Importing car to Oz

[teabags]

Has anyone done this? If so, what were your experiences?We are taking our car with us but there seems to be confusion the Oz end over how much import tax and other charges are applicable.

from my dim recollection - we looked at it and decided it wasn't worth the hassle and so just sold our two cars and bought another here when we got here.

I am sure there was another thread on this ages ago if you have a chance to do a search.

I am sure if you have owned the car for more than 12 months the import duty is small if non existent - kind of comes as 'household' stuff BUT don't hold me to this - memory is terrible at the moment.

this might help

here

and ignore anything I posted my memory is really crap at the moment!!

We looked into this before going to Aus last July and it wasn't worth it - hugely expensive to import at least to QLD. Second hand cars are more expensive than UK but new cars are cheaper (if that makes sense - essentially they hold their value for a much longer time than the UK). The import regs changed in March 05 (IIRC) which makes it so expensive now. Prob better to buy there in the long run. We sold our Aus car for almost the same as we had bought it a year earlier so that was fine - almost like having a free car for the year.

plus if it is a european make - very expensive in terms of parts and servicing.

What sort of car is it??

family cars are very cheap and easy to get hold of here.

thanks
We've got an Audi, I'm not bothered, but DH loves it and wants to bring it.
Our understanding is 2nd hand cars are more expensive and we think we will be slightly better off importing and incurring the fees as opposed to selling our car here and buying another one there

this might be a start for info rebuying

Depends on what sort of car you want secondhand..

a family car like a commodore or falcon - very reasonable.

And you'll be without for the time it takes to ship - about 3 months. Depends where in Oz you're going too as the shipping co will bring into one of the cities but e.g. we were living in north Queensland and would have had to get to Brisbane to collect the car then drive 1500km to where we were staying.