Hi, has anyone shipped there car over to Australia? we have a MINI Cooper S at the moment and looking at the price to buy the same car over there is :scared: :scared: would we be better off paying to ship it over or do the costs involved work out more than what we would pay to buy over there

thanks for any info

Jon

Hi

Did you ever watch any of those programmes about moving to OZ?
IE 'New Life Down Under' - 'A Place In The Sun'?

One of the couples featured in these programmes actually did transport husbands car - by what was said it cost him a small fortune to do so!

You will have to weigh up the pros and cons - log onto a web page looking up price of same car in OZ that will help you make up your mind - also some cars need mechanical adjustments when they get there to satisfy Australians regulations.

Good luck!

[One of the couples featured in these programmes actually did transport husbands car - by what was said it cost him a small fortune to do so!

Bix

Wasn't the car an old X-type Jag? I think I'd pay a small fortune to ship my big cat over too.

By the way, we are thinking of taking our 2 year old mitsubushi Galant with us. Its going to cost roughly £2,500 including re-registering etc.

What you do have to watch for is they charge you GST and Stamp Duty on the value of the car when you bought it - not what its worth now. We paid £23,000, I can't get £10,000 for it now. So for us its worth taking. Check out www.customs.gov.au

Theres loads of info there

Jo

The GST cost calculation varies on a number of factors, so it may not be quite as bad as you think - but probably still prohibitive for a £10,000 car. What irritated me was that they charge you GST on the Duty!!!!

Slightly off topic, but a great way to make a tidy sum on moving to Australia is to ship over a Lotus Elise. You can get a second hand one for £10,000 in the UK (and own it for a year to avoid extra tax on arrival in Oz). They go for around $50,000 in Australia, so there is about $20,000 profit to be made on the right car! And they are tiny cars so the shipper's lowest rates will apply!

Sell it here and buy aussie spec car out there.

We looked into taking Mercedes out to Aus, worth a fortune there, but with shipping, tests and modifications to meet aussie spec, duty GST, luxury car tax, was going to cost £10k+. (Could be more depending on customs valuation on arrival)

Although technically worth it, if we ewre going to sell it in Aus, not sure whether anyone would pay top dollar for an import, as they (imports) are not worth as much here.
Some friends of ours took RS turbo out there cost with shipping £6500, and spares etc are a nightmare.

Jo
Yes, obviously it depends on the type of car you have! But most people I'm sure, have everyday price cars so would probably not be worth the transporting costs. For the lucky few who have top of the range or specialised vehicles cost wouldn't worry them anyway!

Man featured in programme was a typical example of this - yes could have been an x-type jag, his pride and joy! Ironinc thing is, in the follow up programme on tv last week, him and his wife have split up and he had the car transported back to the UK!
(bet his wished he didn't bother)

alright mate, we had a mini cooper s, looked at aussie prices and they were about the same as the uk. sell yours and buy an aussie one over here, you will lose out by shipping it and when you want to sell it in aus you will be stung because it is an import

if you look at a standard cooper s over here they have a better spec than the standard uk model.

Ive also been told that problems can arise with european cars over here because of the high temperatures

we sold ours in the end, you should get good money for it in the uk

i shipped my transit 2001,just for convenience,as i was working up to the last few day in uk,and would not have time to sell it.
i would not reccomend it,as the cost of shipping/tax/stamp duty +hassle.and the fact that there are far nicer vehicles here in oz to buy,.loose abit of money in uk selling it ,and buy a nice car in oz.

errrr.... no they dont. At least when we brought our car over 3 months ago we paid duty and GST based on its current Aussie value.


Personally from our experience I would say unless you have a very rare or special car dont do it. Aside from the costs (shipping, duty, GST, compliance, licencing....) the hassle factor is a nightmare.

Took us nearly 8 weeks from the point our container arrived in OZ to actually having the car sitting in our driveway

i got charged gst on value at which i bougt the van,and stamp duty on which ever was highest out of ---my purchase value/ozzy market value---


DONT DO IT.

when it comes to you reselling your imported car in ozz in years to come,or getting some one to repair it,it wont be straight forward.

Thanks for all the replies looks like it will be up for sale when we decide to go for it.

Jon

One of the biggest problems you , will come up against is getting a UK company that can load a car properly, we have had three in this year , and all have been damaged, we have a MERC CK220, Which had art pacs loaded up against the side of the car , need less to say , it will probably need a paint job............ mm

errr.......yes they do !!! the current valuation of an imported car is calculated on the price you paid for the car.....less 6% for the first month and 1% per month there after...less or plus any adjustment to be comparable to the oz value if the car is available.

steve:lecture:

looks like someone made a mistake with us then or we got lucky cos we definately only paid the current OZ value - the OZ shipping company told us to get RAC in to do a valuation which we did, and they said the car was worth $5k less than we expected it to be and $8k less than we had paid for the car in Germany.

Maybe different states have different rules