Matriculation to France...

hi
I bought a suzuki jimny 02 back in the UK in Jan . which I have started the joyful process of trying to register here... I wrote to Suzuki and paid my fee to get a certificate of conformity. They sent me an email today saying Japan has no record of my vehicle as it was made at a factory in Spain that was closed down and records were destroyed.... Therefore there is no record of this vehicle being manufactured??? This seems very odd to me and I wondered if anyone else has experienced this or can think of what I could do ??? I am dealing with the French system who are very very official on their paperwork (sigh...) my car is 2005. any ideas or thoughts greatly appreciated !

I,ve no idea there, but suzuki uk should be able to provide a certificate as the vehicle is already homologated for EU use so is acceptable in each country.. Its meant to be easy re registering a vehicle in another eu country !

The French are ridiculous when it comes to regulation.
A few years ago I bought a LHD SJ which originally came from Germany. I got it for my brother who lives in France.
Could he get it registered? Not a chance. Despite it being UK registered and most stickers/tags being in German as far as they were concerned it didn't exist.
It was scrapped in the end.

wow, the french are being a pain in the butt.. wouldnt it be easier to sell the jimny here, then buy a french one, at least the wheel would then be on the correct side!
I had a lhd golf from germany, filled out the forms, mot, a few parts (lighting)changed and that was it!

I have had no problems registering a Spanish registered Samurai and a UK registerd Jimny in France.The j
Jimny is there and registered. In each case I phoned Suzuki France and bought a certificate of Conformity from them. It has to be in French otherwise they won't accept it. Then insure the car in France on its original country registration plates, take it for a Contrôle Trchnique on its origianal plates. With all of this, and the original registration docs go to the Bureau des Impôts where they will check and see if any import tax is due, which it won't be on a previously registerd and used EU vehicle. The take all the docs in several copies to the Sous Prefecture office for your area and they will issue you a temporary Carte Grise, registration doc. With this you can get the new plates made and change the insurance etc to the new registration. On both occasions I did all of this in a morning.
Good luck!