Ship car to oz or not?

[Guest VincentEngland]

The exchange rate for the £ against the Australian dollar has worsened drastically since my wife and I first looked into emigrating to Australia, around November 2008, which we are still going to do. Would anyone who has shipped a car to Australia please let me know if it was cost-effective and worth the effort? What is the road-worthiness test like compared to a UK MOT test for personally-imported cars? I believe a car has to have been owned for a minimum of 12 months to be eligible for personal import to Australia. Used cars seem very expensive in Oz compared to the UK.

 

I also heard recently that house prices in Australia have risen 20% over the last 12 months whilst they have only risen apparently by 10% in the UK over the same period. Is this true of Adelaide which is where we are aiming for? We have our visas etc and have to be in Australia by September 3rd.

[Guest Trakki]

If you can and the car is decent I would bring it, we wish we had, we had a 5 year old zafira and sold it at a loss but now we have a 15 year old car and wish we had bought ours, our car now is fab and in much better condition than a 15 year old car in the UK, it has no rust and is a good car but did cost alot. can't help with any of the technical details but were we to do it again we would bring ourzafira.

 

HTH

[Guest jasons]

Theres a few threads on Pistonheads about importing.

 

 

J

[Guest familygood]

I would have thought anyone mad to bring a car out here before we looked at the cars and the prices when we got here!! Our runaround car '97 Peugot 305 which we got £300 for when we left would cos literally $000's of dollars here. Its ridiculous!!! We ended up paying $6k for a car that was 2 years newer... I would seriously consider it if you can!

[Guest Stacey]

Yeah I agree, cars here I find are really expensive. We sold our cars in the UK for peanuts and I so wish we had shipped them over as our current cars were a lot more expensive and not as nice.

 

Would definitely consider that option if I had my time again.

 

Stacey

x

[ian mc]

I think you have got to way up a few things is your car newish and in good condition, how much is it going to cost to ship,and put through tests is it a car that is sold here for future parts if it breaks down.Cars last here its not uncomon to see 30 year old cars being used as daily drivers. It also depends what your after small car or large car you can buy a new corsa base model for $14,000 on the road or a large car for about $35,000

[Diane]

A friend of mine brought her car over - so is pretty expert on all the ins and outs - I'm sure if you drop her an email at Mandy@H2H.com.au she'd be happy to share her experiences.

Diane

[Guest guest3462]

Hi there, we looked into bringing ours out, we had a 2006 BMW1 series sport and it was going to cost us £5000 +import tax (aussie raodworthiness test and rego inc) and we thought at the time it was too expensive. Now we dearly wish we had brought it with us, they cost an arm and a leg to buy here and used cars tend to hold their value exceptionally well. (It cost us $19,000 for a 2002 mitsubishi magna 3.8v6 and a 2004 1.8 ford focus both in very good condition) This incidentally was in Jan 2009 so I guess prices may have risen??

However, you can put it in your shipping and utilise the space by filling the car with loads of your stuff, it costs extra at customs cos they have to empty it it to inspect, but worth it in the longrun as you save in your container. I'd filll it full ofof bedding, blankets, curtains from next and m&s and kids clothes/shoes!!!!

There are loads of companies that offer the service, just google it.

Good luc with your decision I hope this helps

JC x

[Guest PhilC]

I imported a bike across last year, plenty of paperwork but probably saved me a couple of thousand dollars:

 

http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/news-gossip/14175-i-imported-vehicle-heres-how.html

 

The process would be roughly the same for a car, but obviously would have a higher shipping cost.

 

There was an article in The Australian the other day about house prices, I seem to recall they said house prices in Adelaide had gone up 16% in the last year. Here's the online version:

 

House price growth set for a slowdown | The Australian

 

Phil

[Guest WhatNow?]

Hi - I just posted at http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/welcome/16691-importing-your-vehicle.html about this - if you want to PM me I'll send you the details.

 

Mandy

[Guest Careful Carpy]

We're coming over in September and had more or less decided to sell our 5 year old Mazda 6 but after reading this thread, I am having second thoughts. Apart from the cost, are there any downsides to bringing a car over from the UK?