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Hi Mike,

Unfortunately, Revenue and the VRT process are inexplicably cruel in this regard. You have to pay the money before you appeal, but the good news is that more than 50 per cent of appeals are successful. It would be helpful to find some expert in Japanese vehicles (and I would suggest tracking down a garage that imports them regularly) to give you their opinion on the value, as Revenue is legendarily awful at coming up with reasonable values for unusual cars.

As for the NOx charge, I would ask for a statement in writing from the VRT/NCT office that you brought the car for inspection before January, but were told to come back afterwards. That might (emphasis on the might) get that waived when you make your appeal.

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Hi Bryan,

It’s not going to be too bad, actually. A 2016 Verso will run you about €2,400 in terms of VRT and, unusually, it’s one of those older diesels that’s not too bad in terms of NOx, with an official figure of just 24mg/km, meaning an extra charge of €120 on top of that.

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Hi Don,

The differences are around €5,000 in terms of a new car price. The Sport, on top of the Luna, gets built-in navigation, contrast stitching on the dash, blue ambient background light, paddle shifts for the CVT gearbox, power operated driver's seat, heated front seats, 18-inch alloys, rear privacy glass, sportier exterior styling, contrast-colour roof and bi-beam LED headlights. 

Read our Toyota RAV4 reviews here

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Hi Philip,

Well, as ever, beauty (and general appreciation or enthusiasm) is in the eye of the beholder. In fact the Supra is very much a Toyota, even though it does share a lot of BMW parts. The whole car was engineered and developed separately by Toyota and it’s chief engineer, Tetsuya Tada. Basically, BMW and Toyota agreed at the start of the project on a common set of parts, and then went entirely their own ways in terms of design and development. It does feel very different to drive compared to the BMW Z4 — sharper (thanks to the stiffer body structure), but also a little softer and more pliant on the road. It’s actually rather lovely. As for reliability? When we first drove the car Tada told us that it had passed all of Toyota’s quality control and reliability checks, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. 

Read our Toyota Supra reviews here

Read our BMW Z4 reviews here

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Hi Hugh,

Sort of, yes. The thing is that there aren’t any five-seat commercial 4x4s anymore — the N1 certification loophole for that kind of car was closed off in 2018, so now five-seat SUVs pay a full rate of VRT. However, if you’re exempt from paying both VRT and VAT then one of those very cars (Toyota Land Cruiser, perhaps? Or maybe a VW Touareg?) would be an ideal car for you as you will be getting one at an effective 50 per cent discount compared to the rest of us. Well worth investigating.

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Hi Lillian,

No, it’ll be taxed as a commercial and the weight will be taken from its certificate of conformity document. If you want to tax it as a private car, then the weight doesn’t come into it — it switches back to the old by-engine-capacity system.

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Hi Ger,

It’s a tough car to value, the Amazon, not only because they’re so thin on the ground in Ireland, but also because they really, really, hold onto their value. I’d take a wild guess at a VRT charge of around €9,000 (based on a rough calculation of a €25,000 valuation), but Revenue could well take a different view. By the way, if you’re going to import one, do it before Jan 1st. The NOx emissions for a 4.2 diesel Amazon are 570mg/km, which means an extra VRT charge of €4,850...

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Hi Clare,

A Hilux has a 2.4-litre engine (well, the current one does, but remember that older versions had 3.0-litre units) so if you want to tax it as a private vehicle that’s going to be €1,034 per year for motor tax. I’m pretty sure you can’t register and tax a horse lorry for private use as it’s over the 3,500kg limit for private cars. The tax therefore would be the commercial rate of €333 per year. As for insurance, that’s probably more down to you and your own driving record than it is to the vehicle, but the good news is that there are specialist horse lorry insurers, such as Wexford Insurance, who would probably be able to give you a good quote. 

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Hi Val,

Yes, they use the same engine and gearbox. There may be some external differences and different wiring looms of course, but the mechanicals are the same.

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Hi Anne,

Is that a 100km round trip every day? Or 100km each way? Either way, you could potentially get away with a fully-electric car, assuming that you can charge at home and charge again at work. Either way, though, you’ll have to spend big and go for one of the latest electric cars with a  50kWh or 62kWh  battery, such as the Hyundai Kona Electric or the new Renault Zoe. What could well be an easier (and much cheaper) option would be to go for a hybrid. There’s only one hybrid-engined car in the Polo-size class at the moment, and that’s the Toyota Yaris. The current version is pretty good, but there is an  all-new one coming next year, so you might be best off waiting for that to appear. By then, the new Honda Jazz, also a hybrid, should be available. Or, you could keep it a lot simpler and go for a new Polo with the excellent 1.0-litre turbo petrol engine. It'll be tough to beat your diesel Polo for outright economy, though.