Elaine M

Hi Everyone,
It's Tracey here (elaine's daughter).
Just wondering if anyone can help me out.

We were wondering how much shipping would cost for a motorcycle, from nr Leeds, UK to Adelaide, Australia.
The bike is a Yamaha Virago XV750 1993reg (if it matters). value approx 1200 GBP.

I have found a document to calculate the full costs of importing the bike, but can't seem to find any shipping companies to get a quote. They all seem to do cars, but not bikes.

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks, Tracey

skywalker

Sorry I can't help, can you give us the document's link? , I'm interested too!

Elaine M

http://www.customs.gov.au/webdata/re...ePrivOwnMV.pdf

hope that's ok. it covers cars and bikes. page 7 is a very good page to print and calculate it all. it took me ages to understand it all - very complicated!

Centurion

I did mine. If you have a container already then the bike simply goes into the container and there is no extra chargeable for the shipping cost so to speak. You have brokers fees this end to calculate the official value (say $400-500AU) and tax.

I dont know the actual shipping cost seperately for a bike but I think it simply would not be worthwhile. But as I said throw it in the container. Your shipping company will just build a crate around it and then put the furniture and your other goods around it.

adriang

The offical value? Was this for import tax or for insurance purposes?

And did you have to do anything as part of the shipping? Drain the tank, remove the battery, that kind of thing?

I have 3 I want to put into my container.. (subject to visa being granted!).

Perthforme

We have shipped a part container and were charged £550 on top of our stuff for my ktm dirt bike .
If we had taken a full container for all our stuff then the bike would of fitted in too at the same price roughly.
Hope that helps .
For a bike of that age and value i would sell it here and buy one in oz . My bike is less than 2 years old so we are taking it

skywalker

Thanks Elaine, it's all clear now.

Centurion

Yes a broker has to give the bike an official value for import tax. I did drain the tank and disconnect the battery since the container can reach very high temperatures on its journey over.

You must also get an import permit before you ship for permission to bring into the country. http://www.dotars.gov.au/transreg/vsb/vsb_10.aspx

Basically let your shipping company handle the actual import process. Just get the import approval documents, steam clean the bike. The shippers pack them well and you take delivery some day the other end.

Fitz750

Any ideas would be great.

Thanks, Tracey[/QUOTE]

Try this site www.horizonsunlimited.com

extrameant

I think I'm right in saying you can only import one vehicle as a personal import. If you try to bring three bikes, you need to watch out that none are brought in as 2nd hand vehicles. If they are, then they probably need to meet ADR (australian design regulations) That means you need to get the manufacturer to say that they comply with ADR (could be impossible in practise) or to have the bike checked individually for ADR (prohibitively expensive).

I brought in 3 bikes, they let my wife bring in my trail bike as her personal import, even though it wasn't in her name. One bike was 60 years old so imported as a classic, and one was a trials bike which got in as an off road competition machine. I don't think a MX bike would get in as an off road comp. machine, as they are too easy to register for road use (but worth asking). The criteria seems to be that it was purpose built for off road competition and cannot be registered for road use, then it is an off road competition machine. My trials bike is a modern one with no seat, so it was easy to convince them.

Check a post I put here for more details if you're interested. http://s7.invisionfree.com/BritVics/...showtopic=1070

I think its worth building your own crates btw, my shipping company wanted $600 each bike. I just used timber and ply that was H3 treated (outside treated) to comply with AQIS regs. $300 for all the timber. Its worth making sure you have a couple of skateboards or make something up so you can shove the crate round on. My moving company was crap and just dragged the heaviest (400kg) container up the driveway cos they had no moving equipment. Don't expect your crate to stay upright, although it is worth putting the usual symbols on the outside (fragile, this way up, keep dry) I used new carpet offcuts to pad round the side of my bikes. Don't use old carpet or AQIS will charge you for cleaning. The guys congratulated me on my crate because they said a lot of containers that shipping companies make collapse on the way. (I had made it V strong, just as well the way they treated it. I wouldn't be surprised if they all collapsed when THEY were handling them) Its worth keeping the containers as small as poss. I managed to get mine down to about 3CM in all, but the trials bike is very narrow.


Technically, you are supposed to drain the bike of oil, petrol and water and battery acid. This is for insurance and for the shipping companies regulations more than anything. You can leave the oil in the forks and brakes. If you insure the bike, that cost gets added to the value when they charge you import duty. Bikes aren't too bad at only 10% of the value.

YoSemite

i looked into shipping a bike as well and was basically told that unless i'd spent a fortune customising the bike or it was v rare then i'd be better off selling it over here and buying a new one when i got over to oz.

so i sold it back to my cousin and will get another when i get over there!

jjonboy

www.bikesales.com.au

adriang

Thanks for this, I think I'll certainly look into the idea of packaging them up myself. I've got 2 1960's Lambretta scooters which are irreplacible, and a Ducati which is my pride and joy, so they are all coming.

Bix

Did anyone try to take their bike as hand luggage ?


Probably wise to sell it as you can get some really good bikes over here........





BTW, hello Tracey

Elaine M

Hey everyone - thanks for the replies.
some useful info there.

the bike we have is the exact model and make that we will want if/when we move. so therefore selling it, and then buying the same thing over in Oz seems silly.

i have looked a few up on t'interweb (the internet) and it seems the same model is being sold at around 5800dollars, compared to about 2500dollars what we bought ours for (thats pounds converted to dollars - roughly!).

does anyone know anyone into bikes in australia, and could get us more ideas of bike costs over here - for a Yamaha Virago XV750? t'interweb seems very limited as to what is advertised.

thanks, Tracey