stephen rudd

I am emigrating to Australia soon and am trying to find as much information as possible on bringing my car with me , I have heard that cars are expensive to buy in Australia. I would like to know if anyone knows the import charges or duty/tax charges imposed on cars either new or second hand and if there are rules or restrictions on doing this.

Stephen Rudd

Hutch

Not sure where you got that idea, from my experience cars are cheaper over there. Just have a mooch around www.drive.com.au and www.redbook.com.au

Alex Hall

Probably best to do a search on the forum for car import as it has come up quite a lot of times.

In general a lot of the common car makes are cheaper in Oz than the UK, e.g. Ford Fiesta Zetec is approx £7k in Oz, £10.5k in UK . However premium brand cars, e.g. Volvo, Audi, Merc, BMW etc seem to be quite a bit more expensive in comparison to the cheaper brands.

Cars do not seem to depreciate to the degree they do in the UK, i.,e. 2nd hand cars are considerably more expensive in Oz than the UK in general.

Unless you have a car of great sentimental value, or some old classic/vintage car it is generally considered to not be worth importing due to the high costs.



alex

samnrob2

As above - there was a thread quite recently with a link through to customs and import website. As a guide though, I looked into taking the wife's Golf. Lucky to get £8,000 for it now, although it would cost us £6,000 just to take it over. Then there's the expense of running and maintaining an imported car. Just not worth it.

And yes, cars don't have to be that expensive in Oz - you can pick up a brand new focus for under £8,000 (if that floats your boat!)

Rob