Savitar

Take a read of my post : http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/transport-shipping/213441-movecube-real-life-experience-worth-reading-if-you-looking-using-them.html they are a great option IF it actually arrives on time. Ours arrived fine, just a couple of months late.... In terms of weight, they don't actually weigh your cube when packing....and 1.2 tons of stuff would require you to pack only bricks frankly....so will not be a problem.

In short, customs don't care for the most part. If you brought in 100 of the same thing, in the original box, then they will. If its obvious that your stuff is what a normal person would own, they will not care at all. We shipped things like food and there was no issue at all....just be honest and if you do have things less than 12 months, as long as they "look" like they have been used, then you will be fine.

Check with IronLady, they know the ins and outs of this type of question. There are exceptions given in extreme situations for less than 12 months but if its just that you want to get around the process, then you are VERY unlikely. You need to have owned AND lived with the car in the UK for a FULL 12 months.....

Hi NeelD, Sorry for the slow response, had a three week vacation and returned to a crazy workplace this week so only just getting to this. I realise since you posted this you have decided to send the car anyway but here are some thoughts.... Selling it now in the UK, you are probably looking around 12K, perhaps a little less depending on negotiation. That would put it around $20K value plus shipping costs so it owes you around $30K in OZ. Current prices in OZ for a 2005-2006 RR sport with around 150,000KM is about $30K. http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Land-Rover-Range-Rover-Sport-2005/SSE-AD-2710063/?Cr=1&sdmvc=1 http://www.carsales.com.au/dealer/details/Land-Rover-Range-Rover-Sport-2005/AGC-AD-16651741/?Cr=2&sdmvc=1 http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Land-Rover-Range-Rover-Sport-2006/SSE-AD-2838741/?Cr=10&sdmvc=1 Given its an unwritten rule that you will get around 20% less for an import you would be slightly worse off, by say $5k (3k pounds) by bringing it over Vs just buying one here plus the cost of hiring a car. It should not be a problem with servicing and insurance as they sold them here so parts will be plentiful. At the end of the day the different is not "that" great so if you love the car and don't mind the small different then its not a bad idea....Its not always about financial differences..

I am in transit to the UK currently but will take a look soon and get back to you with some thoughts...

Happy to provide an opinion, can you please provide the following : Car Make : Car Model (including engine and gearbox) : Car Year : Car mileage : Special options : What is your motivation for sending the car (profit, can't get car in OZ, love the car and can't leave without it etc)? When are you planning on sending it? How long will you keep the car when you get to OZ (best guess, I.e. days, months, years, never sell, try to be as specific as possible)? When will you need the car in the UK vs Aus (I.e. it takes 3-4 months from shipping to on the road, will you have another car to cover it)?

Glad we could help. I was thinking about your situation last night. You could always look to sell it around the time you would be looking to ship it (if you go down that path) and if you end up getting far less than you think (I.e. south of 10K), you can always change your mind and ship it anyway as the maths might work out at that point.....But given it only has 10,000 miles on it, you should not have any trouble selling it for a good price....

Excellent point on the engine, thanks for clearing that up. In terms of insurance you don't need to tell some companies that its an import but others ask up front. So you an get away with "normal" insurance in most cases. Given the hassle of selling an import, that is where the pain will be. In my experience you need to assume a 20-30% reduction in the ozzie car market price so if you are OK with that then it would not be too bad but I just think that given it does not hold any significant value, its just not worth it.

Thanks, so here is how I see it : - You don't have any attachment to it so that should not be a factor. - You have another car for running around in the UK and plan on having it there when you arrive, so that is not a factor. Now, just remember, it takes 2-3 months to ship then another 2-8 weeks to get on the road, so just factor that in. Price wise I see it like this : - If you were to sell it in the UK right now, you would get 13-15K for it (based on what is for sale around that mileage), that is about $25,000 - Costs of shipping, importing etc around $9 - $10K - So the car will owe you around $35K (I.e. you would have got $25k if you sell if and you have to spend $10K to import it). Current market value in OZ for a similar car is around the same price, take this for example : http://www.carsales.com.au/demo/details/Skoda-Superb-2012/AGC-AD-16482494/?Cr=1&sdmvc=1 2012 model, 2.5 TDI (they don't have a 2LTR TDI in OZ), it only has 1,130 KM on it. So it would be a (slightly) newer car with car less KM on it for around the same price... Here is the kicker, based on my experience you would need to look at around 20-30% less in resale value for an import, so your far is in fact only worth around $28-$30K now....so a loss. In the future, the price of the cars will drop so the 20-30% reduction in price for an import becomes less a problem, but selling an import in general is a problem. The real issue I can see is that there does not appear to be any 2LTR TDI's in OZ. Given that engines these days are quite interchangeable its likely that engine exists in some form (I have not gone in to that level of detail) so you should be able to get parts however when selling, its not something people are looking for, that will put future pressure on the future sale of the car.... So my view on this is that I don't think its worth it. At best its a break even opportunity but most likely you will end up worse off financially as a result and have a lot more trouble insuring the import, servicing (as that engine is not sold here in that car) and selling. Hope that helps....

Your welcome, any questions, just ask.

Hey Grey sky, - Just one question, what is the engine of the car? 103TDI? 118TSI? 125TDI etc? That will help me....

Hey Arrows, in the end no. All up i got almost exactly what I had into it (all up including purchase, running costs, shipping, import etc) about 20 months later. I took very careful look at the prices when purchasing, in summary : When purchased : 39,000 pounds (about $65,000 at the time) Price of equivalent model in OZ at the time : $130 - $140K All in costs including shipping, importing etc $85,000 Sale price in OZ : $85,000. Now at the time of sale in OZ, Australian delivered cars (of the equivalent model / mileage) were going for around $95-$110K. I spoke with a number of forum members with M3's to get their purchase / sell prices (had been on this forum for some time so knew which ones to trust) so found that around $95K - $100K for an Aussie delivered model was about the going price....so the car had dropped around $30-$40K in real terms in OZ in just short of two years....probably about right for a 3-4 year old M3.... When I went to sell, I got some CRAZY offers. My favourite was a guy who was "doing me a favour" by selling to him at $65k!!! In the end, there was no interest for the car above $100K (not even a call) I got three offers in the low $80s and eventually got $85k. Now i "might" have been able to get more for it. I "might" have been able to get $5K more perhaps....I was also give advice to not tell people it was an import and hope they don't notice...but I am just not that type of person....Honesty does not pay! Would I do it again, hell yes!! Anyone else in OZ who bought the car at the same time would have lost $30k-$40K on the car in the same time as I broken even. I got to spend 20 wonderful months with a 2011 M3 competition pack DCT for free.....

So in my view its a bad idea to ask a company that has an interest in making money out of shipping cars if its worth it to ship a car. Now having said that, I used Iron Lady and would HIGHLY recommend them if you are planning on shipping your car, first class service all the way. What I believe is missing from their reviews are questions like : - What is your motivation for sending the car? - When are you planning on sending it? - What is your relationship to the car (I.e. are you emotionally attached to it) - How long will you keep the car when you get there? - When will you need the car in the UK vs Aus? - What is the car worth in the UK if you were to sell it at the point of sending Vs what the realistic value of selling it when it finally arrives in OZ? I have no affliction to any shipping, transport, import, or car companies in any way but I am a bit of a car nut. I recently shipped TWO M3's from the UK to OZ, one was always to keep, the other was always to try to make a profit. I learned a LOT from the experience so happy to help out. If you have any questions about if you can ship, what your visa requirements are, what type of shipping you should use etc please contact Iron Lady (or another company), they are experts in that field and will provide fantastic advice. My advice will be if its WORTH it to ship. My advice is free, its my opinion (you may not agree but its another opinion to use) but its COMPLETELY unbiased, in terms of any financial gain on my behalf, so if you are interested in my opinion, fire away, please fill in the following : Car Make : Car Model (including engine and gearbox) : Car Year : Car mileage : Special options : What is your motivation for sending the car (profit, can't get car in OZ, love the car and can't leave without it etc)? When are you planning on sending it? How long will you keep the car when you get to OZ (best guess, I.e. days, months, years, never sell, try to be as specific as possible)? When will you need the car in the UK vs Aus (I.e. it takes 3-4 months from shipping to on the road, will you have another car to cover it)? I will then work out the price in the UK (my view) Vs the price in OZ when you would be looking to sell (best guess) to determine when its worth it.

Personally I am not sure its worth it for that. We picked up a couch and fridge on gumtree in the UK for 20 quid each. Well worth looking at what is on gumtree in your local (or what will be local) area to see if its really worth it. You might be attached to the stuff of course, but if you are not you could probably save a LOT....

You will be amazed how much you can actually fit in the cube, take a look at my review here : http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/transport-shipping/213441-movecube-real-life-experience-worth-reading-if-you-looking-using-them.html A few pictures to show how we built up the cube and how we packed it. Using plastic containers rather than boxes can work for sure, just make sure they are perfectly square (many are larger at the top than the bottom so you lose all that room) otherwise you will lose quite a bit of space. The beauty of boxes is they are strong and have almost no volume. As you will see from ours, we had lots of different shapes and sizes of boxes and just spend a few days playing a game of tetris beforehand. As for leaving space, I would not recommended it for just the reason you say, if you find you can't fill it, just put in blankets, pillows etc and you will be fine. As others have said, you need to clean your shoes completely, then clean them again. Customs WILL open up your shoes box so the tip there is to put anything that customers will open (shoes, food, Xmas decorations) at the front of the cube so that there is minimal disruption when they do open and go through things. As for vac pac or not, the thing you need to be careful of is that after you have vac packed things, they are not efficient to then pack into another container (suitcase, plastic box etc) so you can end up not packing as much as you think. We used suit cases to pack and carefully laid things down so that they were all flat and then kept packing till that suitcase was within an inch of its life. The total weight of each of our suitcases, with just clothes, was well over 30KG.... As for small Vs Medium, mark out the space on the floor in a room and see just how little different there is. Now depending on your boxes it might make sense to go with the medium as the configuration might allow better for your boxes,but when we did the drawing out it was clear that it was not worth the extra money for the very little additional space (in our view anyway).... Hope this helps.

From memory it was a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than a container and a few hundred $ cheaper for the unpacking, customs etc. So I would say probably around $500AUD difference in the end. Not a HUGE amount, but for me with two cars, it was around $1,000 different so it added up. Now if you are planning on sending goods also you need to workout if the different from RORO and say a movecube is worth it for you. If you have LOADS to send then a container might be cheapering but if you can use a MC, I think that will be far cheaper in the long run. The RORO is perfectly fine from my experience. No damage what so ever and a very quick shipping time, highly recommended in my view to save some $$$$

I don't however I found that putting a note up on their facebook page got a very quick response, especially if its a frustrated note as yours would appear to be... Worth giving it a try if you have not already.

Hi Tia, First thing to take into account with the calculations is this, imported cars will typically sell for around 30% less that the same model that was delivered to OZ (non import). People can argue all they want that they are the "same car" but the market here just does not want to know about imported cars. So if you are looking at the valuation in OZ, take 20-30% off and that is the realistic price you will be able to sell it on for. Now if you have no plans on selling it, then its a mute point...but most people don't hold onto cars that long. Other things to take into account : - Its VERY likely that you will not have a warranty by VW in Aus, they are country specific - Assuming you ship your car somewhere near when you are leaving the UK, you will have 2-3 months in OZ without a car - Don't listen to people who say you can't insure your car as its an import, as the UK delivered cars are the same spec as Aussie cars, you DO NOT need to tell them its an import. I am with AAMI here in OZ and they never asked. You provide the VIN number and they are fine with it. - I used RORO shipping as it was far cheaper than container and both cars I imported (2004 BMW M3 and 2011 BMW M3) arrived without a scratch. Remember, RORO are used for almost every car manufacturer in the world, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW, Merc etc so don't be put off by it. Hope this helps.

Given the minimum cost of import is 2,500 pounds, if you were to sell yours now and that you would have more to spend than the value of these cars in OZ. You have to realise also that in OZ imported cars are around 30% less value at time of sale, so its probably only worth $5,000 to sell as is. My view, its not worth it..you will be better off financially selling in the UK and buying fresh in OZ.

You have to be careful with this. I bought a 2011 (MY2012) golf TSI 118 (comfortline spec, the top of the line here is high line but they are almost non existant, this one was supercharged and turbo charged) with 21,000 KM on it for $18,700 on the road, and that was nearly a year ago. This was also the DSG. In OZ, you almost can't get manual cars in things like golfs, aussies just drive autos so resell will be hard. I have not heard of the "match" variation but as the one I bought was very well spec'ed. Here is the clincher, its going to cost you probably 4000 pounds import / transport etc costs. Assuming you could sell it for 11,000, thats 15K to play with in OZ, or around $25,000. If you take a look at carsales, you can get VERY nice golfs for way less that this : http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Volkswagen-Golf-2011/SSE-AD-2856173/?Cr=1&sdmvc=1 http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Volkswagen-Golf-2012/SSE-AD-2787981/?Cr=9&sdmvc=1 http://www.carsales.com.au/dealer/details/Volkswagen-Golf-2013/AGC-AD-15634275/?Cr=9&sdmvc=1 That last one is a latest model 2013, 4000 miles and only $23K. Take into account that your car will not have a warranty, it WAY harder to sell on (OZ people don't like imports) and the versions here will have all of this, you will (probably) have to wait 1-3 months in OZ for it to arrive so need to organise interim transport for then, I think there is little value in bringing your car....my opinion anyway....

Hi Amdaloia, I have written a detailed review here : http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/transport-shipping/213441-movecube-real-life-experience-worth-reading-if-you-looking-using-them.html While my experience was not great, I will say that you can fit a LOT of stuff in there, far more than you realise. In terms of sizes, we went for the small one as we marked out and area on the ground, then marked out the medium and realised there was acutally not much more space. Now you might need more space if you have larger items that need the physical room / dimensions but if you pack well, you can get a massive amount in the small cube (see the pictures we too). Personally we used cardboard boxes and played a little tetris with the spacing but did fill it from floor to celling.

Just be a little careful with this. I imported two cars, both had the isofix restraints but one needed new anchor points mounted,but that only cost me $150 with the company I went through. If you don't mind me asking, what are you are planning on importing and for what reason (Make money, love the car, value of cars in OZ etc). I think a lot of people get caught up with the outright prices of cars in oz and think they will be better off importing when in fact, in the long run, you can lose out quite a bit. Now having said that, I imported two cars and am still well in front in terms of value should I see the second one (already sold the first) but I was well aware of what I was getting into. Happy to give some advice / experience from my side if that will help.

How did your loading go? As for not filling the space, I am sure you made the most of it. If you don't have that much you can always fill the remainder of space with pillows, blankets etc to keep everything else safe... Sorry to hear you had the same experience. I too had the guy from Newcastle come to collect ours. Seems the person that is local for Scotland has been sick from November through January, you would think they would hire a new person in that time???? I would agree with your summary also, in the end ours arrived, it was just the hassle and stress of each step that was the concern for us. Given it took 5 months for us, and just a bit less for you, when they quote less than 3, its just not good enough. Now if they had tracking on where it was, what it was doing etc that would have eased the stress as at least we would know they were on top of it.....Something like "Sorry Mr Savitar, there was a boat breakdown and its taken us 6 weeks to unload and re-distribute the cargo so we expect your arrival around week X of May on ship 1234"....Rather than "Let me put you on hold.....Sorry, we don't actually know where it is, which ships its on or when it will arrive, but we expect it in the next few weeks"....Hmmmm.......

Are you able to break down the costs, I just imported 2 cars and from memory the costs were about : - £1000 for the shipping, i used RORO and it was fine - 15% of the cars value for import duties - £1000 for customs fees - $990 (£550) for ADR compliance So depending on the cars value, it starts around £2,500 before the car valuation costs. If the van gets valued at say $10,000, then you would need to add around £1,000, making the import closer to £4,000, just to be conservative. There are additional costs such are roadworthy, insurance, registration fees etc but you would have to pay these on any car you buy in OZ anyway so they don't really add to the costs (as you would be spending them regardless). Now the question of if its worth it is very subjective. If you can get 10K pounds for it and but a similar one in OZ for around the $20K mark, there is very little in the out of pocket and a significant amount less stress. HOWEVER, if you are looking to import just remember, people in OZ are VERY wary about buying an import so if you do import it and plan on selling it at ANY point, assume you are going to get around 30% less than the market value of an aussie delivered version of the same car. Its stupid, it makes no sense but its the way the market works here...

One option could be to send your goods via a MoveCube and then ship your car via RORO. I did not have a great experience with MoveCube but others have been very happy with them (all our stuff arrived, it was just 5 months!!) but the RORO option worked very well for us, and we shipped two M3's without damage, on time and very professionally. Might be worth a look into....