Paul & Wendy

All,
I understand that we are entitled to import a boat however the trailer must comply with Australian road rules etc.
Has anyone imported a trailer for a boat, or say one of the box type trailers you use to take garden rubbish to the tip?
Any help or comments would be appreciated.
Cheers, Paul

hoofie2002

I'm curious how you are 'entitled' to import a boat. Whilst you can import your personal effects etc. I think a boat will be considered seperately.

Here is a useful link for you : http://www.damoandkat.com/?p=16.

Also a customs page : http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4365. It looks like you'd be hit with 5% of the purchase cost + 10% GST on top. Ok, thats for yachts, but I would imagine the same rules apply. If its a 30K boat for example, you'll have to pony up 4.5K quid [thats over $10k].

As for the trailer, I think the trailer must comply to the following standards for registration : http://www.dotars.gov.au/transport/s...tin/index.aspx.

Bear in mind you will also have to get it steam-cleaned to a high standard to get past customs, and even then you will probably get charged to have it cleaned again. If its a garden rubbish type trailer I wouldn't bother, they are cheap here.

If its financially worth it, bring the boat, but I have a nasty feeling you would be better off selling it first rather than paying a considerable amount of money to get it here to start with, then pay customs duty, trailer modification, cleaning etc.

pogsy

A freind of ours brought his camper trailer over here with him and it cost him $1700 to get the ball hitch cut of and a second rate Australian one welded on, they also cut the perfectly good jockey wheel of and put an Austalian one on and finally they rewired the electrics which again were OK. All the work was crap, I could have done a better job of the welding with a blindfold on, he was really upset that they basically charged him the $1,700 for work that did not need doing so I would definatly think twice as you could pick up a boat trailer pretty reasonably priced here.

mr mover

With all due repect your friend is a fool , we have UK built camper trailer in our bond store at the moment ,waiting Aqis checks ,the crew at work reckon the people that own it must be midgets , the draw bar will snap off in the 1st hundred km on aussie roads, and the wheel bearings will suffer from heat in our summers , for what it cost for this guy to import it , he could of bought a great Aust built camper..................... mm

pogsy

Totally agree MM, however I think he was more peed off with the fact that the work done to it was none more than shoddy, interesting also what you said about the wheel bearings, don't think they even looked at them