Importing a car to Australia - All the facts... Hopefully!

Importing a car to Australia - All the facts... Hopefully!

Author
Discussion

Jamest5r

32 posts

119 months

Tuesday 4th August 2015
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Great information thanks very much smile

Jader1973

3,942 posts

199 months

Wednesday 5th August 2015
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onny said:
My shipping agent used my UK purchase price + RORO shipping cost as the Customs landed value and calculated 10% GST and 5% Duty for the GST and Duty I had to pay.
Surely if you'd owned them both for more than 12 months then your purchase price would be higher than they are actually worth?

Couldn't they have valued them based on similar cars with similar mileages from Autotrader, or Parkers or something?

onny

324 posts

261 months

Friday 7th August 2015
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I think I got a very good deal, as result both car was valued at less than 1/2 of a similar car in Australia. You are usually required to get a valuation from a registered valuer in Australia and they tend to value the customs landed value for GST and duty to be a percentage (around 2/3) of a similar car here and not the UK. In theory you are not suppose to gain from bringing in a car from overseas.

Randompunter74

642 posts

143 months

Tuesday 22nd September 2015
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Great thread. The wife and I are moving to Oz in a few years but difficulty is we have am Etype Series 1, Integrale Evo 2, Gen 2 997 GT3, V10 RS6, X5, and some motorbikes, Dominator SS, Speed Triple and Paul smart ducati.

Of course, I would like to bring them all, but will be etype in Wife's name and Dominator in mine in personal scheme. Thing is, we plan to set up a car rental. firm for specialist cars.

So, what I am wondering is if I set the company up when there, will I simply be allowed to import as many as I like under the car and bike rental company? Like many car import firms do there? In which case, I don't sell anything and then import the rest under the company? Anyone know of this? It's taken a while to get the right bikes and cars and I want to bring then with. Just sold my E30 M3 as I started to realise the restrictions.

cheers

Google [bot]

6,682 posts

180 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2015
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Randompunter74 said:
but will be etype in Wife's name and Dominator in mine in personal scheme.

cheers
I'll defer to someone more knowledgeable but surely the E-Type as a personal import is a waste as that could be imported any time being pre-89. Use your wife's name on a newer car.

Randompunter74

642 posts

143 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2015
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Sorry, so are you saying that as the E Type is a pretty 89 car it can be bought in on its own? In addition to both 1 for my wife and 1 for me under the personal scheme?

If that's the case then I could bring in any cars older than 89? If so, how many?

Cheers.

NBTBRV8

2,061 posts

207 months

Wednesday 23rd September 2015
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Randompunter74 said:
Sorry, so are you saying that as the E Type is a pretty 89 car it can be bought in on its own? In addition to both 1 for my wife and 1 for me under the personal scheme?

If that's the case then I could bring in any cars older than 89? If so, how many?

Cheers.
Pre 01/01/1989 = you can bring in as many as you like as often as you like. Bring your e-type in as this and use the personal import for some other car post this manufactured date.

custardtart

1,725 posts

252 months

Saturday 26th September 2015
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NBTBRV8 said:
Randompunter74 said:
Sorry, so are you saying that as the E Type is a pretty 89 car it can be bought in on its own? In addition to both 1 for my wife and 1 for me under the personal scheme?

If that's the case then I could bring in any cars older than 89? If so, how many?

Cheers.
Pre 01/01/1989 = you can bring in as many as you like as often as you like. Bring your e-type in as this and use the personal import for some other car post this manufactured date.
+1

joedesi

107 posts

213 months

Saturday 5th March 2016
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Im looking to move to Oz and just like a lot of you guys thinking of taking my 2013 E92 M3.

Question I have is - once you've added the transport/insurance/import taxes is the overall cost of the car still cheaper than an aussie car (which we know are a lot higher than uk cars?)

For example my car is worth about £34K in UK

A similar car in Oz is about £48K (oz cars are about 50-52K but I'm assuming people would pay less for a UK car)

Thanks

Gingerbread Man

9,171 posts

212 months

Saturday 5th March 2016
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If the exchange rate stays near £1-$2. Your sold price of £32k would be worth near $64k here, so might make it not worth the hassle?

joedesi

107 posts

213 months

Saturday 5th March 2016
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Thanks. But it's not as straight forward converting the price based on exchange rates. Looking on the Australian classifieds it depends what the market would be willing to pay. As stated above I think it's worth about £50 k abroad

I may be wrong though. Happy to be corrected

Pommygranite

14,229 posts

215 months

Wednesday 9th March 2016
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joedesi said:
Thanks. But it's not as straight forward converting the price based on exchange rates. Looking on the Australian classifieds it depends what the market would be willing to pay. As stated above I think it's worth about £50 k abroad

I may be wrong though. Happy to be corrected
I think you'd end up nearer $85k for yours - there was a recent price drop on the M4/f80 M3 and they're closing to $110k fast.

Personally i wouldn't ship it as you could be sitting on it for a while - oz isn't booming for prestige. Just my opinion


Edited by Pommygranite on Wednesday 9th March 12:11

onny

324 posts

261 months

Thursday 10th March 2016
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Pommygranite said:
joedesi said:
Thanks. But it's not as straight forward converting the price based on exchange rates. Looking on the Australian classifieds it depends what the market would be willing to pay. As stated above I think it's worth about £50 k abroad

I may be wrong though. Happy to be corrected
I think you'd end up nearer $85k for yours - there was a recent price drop on the M4/f80 M3 and they're closing to $110k fast.

Personally i wouldn't ship it as you could be sitting on it for a while - oz isn't booming for prestige. Just my opinion


Edited by Pommygranite on Wednesday 9th March 12:11
Totally agree. I've imported 3 cars back from the UK and 2 of them are long term keepers and will never be sold. Even if I want to sell them, I'll be waiting a long time for a taker let alone getting anywhere near what a local car is worth. You'll be lucky to break even as buying imported cars (non japanese) are not very popular.

The new car import rule that will kick in a few years time will kill off any thoughs of bringing in anything except very special cars.

Jamest5r

32 posts

119 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2016
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Applied for my personal import last week just a waiting game now,still undecided on how to ship it but companies are doing mixed 40 foot container's ie 4 cars and I'm allowed to put personal belongings in the car which I can't do with roro.

iTzJohnsonz

1 posts

96 months

Thursday 24th March 2016
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Okay, so having read the most pet of this thread I have a question. Say I was to buy a used Porsche Cayman here, could I ship it to sell in Australia? What would I need to do to the car to allow that? And are their any rules against it, such as setting up a dealership with just imports? I only ask this as while looking at cars I found that the Cayman I can buy here in the UK for £15000, yet in Australia I can't seem to find any being sold for less than around $60/70000. Which would be around a £10000 profit just to ship. Would you say it is plausible or not? Also I checked the price to be shipped and got quoted for £1600 with all insurance etc, just not the charges when it arrives etc. What sort of charges would they be?

Thanks
Lee

Google [bot]

6,682 posts

180 months

Thursday 24th March 2016
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Not plausible.

greido

13 posts

245 months

Wednesday 20th April 2016
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I'm in the market for a new car at the moment it in the back of my mind when deciding what to buy is that I'll be moving to Oz in around 2 years with my Aussie Mrs.
I'm currently looking at a 2-3 year old BMW M5, would this be worth the cost and hassle? - I reckon it'll cost around £35k to buy.
Other considerations would be a BMW X5, Porsche Boxster or Lotus Evora SR, would these fall into the same 'not worth the hassle and cost' category as the M5?
An observation from the thread is that I might do better with a Japanese car if I was going to import, if that was the case, would a Nissan GT-R be more marketable in Oz?

bigunit00

890 posts

146 months

Wednesday 20th April 2016
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greido said:
I'm in the market for a new car at the moment it in the back of my mind when deciding what to buy is that I'll be moving to Oz in around 2 years with my Aussie Mrs.
I'm currently looking at a 2-3 year old BMW M5, would this be worth the cost and hassle? - I reckon it'll cost around £35k to buy.
Other considerations would be a BMW X5, Porsche Boxster or Lotus Evora SR, would these fall into the same 'not worth the hassle and cost' category as the M5?
An observation from the thread is that I might do better with a Japanese car if I was going to import, if that was the case, would a Nissan GT-R be more marketable in Oz?
I would focus on buying a car you like / want rather than focus on any potential arbitrage. It will be minimal at best anyway. Australians have a healthy scepticism of uk imports (think they are all rusty heaps / prefer oz delivered). You will have to prove it accordingly to sell it on later.

Jap cars are fairly easily sourced in oz. Maybe an r35 would be worth it

I would focus on something that's European , rare / not readily available in oz if your aim is to make some money out of it.

Juz

25 posts

218 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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I'll soon be moving to QLD, Australia on a 457 visa, and was wondering if I could take my 1995 Peugeot 106 Rallye on the personal import scheme. I've owned it for over 12 months and although it is road legal and annually MOT'd, it has been a trailered track car so I have plenty of documents to prove ownership and maintenance, but nothing to prove use on the road.

Does anybody know if this would qualify?

I was also considering at some stage carrying out a turbo conversion on it and was wondering if there would be any barriers to this with regards to obtaining the Australian Rego on an ongoing basis?

Thanks

Lambchopski

469 posts

186 months

Friday 5th August 2016
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Juz said:
I'll soon be moving to QLD, Australia on a 457 visa, and was wondering if I could take my 1995 Peugeot 106 Rallye on the personal import scheme. I've owned it for over 12 months and although it is road legal and annually MOT'd, it has been a trailered track car so I have plenty of documents to prove ownership and maintenance, but nothing to prove use on the road.

Does anybody know if this would qualify?

I was also considering at some stage carrying out a turbo conversion on it and was wondering if there would be any barriers to this with regards to obtaining the Australian Rego on an ongoing basis?

Thanks
Technically it should be a standard car. Each state is very different and from what I know Queensland is mega relaxed compared to others. You won't need to prove it's been on the road. 12 month ownership is enough.

Perhaps bring your turbo conversion kit with you and do it at this end.