bambooman

Hello all,
i've just returned from a reccie to Melbourne and was shocked to find out how much cars were.Has anyone take their car with them from the UK, I understand that the import duty can be expensive, but does it offset the price of buying a car over there?
Thanks

The Bloke

Do a search and I think all your questions maybe answered, as there have been loads of threads on this subject with all the pros and cons.

northerner

Not sure about importing but I assume you're talking about second hans cars being expensive? Cars hold their value much more here - so you might pay more for a car but you also won't loose as much money on it as you would in the UK.

New cars are cheaper generally.

Graham

bambooman

Do you think there is a big difference between NSW and VIC for prices?

h2oskineil

This HAS to be the most concise answer to any question I have ever seen... hope it helps.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...+car+Australia

One other thing to remember about importing your car and that is the availabillty (or lack of availablity) of parts.

I had a UK imported Renault Megane in the other day. It needs new front and rear rotors and brake pads. Renault in Perth have the rear rotors and pads, I could get the front pads from Melbourne..... but the front rotors..... non of the brake specialist had a listing for them but Renault said they were only available from France or I guess the UK if you dont mind waiting a few weeks for the post.
Apparantly the UK (or European bulit Meganes) had a totally different front brake to the exported Aussie cars.

AndyR1976

I think generally its accepted that it ain't worth importing a car (because of the cost) unless its a particuarly nice car or you have some sentimental value attached to it!

Having said that, I had a friend who imported a nice car (Audi TT) because they are really expensive to buy in Aust!

What he did as well was pack the car full of stuff that he wanted to import - (he had no furniture or anything substantial so filled the car with clothing, personal items etc). Apparently the shipping company he used had no problem with this - they said they just import the car - whats in it has nothing to do with them!

So he made the car import worthwhile be also importing stuff that would have cost him £500 oterhwise anyway!! Not much of a saving but worth considering!

I wish I had got a loan and bought a porsche 3 years ago - moving back to Austraia next month and it would have been a nice reminder of my time in the UK!

bigAPE

The only problem is that my post here on BE is now out of date. My article on BritVics Wiki contain the most up to date information and advice

BritVics Wiki - Importing Your Car

Hope that helps.

You'll find that a second hand TT is not that much more expensive in Oz. There are not many of them on the road here, because they didn't really take off, so it's slightly more unusual. It's the higher Audi's like the A8 and Q7 that are really expensive, same for high end BMW and Merc. They have staggering prices over here.