EMISSION STICKERS FOR ENTRY INTO CITIES IN GERMANY

A while back Alma alerted us to the fact that many cities in Germany were introducing controls on the emission standards of vehicles entering those cities. This has a similar intent to the London Emission Zone but is implemented differently. There are now 30 - 40 cities that require vehicles to display an emission sticker, and there is a €40 per day fine for not doing so irrespective of the emission standard of the vehicle. Alma indicated that to obtain the sticker you had to visit an approved garage in Germany and they would be able to issue the appropriate sticker. I tried this recently, and it was all too difficult to obtain the emission information for a foreign vehicle, albeit it is of Italian manufacture.

I then contacted the German Tourist Office in London, which was very keen that obtaining this sticker should be as simple as possible so that we could all go to Germany for our holidays! They pointed me at a web site, and believe it or not, it is reasonably straightforward.

The site is www.tuev-nord.de

TŰV is a standards organization, and amongst other things, runs the equivalent of the MOT system. This website, (in its English version), explains about the emission stickers and how to get them. Basically, you have to fill in a short form giving permission to put you on their data base, and send it, with a copy of your V5C to them. I did this by scanning in both documents and sending them by email. They also give the fax and postal addresses. I have now got stickers for both my car and van, and in each case I received them within 3 days.

There is always a complication in the tail though! There is a charge of €12.50 which cannot be paid by card. They give their bank details and expect that you will either do a bank transfer or pay in at a German bank. The trouble is that NatWest wanted £10 to transfer €12.50. Fortunately, our daughter lives in Germany so she was able to do the transfer for us. If you do not have contacts with a Euro account, or are not going to Germany soon after obtaining the sticker, I would put 3 €5 notes in an envelope and post it to them. It has got to be better that rebuilding the Banks’ profits.

A final point. The emission data for cars is printed on the V5C, and I obtained my car sticker by just sending the copy of the V5C. In the UK, Light Commercial Vehicles and Private HGVs do not have this data on the V5C. There are various Euro Emission standards for vehicles which have been introduced progressively over time. For instance, my 2.8JTD Fiat engine registered in 2005 complies to Euro 3 standards; all the new Fiats (X2/50) will comply to Euro 4. I do not know if the German system enables them to establish the emission standard from the VIN or engine number on the V5C. To forestall this problem I obtained a letter from Fiat UK Type Approvals expert confirming that my engine complied to Euro 3, and I received the sticker without query. If you need a sticker you might try just sending the V5C, but if you need further proof, then you can contact Fiat UK on the following number:

01753 511431 and ask for Tim Speechley the Homologation Executive

Hope this helps.    John Welham