The Build Date Proof Pack

Every import rule that matters runs from the date a car was built. Almost no document a seller will hand you states one.

The free pages on this site tell you which document to order for your marque and what it will and will not say. The Build Date Proof Pack is the part that takes work: getting it ordered, from Nigeria or Ohio or Brisbane, in the language the archive expects, with the right numbers attached — and knowing what to do in the common case where the honest answer is that no document exists.

What is in it

• A ready-to-send request for every archive on this site. BMW wants a signed form, a gearbox number and photographs of the stamped numbers. Volkswagen wants a language choice and an owner declaration. L’Aventure wants dated photographs of the brakes. Each request is written out, in German, Italian, French or English as the archive requires, with the blanks marked.
• Where the numbers are. Which plate, which stamping, which aperture, marque by marque — and which ones the archive will reject if you copy them off the logbook instead of the car.
• What to ask the seller for before you pay. A short list that costs nothing to send and settles, before your deposit leaves, whether the car can be dated at all.
• The fallback ladder. Ford of Europe issues nothing. Six of the eight Japanese manufacturers have no route. The pack sets out what stands in for a certificate, in order, and how much weight each one carries.
• What each border actually accepts. NHTSA’s three-tier test quoted in full, what CBP expects with an HS-7, the EPA’s separate year-arithmetic test, Canada’s undocumented gap for cars with no compliance label, and Australia’s December default.

What is not in it

We do not order documents on your behalf, we do not hold your money for an archive, and we do not promise any archive will find your car. Several won’t. Where a programme’s price or contents could not be confirmed against the issuer’s own page, the pack says so in those words rather than printing a number that might cost you six weeks.

Price

$19. It is sold separately from the import eligibility report because they answer different questions: the report tells you when your car becomes legal, and assumes you know its build date. This tells you how to find that date out and prove it.

Not on sale yet. The free build date directory is the whole reference and will stay free.