Importing a car to Australia - All the facts... Hopefully!
Discussion
I truly am sorry to have raised the drawbridge on you Vanya. It is an incredibly frustrating system that the gumbyment have well and truly locked down and tightened all the loop holes on.
Your other option is to get yourself a CAMS L3 race license (or a mate thats already got one that can 'sell' you the car) and bring it in as a race / rally import.
I have never really looked in to it closely but you MIGHT be able to get club rego for it. This would ONLY allow you to drive it to and from an event or workshop though.
I have heard that you are supposed to call the DPI and give them times and dates you will be driving it so they can issue a permit for moving it...I have also heard though that just looking at the car there is no quick way to tell its on club rego so you can get away with driving it around without a permit as long as you dont get pulled over.
Like I say though I have never really read much on Race / Rally imports and club rego so I could just be serving you a bowl of poo ice cream for lunch.
Your other option is to get yourself a CAMS L3 race license (or a mate thats already got one that can 'sell' you the car) and bring it in as a race / rally import.
I have never really looked in to it closely but you MIGHT be able to get club rego for it. This would ONLY allow you to drive it to and from an event or workshop though.
I have heard that you are supposed to call the DPI and give them times and dates you will be driving it so they can issue a permit for moving it...I have also heard though that just looking at the car there is no quick way to tell its on club rego so you can get away with driving it around without a permit as long as you dont get pulled over.
Like I say though I have never really read much on Race / Rally imports and club rego so I could just be serving you a bowl of poo ice cream for lunch.
I note the comment above about getting an Aus valuation however with a 8 year old Tuscan valued at £11k, would I be better getting a UK valuation or waiting for an Aus value. TBH I reckon it will be better organising it in the UK. Your opinions please 
Edited by Bob the Planner on Wednesday 7th January 00:52
Since it's not exactly a big cost in the scheme of things I'd be tempted to get both done, one in UK and one in Oz and then pick the one that works out best.
Keep in mind though if customs here think that your UK valuation is too low and doesn't reflect the cars true landed value in Australia they can choose to ignore it. They're not likely to do this with a valuation done by one of the approved valuers on the list in Oz however.
Keep in mind though if customs here think that your UK valuation is too low and doesn't reflect the cars true landed value in Australia they can choose to ignore it. They're not likely to do this with a valuation done by one of the approved valuers on the list in Oz however.
You can always challenge Customs, I did for the value of our car. In the end the local valuer won, Customs was trying it on, saying they were going to use the ORIGINAL invoice value on 4.5 year old Caterham SV. That would have given me a AU$15K tax bill, local valuer got involved, and voila, tax bill dropped to AU$4K.
I did have a UK valuation on the car before it left, so I used that with Shannons for insurance "whole value replacement"....YMMV
I did have a UK valuation on the car before it left, so I used that with Shannons for insurance "whole value replacement"....YMMV
I wonder if they will ever relax the pre-1989 rule? Only being allowed to import cars that are 20 years old or more without having owned them for 12 months seems absurd. I would think it unlikely in the current environment though. Whilst buying cars at artificially high prices to protect the local market seems unfair, at least the depreciation on cars isn't as high as the UK, nor the cars as "disposable". If the car depreciation rate increases due to the financial turmoil AND we still have to pay far much higher prices for the same cars, then pressure may mount to derugulate.
I wonder if there are any legal ways around personal imports. Serious suggestions please?
For starters (the obvious one):
Find an owner who has a car you want in the UK who is emigrating and who does not want to bring their car, confirm that they will bring the car to Australia, draw up an agreement stating that you will fund the costs of bringing it in and they will sell to you for x price upon arival. Split the saving. Money would need to be escrowed to protect both parties, but it could work.
I wonder if there are any legal ways around personal imports. Serious suggestions please?
For starters (the obvious one):
Find an owner who has a car you want in the UK who is emigrating and who does not want to bring their car, confirm that they will bring the car to Australia, draw up an agreement stating that you will fund the costs of bringing it in and they will sell to you for x price upon arival. Split the saving. Money would need to be escrowed to protect both parties, but it could work.
Before the pre-1989 rules it was a rolling 15 year old rule..so under the old rules you would currently be allowed to bring in a 1994 or older car.
The pro to those rules were that you could bring anything in and it only had to have minimal compliance work to get on the road. With it being a rolling 15 years more and more cars became eligable.
The con to it was that there were boat loads of pure s
te coming in....rebirthed, stolen, rusty, crashed crap as well as cars that were the same as aussie cars meaning that cars already here were being rebirthed.
The motor industry hated it because they thought people would rather buy a 15 year old jap sedan instead of a local car and to be honest they were probably right so instead of producing something to rival in value and quality they just complained.
The government hated it because of the crap ending up on the roads and rightly so IMO.
As for dodging around the import rules....Really not worth the risk in my opinion. It is tied down seriously tight now. You wont even get a car off the docks in aus without proving it is allowed to be here.
As for your idea with the personal imports I dont believe it will work as part of that import scheme is agreeing to not sell the car with in 12 months.
The pro to those rules were that you could bring anything in and it only had to have minimal compliance work to get on the road. With it being a rolling 15 years more and more cars became eligable.
The con to it was that there were boat loads of pure s
te coming in....rebirthed, stolen, rusty, crashed crap as well as cars that were the same as aussie cars meaning that cars already here were being rebirthed.The motor industry hated it because they thought people would rather buy a 15 year old jap sedan instead of a local car and to be honest they were probably right so instead of producing something to rival in value and quality they just complained.
The government hated it because of the crap ending up on the roads and rightly so IMO.
As for dodging around the import rules....Really not worth the risk in my opinion. It is tied down seriously tight now. You wont even get a car off the docks in aus without proving it is allowed to be here.
As for your idea with the personal imports I dont believe it will work as part of that import scheme is agreeing to not sell the car with in 12 months.
James... (another one!!! ),
I am no expert but the general consensus seems to be: bring it!
I can't bring mine due to overly extensive mods so if your mods are minimal and you play the valuation numbers right, it shouldn't be too painful an exercise.
As for flogging it on, I gather you could see a good return but there's a caveat in case you haven't picked up on it already: don't be too public about this intention and you'll have to hang on to the car for at least a year... or... erm... find an arrangement.
),I am no expert but the general consensus seems to be: bring it!
I can't bring mine due to overly extensive mods so if your mods are minimal and you play the valuation numbers right, it shouldn't be too painful an exercise.
As for flogging it on, I gather you could see a good return but there's a caveat in case you haven't picked up on it already: don't be too public about this intention and you'll have to hang on to the car for at least a year... or... erm... find an arrangement.
Has anyone managed to get a car in with a few basic mods/upgrades? I want to take my S1 elise over to Oz but currently have sports exhaust and manifold, induction kit, series 2 suspension (now recommended by Lotus as replacement for konis so should be ok?) and Lotus sport discs (can't get original mmc's now so again I presume ok). Would be a major pain to put this back to original, not to mention a step backwards and cost more than I'd be prepared to pay. Had also been thinking about cams/cylinder head work, how would they know if this had been done? Surely they wouldn't be dismantling the car to that extent?
May I suggest you introduce your self to the people over at http://www.aussieelise.com/forums. Where many have done similar moves here.
coleshed said:
Has anyone managed to get a car in with a few basic mods/upgrades? I want to take my S1 elise over to Oz but currently have sports exhaust and manifold, induction kit, series 2 suspension (now recommended by Lotus as replacement for konis so should be ok?) and Lotus sport discs (can't get original mmc's now so again I presume ok). Would be a major pain to put this back to original, not to mention a step backwards and cost more than I'd be prepared to pay. Had also been thinking about cams/cylinder head work, how would they know if this had been done? Surely they wouldn't be dismantling the car to that extent?
1JEB said:
Great write up guys!
I arrived in Sydney a few days ago and am seriously considering bringing over my 360. Is there anyone here who'd be interested in taking it at trade-ish price? It's worth f all in the UK but people still seem to value them here in oz!
Thought you were exaggerating about the uk 360 prices. Whats going on there? 355's can fetch more than the older 360's! OddI arrived in Sydney a few days ago and am seriously considering bringing over my 360. Is there anyone here who'd be interested in taking it at trade-ish price? It's worth f all in the UK but people still seem to value them here in oz!
Bob the Planner said:
I note the comment above about getting an Aus valuation however with a 8 year old Tuscan valued at £11k, would I be better getting a UK valuation or waiting for an Aus value. TBH I reckon it will be better organising it in the UK. Your opinions please
I only had my 04 Tuscan valued on arrival. I expected something around the $60,000 mark with all the added cost of luxury car tax. Was surprised at the $45,000 valuation which was pretty much what it would have been valued at in the UK at the time (£20,000 @ $2.25 to the pound). Dunno if they look at UK valuation, or Pistonheads, type websites to get their values. May apparently also take shipping & insurance costs into account and deduct them from any value. I would guess that any UK valuation would be useless here. Even for insurance I told Shannons I wanted $80K valuation and they said OK. (Actually I wanted $100K but they wouldnt go with that!)Edited by Bob the Planner on Wednesday 7th January 00:52
astonmartinv8 said:
I am going back to the UK for a couple of weeks every 4-6 months or so for the next couple of years. If I buy a car and store it there when not used, then use it when I am back, will I be able to import after 12 months ownership and use?
Cheers,
Marcus.
Hi MarcusCheers,
Marcus.
I had personally been with my car for 7 months in the UK before leaving permanently (and never looked back). The car stayed in the UK and was fully insured and driven on a couple of holidays costing several thousand pounds in total. I had owned it for 4 years all up. DOTARS wanted copies of my passport pages and simply added up the time I was with the car ... no consecutive 12 months = no import allowed! Simple and rigid rules - my mediation appeal failed based on common sense and logic - they wanted me to go to court to get it approved, knowing that was a $20k route to fight it. Complete waste of time and money - if you haven't satisfied their basic rules on their site, forget about even trying, just not worth the hassle.
Just my experience
Cheers
Andre
G'day, your tips on importing a car to Oz are great. A couple of questions. I have owned a Carrera since 22 August 2009 and have just bought a Toyota - the only thing that is cheap in this country is cars - and want to import them back over the next 15 months. I have been to Europe and Africa for 8 days all up since I bought the Carrera and am spending 53 days back in Oz over the next year or so. If the restriction is one car per year and it takes 6 weeks to ship home, I wonder, if it's mid November 2010 before I can send the Carrera back (to meet the one year continuous ownership rule), and the car doesn't arrive until 2 January 2011, does that preclude me from sending the Toyota until 2012. That is, does the one per year rule apply to when you send it, or when it arrives?
Quick question about the one year rule as there seems to be a few 'in the know' people here:
I have three cars, all in my name and basically I want to bring all to Australia.
Discovery 3 - owned from new for 4 years
6 Series BMW - owned for 1.5 years
Ultima GTR - owned for 2 years
I've spoken to Australian Vehicle imports about a VIA and basically they've approved the Disco and 6 series saying that I can bring one in under my wifes name, they only need to see the marrage cert to allow.
So good news so far however I'm keen to get the Ultima over as well so the question is this:
Could I store the GTR for a year in the UK after my arrival in Australia, keeping it taxed, insured, serviced etc.. and then apply to bring it in once the year was up?
This may be a ray of hope for me as I was resigned to the fact I'd have to sell it.
Cheers,
Robin.
I have three cars, all in my name and basically I want to bring all to Australia.
Discovery 3 - owned from new for 4 years
6 Series BMW - owned for 1.5 years
Ultima GTR - owned for 2 years
I've spoken to Australian Vehicle imports about a VIA and basically they've approved the Disco and 6 series saying that I can bring one in under my wifes name, they only need to see the marrage cert to allow.
So good news so far however I'm keen to get the Ultima over as well so the question is this:
Could I store the GTR for a year in the UK after my arrival in Australia, keeping it taxed, insured, serviced etc.. and then apply to bring it in once the year was up?
This may be a ray of hope for me as I was resigned to the fact I'd have to sell it.
Cheers,
Robin.
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