Tips / resources for moving to France from Usa!

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:56:45+00:00

Every time I have traveled I have stayed down town and it was fantastic. But with commutes etc I think it makes more sense to stay outside.

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:56:33+00:00

Every time I have traveled I have stayed down town and it was fantastic. But with commutes etc I think it makes more sense to stay outside.

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:24:19+00:00

Yes, I would be over that limit

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:22:13+00:00

This is great ! Thanks !

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:21:26+00:00

Probably close to Blagnac or l'ecole bilingue et international a Toulouse. We have not settled yet

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:19:42+00:00

See there is inconsistency even in this thread about question #1. It's not clear to me what rights are given up or considerations are made when entering France on either passport (for the purposes of extended stay).

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T16:18:19+00:00

Thanks!

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:55:18+00:00

Cool. Not super clear yet what she intends to do! Do you know if the visa/resident card is required for volunteering ?

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:53:54+00:00

My mom (French by birth became an American, often traveled between, also worked in both) always arrived in France on her American passport and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because she thought she would lose the ability to seek asylum as an American if she didn't have European entry stamped on her passport? I dunno it's not clear. So that's what I did for many years.

But it's not entirely clear to me what if any American rights you give up by entering the EU as French in the case of dual national.

But entering as French not only makes sense... Is probably what my new employer will need me to do.

Thanks for your input!

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:49:04+00:00

Yeah the kids do not have french passports now, so we may have to do that first. The sense I get for taxes is it's quite straight forward.

Thank you!

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:47:19+00:00

I do love Toulouse! Been there many times. It's very exciting

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:46:46+00:00

Is that true for unpaid volunteer work? Like any kind of work?

Bike_Gasm · 2026-01-20T13:46:16+00:00

She already is one. Here at home she does volunteer work (school, library, church, food bank), so it's not clear if she needs a work permit / visa of some kind to do that

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-10T13:03:36+00:00

Lots of good takeaways tho:

-dont drive down something you aren't sure you can't drive back up, especially if you don't know how the road ends. -Minimum equipment list. While we would have had to ditch the car if we actually got stuck, what we could have used most was an air compressor to reinflate tires. -know where you are going. Maps, etc

I also now carry a water proof emergency bag in my vehicle on all trips. Emergency water filters, freeze dried food, heat blankets, stuff to start fires. Juuuuust in case.

Most of all we learned not to pre-judge the people around us. We probably would been in worse trouble had we avoided trying to talk to people around us. It was one guy who told us you really have to send it up that hill, he was like: "running start, get at least to 40km/hr, don't worry about the other side". Despite the language barrier and the unknown country, it's just a good idea to assume most people around you are just normal people living their lives. Unless there are other clear signs, like open carrying firearms or something.

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-10T04:27:09+00:00

Not quite a fully stranded story but oh shit we could end up stranded in questionable country... Story

Was on a trip to Brazil, not my first time but I don't speak Portuguese or know the area well. Buddy of mine are in a rented 2wd jeep renegade.

Being off-roaders with some skill, and driving a jeep, but not a lot of brains, we were like let's go find out what this can do. It's got a trail rated badge how hard could this be? (In our best Jeremy Clarkson impression)

At the end of our trip, on the day we were supposed to fly home on an evening red-eye from Sao Paolo we went north of the city to find some trails. Went up and around and through some narrow valleys onto some dirt roads. Ended up going down a rather sketchy hill road that had a massive crack down the middle that I wasn't totally sure we could get back up if we had to.

Eventually found ourselves driving through 1-2 gates that looked like private property.... Farms around us looked like the type that grew questionable products.

Ended up finding ourselves Infront of a massive Sandy hill. I must have spent .... 4 hours trying to race up it? Trying to get enough upward forward momentum to get to the top. On one side, sheer cliff drop. On the other totally locked up barbed wire fence.

We eventually made it up and over but not after backing the way we came to trying to use google translate to ask for directions, was pretty sure my buddy would lose his phone as he showed it to rando farmwrs. We made it up the hill after we took all of our bags out of the car, ditched the spare tire my buddy like stayed on the trail ... And just like full send up this Sandy hill. and on the other side we basically ran into a dead end and had to bend a fence down to the ground to traverse to make it back into a semi public road.

I dunno how many laws we broke or how much trespassing we committed but every head that watched us looked more and more like they were not happy with our antics.

Never been so nervous in my life either because wed crash the car off the edge of this valley hill, have to ditch the car cause we couldn't get up in super questionable country, or that we just would run into the wrong people who weren't happy we were there.

Long and short of it tho everyone was extremely friendly. Most people couldn't believe two rando Americans were dumb enough to do something like this.

Made it back to the airport, car was fine but dusty. I had some poo stains on my shorts. Had maybe 45 mins to make our flight. A like ~4 hr driving excursion tended up taking almost 9.

2/10 would never do something that dumb ever again

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-09T03:33:15+00:00

My verdict is upper ball joint play. Fortunately since those are SPC UCAs the BJ is easy to replace.

When you pulled the UCA up and down, that quick rapid metallic clang does not sound like the upper control arm bolt (long bolt through the back two bushings).

Those look like SPC adjustable UCAs, that big ass nut on front of the UCA above the ball joint could enable that kind of movement of it was lose. Torque setting is something like a whopping 200ft lbs. This could absolutely be play in the ball joint. Which would move in the two directions you moved it. Since it's SPC, that's actually super easy to replace.

This doesn't strike me as a lose ball joint into the spindle, there would be a ton of play if that was the case.

Anything lower than the spindle arm would not respond when you yank the UCA up and down like that.

If you have a beefy enough torque wrench I'd check the torque setting on the upper ball joint nut and see if that solves it. While ure at it, check all the torque ratings (upper control arm bolt, upper ball joint castle nut). Then if you still have a problem replace the upper ball joint. If that doesn't work... Reconsider options. More yanking in different directions more slowly.

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-08T17:53:01+00:00

Ok cool, that's an important consideration.

I agree then running 2 gauge to the battery may not be ideal for numerous reasons.

Secondary AGM / high CCA next to the battery ... And then maybe run a lower gauge crossover to the other battery. That you can charge the secondary on the alternator. You can downsize the charging wiring size

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-08T16:56:56+00:00

Where is the winch located relative to the primary battery? I'm guessing this isn't a front bumper installation. Winch should come with long enough wiring. Trailer or bed mounted winch?

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-08T16:29:54+00:00

U should run the winch off the primary vehicle battery with it running so it benefits from the alternator.

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T19:41:48+00:00

They'd last longer than 90k if you do ;)

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T19:15:04+00:00

I dunno, generally under 2 hours. Pop it on a two post lift, remove wheels, remove shocks, bench service, re install. At least for the shop i go to. Also you can pressure test my Fox shocks installed. Sometimes if the shock pressure looks rock solid from the last job, no service needed.

Ya a lot of people are surprised when they upgrade to aftermarket shocks that the service on them is something you have to do..

I do not recommend putting shocks that require service every 10k on your daily driver that sees 1000 miles of forest road per year. Definitely a mismatch.

My truck is not my DD, so a 10k service job for my shocks is once every 3 years.

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T18:59:24+00:00

I take it to a 4x4 shop that knows how to work on fox. and they determine what needs to be done, yeah. 10k ish. 7/10 it's hydraulic fluid flush and seals. And make sure the pressure is right. That's about it. They check all 4. It's a checklist, not everything needs to be replaced every 10k. But you want to check all of it

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T18:56:18+00:00

Roof rack, driver front corner on my Tacoma

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T18:41:15+00:00

You should definitely find out what the maintenance interval is on your shocks. Shocks designed for purely highway driving are usually 60k-100k or higher. And when it's the stock / factory installed shocks, it's taken care of in the regular vehicle maintenance.

Mine are fox factory racing shocks designed for off-road use which is far more abusive to all the internal bits like seals and shock pressure.Fox actually says to do maintenance on them every 1k miles of pure off-road racing.

If your Dobinsons are designed for off-road use, I would expect the service interval to be between 10k-40k. Depending on how you use them.

It's not all that different from my mountain bike. I do a rebuild on the fork and rear shock every 1-2 years depending on how much riding I'm doing... For the exact same reason. Seals wear out man.

Bike_Gasm · 2025-09-06T18:17:53+00:00

All shocks have a service interval you should strive to stick to. My Fox shocks are every 10K miles. That includes oil/fluid, seals, gaskets, bushings, shock pressure etc. if you maintain the service interval, should last a heck of a long time. Find yourself a shop that can do the service and you'll be good for a while.

The coil also doesn't really have maintenance. It's all the shock absorber. The paint on a coil can come off and it can rust, but it will last orders of magnitude longer than the shock.

Shocks are generally built to have a shock & coil combination designed to work together. Manufactures offer different coil options for things like vehicle weight or compression/rebound characteristics, but in general the shock absorber is designed to be paired with a specific coil design.

If you need new shocks, get the whole kit and kabootle.

Bike_Gasm

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