Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters
 

Has anybody used Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters to ship a car out to Aussie, if so who did you use to do it. How easy was it to sort it out. Or is it better to get it containered and shipped. Again who is good etc.

Many thanks

Re: Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters
 

It can be done before people tell you otherwise;), we got advice from someone in aus who had shipped his m3csl over by this method (on another forum) - cost was £750, sorry don't have any more details..:thumbup:

Re: Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters
 

I shipped my car on a RORO. It was by far the cheapest way to do it.

There are downsides though and, in our case, the horror stories you hear about the mistreatment of private cars was true:

Delays

The RORO you're scheduled to go on is rarely the ship that it will leave on. RORO's are there to serve the commercial car manufacturers and that month BMW decided to ship three RORO's worth of cars to South Africa, as a result my car was left on the dockside for a further four weeks while three other ships left the dock and they would not give us a single berth. You're a second class citizen to the RORO companies. Because of the month delay we had to rent the car here for another month which added hundred more to the cost of the shipping process.

We used George Baker Shipping to take possession of the car at the docks and manage the negotiation and paperwork with the shipping lines, which is not something any of us are skilled enough to do. They tried their best, but as explained they are also at the mercy of the RORO companies and your vehicle will always be a second class passenger to them.

Damage

I picked up my TT (only 11k miles, in perfect condition and without a scratch on it) from the docks in Melbourne and I alsmost cried.

• It had a ball-pin dent the size of a 10p coin in the passenger door right on the ridge so it can't be removed
• The alloys were badly scratched
• All the Audi badges had been ripped off with a screw driver leaving nasty scratches in the paintwork
• There was a bad rattling coming from the engine. This turned out to be three cracked rings in Cylinder 4 which the Audi garage thinks was someone was gunning it really hard until it blew the engine. This was most likely in the drag races the UK dock workers run. We had heard about this but dismissed it as a myth.

You might want to read through the article I wrote on Importing Your Car. It is specific to Victoria, so there might be a few minor differences, but in general it's information is Australia wide.

Hope this helps

Al

Re: Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters
 

Very useful - I think I will shelve the idea of taking a Mini with me then!!!

Thanks

Jackie
x

Re: Roll On Roll Off Car Transporters
 

Saw a doco on tv about how the drivers on the RORO, in Japan I think it was, actually get the cars in and parked. To see them operate really made me grimace, as the speed at which they did it would put Michael Schumacher to shame:eek:, and the closeness they had to get the cars. They fully loaded the ship in about 2.5 hours and the cars parked so close that they have to fold in both the wing mirrors. Also I heard stories years ago about the wharfies in Brisbane (when the terminal was at Hamilton), having races around the wharf area.