Importing European tires to America?

[BabyDiesel]

I've been seriously considering 145/80r14 Bridgestone B381s over the 165/65r14 RE92 Potenzas for my next set of tires. Unfortunately, the B381s are only available in Europe for the Audi A2.

What legal implications would I run into since I want to ship over and run a set of the B381s? The first thing I am aware of is that they are not DOT-approved (or highly unlikely). But beyond that, I have found no information regarding this.

Aaannddd, shoot!

[California98Civic]

This discussion seems useful: Best site for buying tires in Europe

Maybe try some of the sites they recommend and see if they will ship to USA? Report back what you learn?

[BabyDiesel]

Thanks California! I looked on several German and Netherlands tire sites for the tires. They were surprisingly hard to find, out of stock in several places. The two places I did find were Ebay UK and this recommended German site. The prices from Ebay UK were 47.04 Euros a tire, not bad. But this does not include shipping. It said this about U.S. postage - "May not post to United States - Read item description or contact seller for postage options."

The German site had them listed as out of stock, but I checked shipping anyhow. It was 81 Euros + 85 Euros shipping to South Africa! I would imagine the same shipping prices would be to America. Bummer. That's over $600 for the tires when I can get the RE92's for ~$350, shipped and mounted.

[spacemanspif]

Any hope of getting them out of Canada or Mexico? Or shipping from Europe through those countries?

[BabyDiesel]

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

Any hope of getting them out of Canada or Mexico? Or shipping from Europe through those countries?

As far as I know, Europe is the only country that has them because they have the only vehicle that runs them - The Audi A2. I will look into this... There has got to be a way to ship them here without doubling the price!