been brilliant, 340 bhp and 590 lb ft of torque the max gross weight of the car and trailer can be up to 14,400 lbs and I run at 12,350. Sadly the Audi is now 14 years old and starting to go wrong so I want to change to a less complicated vehicle (No dpf , no air suspension , no adaptive headlights , all of which have/ are going wrong with the Audi.)
Now come the hard part....registering American trucks in France is a difficult, time consuming and expensive thing to do , read 6-8 months and easily 10,000 dollars by the time import taxes , registration test costs and the actual reg document tax are included. That said the French (and I ) love these trucks and they continue to be imported and sold . BUT the 1500's are common the 2500's are like unicorns and the 3500 unregisterable (maybe as an actual truck but not a regular vehicle)
I would really like a 3rd Gen 2500 but there are none correctly registered in France for sale at the moment, there was one an 03 Hemi 2500 quad cab but the guy took down the advert and won't tell me if he sold it.
Sorry for the waffle , but my question is should I wait for another 2500 or can an upgraded 1500 do the job , bearing in mind it will be towing everytime I drive it doing about 20,000 miles a year.
One last thing the european trailers are set up very differently regarding tongue weight