spuddyo

I imported my 2nd car to Australia in July 2010, the costs were :-

Containerised shipping UK 1950 pounds
Insurance UK 60 pounds
Steam Cleaning cost on arrival in Australia AU$ 500
Customs clearance admin costs AU$ 350
Import Duty 10% of the cars value ( based on UK price converted to dollars )
GST 10% on top of car value PLUS duty ( double dipping ! )
Engineers fees for Australian Compliance AU$500

Then on top of that you need to pay Registration fees ( road tax ) which will include stamp duty for a first time registered car.

The BBs

Dear Robbie37Michelle,

Before you consider bringing you beautiful pride and joy into Australia (Brisbane in Particular) please send me a PM and let me give you my STORY so far with my BMW import from the UK!

In particular please allow me to steer you well clear of an outfit which I will not name here for reasons which might still affect my case, as after 4 months since it was shipped out I am still without my car and I don' expect to have it in my possession for at least another 3 weeks at best!!! But I am very happy to relay my story to you in the strictest of confidentially!

Very best regards,

The BBs

richiejones24

I imported my car car 4 months ago to Aus, i was dreading paying the import taxes as I have a Rang Rover Sport, I was estimating £9000 in duties and taxes, but i found a way of lowering them!!

thaw it may not be strictly legal!! Found a company on Google that does mileage corrections ie. clocking your car! phone and asked if they could increase the mileage on my vehicle (he was quite surprised as i was the first person ever to ask him to increase the mileage!) well anyway he changed it from 36,000 to 196,000, I went ahead and shipped it over, on arrival I i had the RAC do an independent valuation, let me tell you was considerably lower i only ended up paying £3000 in duties!

This may not be a ideal solution for everyone especially if you are planning on selling your vehicle at sometime in the future. But for me its ideal i know how many miles the car has really done and i am not planning on selling it.

Alfresco

Have you clocked it back again?

richiejones24

No i've left it no reason for me to change it as i'm never planning to sell the vehicle, i know what the mileage is really, and when I registered the car they took down the current mileage so i'm not sure that i can change it back without getting in trouble.

Alfresco

Fair enough.

nevster

I wasn't planning on importing a car prior to my move to Aus (Melbourne) but with the weakness of the pound it seems like rather than moving money from UK to Aus with the intention of it funding a car, it would be better just to use that money here in the UK where it's still worth something!

I'm planning on moving at the end of 2012 so I still have sometime to find a car I want then buy it and own it for 12 months prior to importing it into Aus.

I'm looking at getting an '09 or '08 BMW 1 Series 120d for around the £15k mark. The other option is to get a slightly older 320d touring. The intention is to keep this car rather than to sell it once I get to Aus.

Has anyone shipped a 1 Series (or any BMW) over and can share the experience with regards to extra servicing/parts costs or any other hassles you've had?

Alfresco

No, I haven't imported a Bee Em, but and I think your motive is sound. Buy something decent there in pounds and ship it over, as long as it works out financially.

Kenzi

Hey folks, I recently moved to Perth a couple of weeks ago and looking to have my car shipped over to me here.

Make - BMW
Model - 335i
Model Type -
Body Type - Coupe
Engine Size - 3.5L
Transmission - Manual
Year of Manufacture - 2008
Mileage - 58,000 miles
Condition - Excellent (I spent AGES cleaning it before I left. Inside and out plus the car is generally newish anyway. Its sitting with a cover over it and will be cleaned again before leaving)
What you believe the car is worth in the UK ? £18,000

Anyone know rough costs of shipping/tax's etc etc..? Ive owned it since last xmas and couldnt bare to sell it as its my pride and joy!!

Also, can anyone recommend any decent shipping agencies who I could contact. I've read so many different stories of the process's too so if someone can explain a step by step guide I would love them forever!!!

Thanks

Kenzi

paulry

Sorry to put a damper on your plans but you have to have owned and actively used the vehicle for 12 months before you can be issued with an import permit.

See page 17
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roa..._july_2011.pdf

Kenzi

This is what I thought.. But was told by some authorities that this is not the case?

paulry

Hmmm... I wonder if they're not confusing it with importing a vehicle to the ACT? Sounds like it could be.

That was something that irritated me a lot. I had to pay import duties to bring my motorbike into Australia and then again to import and register it in the ACT.

paulry

Believe it or not there's a points test as well for importing a vehicle. Take a look on that infrastructure link. All of the info you need will be there.

In Exile

top gear was on last night and it just shocked me as to the value of second hand cars in Australia.

Their mission was to find a second hand car for the same price as a new nissan which was 6995 quid. Jeremy found the Mercedes CL600 for 6995 with about 80,000 on the clock. In Australia, its a different story.

Observe: a quick 2 minutes search. there may be differences in milage (etc), I havent gone out of my way to find exact matches, just the same basic cars:

UK From Auto Trader

Total: GBP 8,750.00

Australia (bear in mind that according to the actual description this has also just been reduced by $20,000) From carsales.com.au

Total: AUD 69,000

OK, just found a cheaper one for the bargain price of $55,000

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

paulry

I think with hindsight in mind I would have bought my dream car for wifey () and a dream motorbike for myself at around the same time or a few months before I applied for Aus PR. Ah well