ArrowsEng

Hi Fishenka, is your car Australian delivered or is it a Personal Import? If you have the owners manual of an Australian delivered car it will have instructions on how to install the Child Restraint Anchorage bolt and hook into a 3/8" nut and plate thats installed in the back of the car. If your car is a Personal Import with a 2nd row of seats then by law it must have had the CRA's installed and checked by an Engineer who signed off the import papers. What is the type and year of your car?

Hi Richard, The Pre-89 rules are a bit more expensive to have a car Complied to in Australia compared to the personal import rule. With the Personal Import rule, the car just needs to have seatbelts with manufacturers tags, headrests at the right height (750mm above the seat base) and Child restraint anchorages fitted for any 2nd row seats. With the Pre-89, you need to make the car comply with the Australian Design Rules of the year it was manufactured. This means Anti-Intrusion bars to be fitted to the doors ($350 to $600 per door depending on how hard the job is), new rubber brake tubes if you can't see the markings on the old ones, possibly a kph speedo if the original only shows mph and emissions system brought up to standard, which might mean new cat converters fitted, along with the Child Restraint Anchorages. I am currently doing the engineering report for a friend who has brought in a pre-89 Bentley Turbo to Australia, so we have just gone though his modification list. The whole cost will depend on which Engineer you get to sign off the car in the state that you want to register it. Unless the car is for yourself, I'd be surprised if you would make money on an XJS in Australia. Also, if anyone is bringing a PI, try and get an Irish car to bring over, it has a kph speedo and so Australians would be more likely not to notice it as an English import. Australians tend to be quite snobbish about English imports as they expect them to be rust buckets due to the gritting of the roads and so you won't get the same prices as an Australian delivered car. Regards, Blake A.

The legal requirement is anything over 2" requires an Engineers certificate. This is under VSB14 from Canberra: 4.11 LOWERING OR RAISING VEHICLES None of the codes in VSB 14 allow for the raising of any vehicle where the wheel track has also been reduced. These vehicles are subject to individual approval on a case-by-case basis. Raising the height of the vehicle may be performed without certification providing the overall increase in vehicle height is not more than 50mm. This may be achieved as a single modification such as the installation of a 50mm lift kit, or by a combination of smaller lifts as described below:  the fitting of body blocks or lift kits (50mm maximum if no other modifications resulting in a change of vehicle height are performed);  suspension modification, (50mm maximum if no other modifications resulting in a change of vehicle height are performed);  changes to tyre size (maximum change in tyre size diameter of 50mm); or  a combination of the above that results in a change of vehicle height not exceeding 50mm. So your 40mm of the Touareg is no problem. I think your problem might be that if you haven't already got an Import Approval for your car, Canberra will probably reject the VIA as you have been living in Australia for 2 years already. I believe there is a 6 month limit on the time you can be in Australia after which they reject the VIA.

I did this about 7 years ago, returning to Melbourne, from the UK, with 3 cars in the bottom of a 40ft container and having a mezzanine floor built above them that then had the household goods. If the one container has car and goods, I'd keep to the same freight forwarders to cover the whole container. The trick with the car is not letting the freight forwarder charge you too much to have it steam cleaned. Every car coming to Australia will get transported to a quarantine site to be steam cleaned on the outside, no matter how clean it is and for this you will be charged. Try not to pay more than $500 but some will try and charge over $1000. Then contact a VASS engineer from Vicroads website, who can sign your import papers (ranges from $330 to $660 depending on number of child restraints that have to be fitted) and get a roadworthy from a RWC workshop and you can then register your car in Victoria. You can get a 30 day permit from VicRoads that allows you to drive your car, unregistered, during daylight hours, while your getting the above work done, to save using a tow truck.