Getting Legal: Converting a Jeep Wrangler to European Spec
By InTents Adventures
Mandatory Disclaimer: This blog is written for informational purposes but does not reflect legal advice for modifying your vehicle. Restrictions and requirements constantly change, and it is your responsibility to research and understand those requirements before making any modifications to your vehicle.
Bringing a US-made vehicle to Europe can be an awesome way to explore and travel, but if you plan to register your vehicle in a foreign country, you need to be prepared to make modifications in order to make the vehicle comply with safety laws in that country.
Today we’re documenting what it took to modify our 2019 Jeep JL Wrangler to European spec — specifically to pass the Ministry of Transportation (MOT) inspection process in the United Kingdom. I couldn’t possibly hope to capture every modification needed for every vehicle, so this is really aimed at those of you with Jeep JL Wranglers that are US spec.
Do You Need to Modify Your Vehicle?
Probably yes…as a general rule of thumb, if you are registering your car in Europe or the UK, you will need to modify it to meet their standards. There are some exceptions for antique vehicles of a certain age. Similarly, if you have imported your vehicle for only a short duration for travel, you may not have to follow all these rules. Do your own research. And don’t forget to get the appropriate car insurance!
What is MOT?
The MOT inspection in the United Kingdom is designed to test that your vehicle adheres to the safety and performance standards needed to operate on roadways in the country. An inspector will test a variety of factors – ranging from sufficient tire tread to cracks in the windshield. Those checks are not dramatically different from what many annual state safety inspections require. Where it is challenging is for those of us who imported a vehicle, because we need to ensure that our vehicle is compliant with all of their safety rules — even those we don’t have back in the USA.
The requirements to pass an MOT are documented online, so you can read them at your leisure. Check them out here.
Common Modifications & Options
Generally speaking, most US cars will only require modifications to lighting systems to be compliant and pass an MOT test — assuming your car is otherwise safe to drive (tire tread limits, etc). There are many garages and auto shops that specialize in making your vehicle UK spec, and if the convenience of this is worthwhile, you can explore that option.
Just realize those shops are doing what they have to do to make you legal — and it might involve chopping up some factory wiring or other cosmetically unappealing mods. I have heard stories of shops cutting wire after wire in an attempt to hack the lights into compliance…up to you if that’s what you want done.
If the option to get legal without hacking at factory wiring appeals to you, then read on!
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Good News First
Even though UK spec cars are right hand drive (meaning the steering wheel is located on the right side of the vehicle, compared to the left side found on US cars), you do not need to change the position of the steering wheel to convert a vehicle from US to Euro spec. In fact, depending on your setup, you can make all the modifications needed for only a few hundred dollars.
The other bit of good news is that Jeeps are relatively easy to work on, so you can make a lot of the modifications needed yourself if you are the least bit handy. Everything documented below was done with basic hand tools in a parking area behind our house — no fancy tools, lifts, or garages here. You can avoid the risk of a chop job on your wiring if you elect to do it all yourself.
…And Now the Bad News
As of 2022, a US-spec Jeep Wrangler JL is most likely to need 3-4 modifications done to lighting systems in order to be legal and to pass the MOT inspection. The common “pitfalls” and areas where we are most likely to need modification are as follows:
*Depending on your Jeep build
The other bad news? One particular modification is likely to cause some agony and swearing… those amber turn signals. This is because Jeep did not run the same wiring on US and Euro spec vehicles; meaning you cannot just order the Mopar Euro parts and hot swap them… you will need to run some new wiring for that modification.
Ready to dive in? Let’s look at each light modification individually…. starting with the easiest ones to modify.
Front Fog Lights
Depending on how much you’ve modified your vehicle from stock, this may or may not be an issue. The UK requires WHITE front fog lights on all vehicles; most Jeeps will come with this standard from the factory. If you still have the factory fog lights, or even aftermarket fog lights, so long as they are white in color, you’re already set to go.
In our case, we’d swapped out the factory front bumper for the ARB Bondi stubby bumper, which has no fog light mounting points. As such, we also didn’t have the factory wiring harness anymore.
To resolve this, we added a set of SAE- compliant Baja S2 Squadron fog lights to the front bumper, immediately below the bull bar. I purchased a new Mopar fog light wiring harness and spliced the Baja Squadron connectors to it, allowing the fog lights to plug directly into the factory fog light wiring. This was the cleanest way to do the installation and was nearly plug-and-play easy.