mr luvpants

I have been doing some research and seeing the price of second hand cars, I am toying with the idea of buying a car and exporting it next year. Has anyone done this and glad they did or regretted it?

JOHN

bigAPE

Plenty of existing threads on here available through the search facility. Try searching for "Importing Car"

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=600334
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=610286
... and many more

Read this article, review the links to the Governments requirements of you and complete the Excel spreadsheet which will give you an idea of the total cost of importing your car.

If you have any further questions post in one of the existing threads above and I'm sure someone will help.

The short answer to your question is, yes a few of us have done it and, in general, no it's not worth it unless you have a rare or classic car. If you absolutely MUST have your car to drive in Australia then go ahead but don't expect to make money from it no matter what the market difference appears to be. Once you add all the other costs up you will likely lose money or break even at best. The government have designed the Personal Import taxation and registration system so that you will not make much money if any for the hassle of importing your car and the car dealers here will not touch a personal import as they will impact on their market share if everyone imported their own.

One thing to note is that in general Australians are not material like a lot of people in England and while a BMW would be a "nice car" that's about it. In my experience they would, in general, be more impressed if it was a massive 4x4 Toyota Hilux with a fold out camper on the rear tray and a built in fridge for your beer.

Al