Has anyone sent their car?

[Guest darlo 2 adelaide]

:err:Hi there! I was recently looking tat the cost of 2nd hand cars, and realised they're dead expensive, compared to the price I'm proably going to get for my car over here! I'm probably going to get no more than £2000, for my 04 astra, and wondered whether anyone had any thoughts on importing my car? costs, companies, experience etc? Any thoughts greatly received. PS, I'm ariving in February. is that enough time to sort this out or not?

 

#Cheers

 

Sarah:err:

[duncan-clan]

my advise is dont bother about bringing your car it will cost more then cars worth to get it here plus you will have to clean it so well just for customs then theres all the road costs more money...now second hand cars here are exspensive (or they hold there money) some of the cars for sale are right donkeys and they want $2500 very wierd my advise is rent a cheap car for a while

 

all the best for the big move down under

 

alex

[Guest Alipally]

HI,

 

The gas man, (came to connect me!) brought his BMW over.... said it was the worst thing he ever did... ended up costing him more that it would have done to have rebought the same model on arrival!

 

Yep, second hand cars are expensive, but new ones are cheaper,esp with all of the incentives that are on at the moment with the economy looking like it does..... We got a brand new Subaru Imprezza for just over 11,000 GBP.... the same model was 18,400 in the UK.....

 

Cars last longer over here too, people say things like.... My car is ONLY 6 years OLD, I don't need to renew it yet... (taking into consideration that this is the sort of person that would be renewing their car every 3 years in the UK!)

[Guest TC for short]

Personally I wish I'd brought mine. It was an 02 Volvo V70 D5 & i got only £7k last Dec when I sold it. Similar here are in the $20k's.

It depends to an extent on the car - make & model & trim too. European cars are much more expensive here, but an Astra being GM (which is represented by Holden here) may not be worth it. However, if you've had it from new/ish you'll know its history & how well it runs, which is worth a lot in terms of peace-of-mind. Shipping would be expensive, but if you've got someone paying for your move then look into it. A chap I know brought a Jag & a Toyota - neither new - & said it was the best thing he'd done, with no hassle at all. The shippers did all the work & for a while he had the novelty of driving here on British plates!

Beware though - being European specification the cooling system (radiator et al) and air-con may struggle. I only say "may", though - not "will".

 

TC

[Guest michelleandrichard]

We sold our Zafira which was an 03 and spent the exact money we got on it for a car much older and not as nice. However we did look into shipping and it was at least £1500 just to ship then it would have to be steam cleaned etc before sent and possibly steam cleaned this end + you would have to pay import costs etc and for us we would still have had to bought a car to get by with until our container arrived. Just wasn't worth it. I suppose if you had a really expensive car then it would probably be worth doing.

[Guest mancs in oz]

i have imported my car it costs 2 grand and it has not arrived yet 4 months later, have paid upto now, 300 dollars to receivers over here and i have got to pay registration yet too , all told you may be lookig at 2,500 pounds to import it altogether. we had to buy a car over here to get us by for the 4 months we have been here. firstly you have to apply for australian vehicle approval from the australian government which takes about 6 weeks so do it now if you think its worth bringing over my advice would be sell in uk it costs more than you will lose. MIKE DARBYSHIRE

[Guest mancs in oz]

dont bring your car have just been hit with a bill for 17,000 dollars yeap 17,000 import tax and duty on a toyota avensis two years old eeds child safety restraints fitted and air con requires evacuating and regasing at my expense so all told will have cost about 11,000 pounds so leave at home and take what you can get for it its a tax nightmare

[Guest David Brown]

My story is about importing my car from UK to NZ-note this is NOT about importing to OZ, but it confirms that its not worth the hassle (price isn't the only factor). I thought it was smart idea as we had a new European car, a diesel. First, the paperwork, and we only just made some rule by two days, about you had to have owned it a year (in case you were a dealer I suppose). THen, when in NZ, having to fly to some port to pick it up, then being told that in order to get a license, I needed a rear tail-light, fat chance as it arrived on a Friday afternoon, but managed to get a tail light on Saturday morning, but then couldn't get it licensed (in those days evrything was shut on a Saturday in NZ), so managed to persuade someone to let me drive it back to my home town four hours away on its UK plates. Stopped my police twice on way, tried to explain the situation but they loved the novelty of a UK reg driving around the hills of NZ!. Monday morning, I go to get it licensed- we can't do that they say, as it has UK plates, and our computer doesn't have enough digit spaces for those- can't give you a road user licence (for diesels) until you have NZ plates- catch 22. Deadlock was finally broken in true NZ fashion when the Dept of Transport guy who designed the computer programme walked down the road from his office and showed the post office girl how to enter UK plates into the system- it could be done, if you knew how.

 

Oh and when I arrived, I found lots of perfectly good imported Jap cars, so needn't have bothered anyway, and after four months, had to sell the car. Still, I see it from time to time 12 years later round here, and tell the story to its current owners of how much hassle went in to getting it over here. Am I bringing my car to Adelaide? No way, not even from NZ.

[sueoc]

Defo would not bring a car here,unless it was a very,very special machine,just not worth the aggro.Youll have plenty to worry about without that as well. ATB Billy.

[Guest kenmcfadyen]

Hi there,

 

We looked into bringing our Audi A4 convertible, but the tax was 20% of the ORIGINAL value of the car, not the value now. On top of that was the shipping costs, cleaning costs and customs charges. In the end it just didn't seem worth the hassle and the cost was prohibitive.

 

Ken