# cars cost what???



## scottishcelts (Aug 5, 2007)

Been looking around the internet and the price of second hand cars in (Brisbane anywhay) are outrageous. Just wondering if anyone paid to have their car shipped over from UK and roughly what are the costs involved.

Are the high costs due to the fact that they are not very weather beaten? I suppose this is fair enough really. I suppose also that it's gonnae cost a fortune for certain cars for example bmw as they come from Germany. But what about shipped cars from Japan?

We are seriously considering shipping over our car.

Help!


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## synthia (Apr 18, 2007)

Before you ship your car, find out what the rules are in Australia and what the import duty will be. Some countries allow you to import a car without duty when you immigrate, and others don't. Some also have restrictions on things like how old your car can be, letting you import a three-year-old car, for instance, but not one that is six years old. And remember to get the cost of insuring the car during the voyage.

You may be right about cars being in better shape, too. When I moved from the Washington DC area to Florida, I noticed that all the local cars were in really great shape as far as appearance went. My car's value went down because of the move.


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## pominNoosa (Dec 6, 2007)

*shipping car from UK*



scottishcelts said:


> Been looking around the internet and the price of second hand cars in (Brisbane anywhay) are outrageous. Just wondering if anyone paid to have their car shipped over from UK and roughly what are the costs involved.
> 
> Are the high costs due to the fact that they are not very weather beaten? I suppose this is fair enough really. I suppose also that it's gonnae cost a fortune for certain cars for example bmw as they come from Germany. But what about shipped cars from Japan?
> 
> ...


Just joined forum. Been living in QLD nearly a year now but sorely missing my VW Lupo GTi which I've left behind in storage while I think about what to do with it. I KNOW the sensible thing to do is to sell it and use the money to buy another car over here. But I LOVE this little car! 

Did you get anwhere with finding out about car shipping? I had a quote for a roll on roll off service at just under 900GBP but then there's the import tax at this end to consider. I don't know how much it will be and I don't know if the lupo will comply with aussie rules. Although, looking at the state of some of the sheds that drive around QLD it would be unfair if it didn't.

Any thoughts (except the ones telling me to sell it!) would be gratefully accepted.

Becky


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## Akatrin (Nov 17, 2007)

What is expensive to you? It's all relative, isn't it? I found they were similar to UK second-hand dealers prices.

Cars in Australia do last longer mainly because there is no snow (or very little snow), so we don't salt the roads and the underneath doesn't rust out.


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## pominNoosa (Dec 6, 2007)

*used cars in oz*



Akatrin said:


> What is expensive to you? It's all relative, isn't it? I found they were similar to UK second-hand dealers prices.
> 
> Cars in Australia do last longer mainly because there is no snow (or very little snow), so we don't salt the roads and the underneath doesn't rust out.


Well, without wanting to be disloyal to my little lupo in the UK , I have had to buy a used car in oz. I've spent weeks on all the different websites trying to choose and it seems to me that there is a big price variation between the different states. On the whole I found the prices to be more than in the UK, esp when you compare them to the UK price guides, dollar for pound. Queensland (where I live ) prices seemed to be the most expensive but then, as you say, the cars don't really suffer from rust. 

I was looking to buy a Ford KA (which they stopped producing here in 2003..?) but prices for these were a bit inflated. So in the end I've bought a ten yr old VW Polo for $4000 from the Sydney area through ebay!!! It's about to be transported up to Brisbane this very moment! Is probably NOT a recommended way of buying a car, and I begrudge paying this amount for such an old car, but believe me it was the best value I could find after all my research. I'll be back here to describe what it's like when I finally see it!!!

Becky


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## scottishcelts (Aug 5, 2007)

pominNoosa said:


> Just joined forum. Been living in QLD nearly a year now but sorely missing my VW Lupo GTi which I've left behind in storage while I think about what to do with it. I KNOW the sensible thing to do is to sell it and use the money to buy another car over here. But I LOVE this little car!
> 
> Did you get anwhere with finding out about car shipping? I had a quote for a roll on roll off service at just under 900GBP but then there's the import tax at this end to consider. I don't know how much it will be and I don't know if the lupo will comply with aussie rules. Although, looking at the state of some of the sheds that drive around QLD it would be unfair if it didn't.
> 
> ...


Hi Becky, we never bothered with the idea, we decided it would be easier on ourselves to sell up and cut our losses when we move - hopefully in September 08 and just buy a cheap runaround when we arrive until we decide what we want. Good luck


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## scottishcelts (Aug 5, 2007)

Cliff3 said:


> They're crazy expensive compared to US prices, especially the European brands.
> 
> I'm a BMW enthusiast and have a couple of cars here. Last year I purchased a new BMW for around USD58k - in Australia, the same car is nearly AUD129k - or about USD112k. I suspect I will need to negotiate a car allowance into my relocation package, or if the duration of the assignment is long enough, to see if they want to pay to bring at least one of my cars over there.
> 
> FWIW - since this is my first post - Hello all. I am interviewing for a position as a manager of software engineering with our Sydney-based Australian subsidiary. It's still fairly early days in that process. One of the first things I did was go looking for on-topic internet forums and this one seems to be one of the more active ones I could find.


Hi cliff3, try britishexpats, they are very active too and also very funny! As far as the bmw goes, we too love them but obviously in Oz are going to be outrageously priced.

My hubby is a software engineer, using c# etc. and we are heading for Brisbane. Can't wait.


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## kaz101 (Nov 29, 2007)

Don't forget that in Australia there is also a luxury car tax (for those of you with BMW's).

Our car is a 1971 Ford Mustang and we shipped it over in the container with the rest of our goods.

Once here a car has to pass inspection and they will charge you for it to be cleaned (possibly steam cleaned). I've been told they may also replace the tyres at an additional cost to you. 

Once you've got the car into the country you have to have it registered, and to do that you may have to have it transported. We had to have our Mustang transported from Melbourne to Mt Gambier in south Australia which wasn't cheap. There may be additional requirements to get the car on the road even before it's registered (such as our exhaust system which was fine in the UK was not fine for Oz). 

The tax and additional payment were probably worth more than the car 
but here we should have the time to enjoy it and we never did in the UK.

BTW you also need to have had your car for at least a year or I think there is another tax as well to pay. 

If you have a look around some websites they are pretty helpful e.g Importing Vehicles to Australia 

Regards,
Karen


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## kaz101 (Nov 29, 2007)

And one more thing...

When buying a car here check what the on the road price is. 
The price that's displayed in the car does not usually have the delivery charge, GST or stamp duty on the car. Yes you pay GST and stamp duty (at least in South Australia) whether the car is new or old. 

Regards,
Karen


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## Akatrin (Nov 17, 2007)

... I can't help but think you should never buy a car without having seen it, maybe buying a car is one of those things best left until after you've arrived?

But if you're quick then you can get some great bargins. We just sold our land rover for 7.5k by advertising in the sunday paper. Lots of people get the paper on the saturday night and try ringing up then, but it was sold before midday Sunday. not that I want to sound like an ad for them or anything, but the moral is you gotta be very quick if you want the good prices, the good bargins probably go too fast to be worth listing online.

and DO NOT go to a second hand car dealer. That's when you'll end up paying an excessive amount.


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## kaz101 (Nov 29, 2007)

Cliff3 said:


> Is it taxation or tariffs that are driving Australian car prices upwards? Transportation costs clearly have to be a component, but they're not enough to effectively double the price of a car (a Mini Cooper S in the US is about half the cost of one in Oz, for example).


I think it depends on the kind of car you want. I bought a nearly new Hyundai Elantra when I arrived in July and that was cheaper than it would be in the UK. However I think that those cars are either made here or shipped locally. 

Any expensive car has the luxury car tax as well as stamp duty and GST and I think that's what drives up the prices. 

Until I bought the Hyundai I thought that the price shown on the car was the driveaway price, and that's when I found out that I had to add GST and stamp duty on that as well! Here we found that they were open to negotiation so that we got a discount.

Unlike someone else on the forum who said never go to second hand car dealers I feel just the opposite (and it's not just that my husband works for one now  ). We live in a city of 25,000 people with 3 major car dealerships and they have to make sure that they are competitive and that the cars they sell are good. If they didn't their reputation would be rubbish and therefore their business would suffer. It's amazing how quickly news travels in a small city.

Karen


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## Cliff3 (Nov 23, 2007)

kaz101 said:


> However I think that those cars are either made here or shipped locally.


I think that's the key. Toyota and Honda appear to have some locally manufactured cars too. Then there's Holden (but I'm not a GM fan).


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## Akatrin (Nov 17, 2007)

Welll the reason I say don't go to a new car dealer is really coming from a seller's perspective. 

Second hand dealers in Perth offered us 2000 for the car we sold privately for 7500. But you can bet if they'd had it the price would have been over 10k.
Of course they have to compete with each other. Buying privately is its own different sphere which attracts a different market.
You need to know your own way around a car a bit, how to spot a lemon (nothing the internet can't teach you I'm sure) and for savings of a couple thousand I'd say it's worth it. And/or take a friend who knows cars


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## kaz101 (Nov 29, 2007)

That's the same everywhere with car dealers but around here we hardly have any private sellers and I would rather trust a car dealer (yes you have to check around and compare) than a private seller. 

It depends on the area you live in and what's available.

Karen


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## pominNoosa (Dec 6, 2007)

*2nd hand car dealers*

Well the used car dealer I went to in Noosa tried to sell me a 7 yr old Ford KA (which they stopped producing in oz 4 yrs ago) for $5999 which had clearly had an accident and had things on it that weren't working properly. The dealer feigned ignorance on all its problems. I could have gone online to check the accident history but by then I'd lost interest AND all trust in the dealer. I wrote them a suitably whinging pom email to tell them I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them!!

Becky


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