Impasse

Yeah, the DAB and ordinary radios and everything else works perfectly. Insurance has not been a problem; I think I only found one of the main insurers who wouldn't touch an import and premiums have been roughly what I'd pay in the UK I think. I would definitely check with Mercedes Benz about the sat-nav before going; Jag here got in touch with the UK to get the scores on the doors so you can cut out the middleman, perhaps. Frankly even for my car I'm still not convinced that it *isnt* just a case of changing the data but I've given up arguing. All Jaguar would say is that the specification of Australian cars is different to their U.K. Cars which did surprise me, I admit. Perhaps Mercedes will be a bit more global in spec and there's no harm asking. As for value, I would expect to pay less for an import myself (unless it was something highly exotic) but I would still expect your car to be worth it; Mercedes Benz is very popular over here.

A couple of years ago I asked whether it would be worth bringing my Jaguar XF over, and was told it would be. I thought I'd share my experience with you, briefly. The actual process of importing was quite simple and the physical part was not actually very expensive; the various duties and taxes payable in Australia weren't unexpected but were considerably more than the shipping! The only slight fly in the ointment was that the driver who collected my car and took it to the docks picked up a speeding ticket - I wasn't very impressed by that. Once here, getting the car taken to a local garage for its blue slip was easy enough. There were no problems getting it approved either; the dual speedometer was good enough and the slightly curved wing mirror wasn't a problem even though I thought it might be. Things that weren't so good: I had expected that updating the sat-nav to local maps would be as simple as buying an Australian data upgrade for a couple of hundred dollars but it has turned out that I (apparently) need to replace the entire sat-nav unit, at the cost of a couple of thousand. Needless to say I haven't bothered with doing this. Replacing the speedo card was more cost than I could be bothered to incur too - no doubt a back street garage could have done it cheaper than Jaguar's quote but there's a digital speed readout too and I've been fine with that. And that's about the only problem really. Now then: I have just decided to sell the car as a trade-in. Red book indicates that a typical XF of similar type and vintage should be around the $30,000 mark as a trade in. Mercedes Benz offered me $12000 since they were apparently under the impression that a) the car was a year older than it is and b) that the odometer was reading 70,000 miles rather than kilometres. Audi had a good laugh at this and offered $25k which bearing in mind the reasonably high kms, no sat-nav, dual speedo and generally being an import, I was quite happy with. So come July, I'll be driving a local car. Would I import again? I probably would - the experience was on the whole a positive one, with a few surprises with proposed costs that I declined, and gave me two more years with a great car which would cost me a whole lot more to buy over here. So thank you for the advice!

I'm off to Sydney in April. So I was starting to watch the calendar particularly nervously.

Congratulations! Mine came through yesterday (the 11th). Much relief all round! Never did get a notice that I'd had a case officer assigned, just an email telling me that my EOI had been deleted (because it's now redundant), and a second email containing a copy of the visa itself. So that's it... all my worries are over! <starts worrying about organising the move>

Yeah - speaking as a software engineer this is a good thing, but as an offshore applicant not so much! Maybe the onshore applicants are deemed to have undergone a bit of pre-processing so are a bit quicker to do (or maybe it's just the way it looks from the visa tracker, I guess that the percentage of people who use it is a small one).

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Glad to hear someone's getting their visa through, though; at least something's happening!

Not that it matters in the context of the OP's issue, but: Source. I'm not going to get into an argument about language.

Yep, that's probably the sensible approach. Thanks

That wasn't my question. My question was if I applied for a visitor visa, would that interfere with the processing of my 189 visa. I seem to recall reading something to that effect earlier, but can't find it now. Ali: even that doesn't really solve the problem, since I could read that as just "Don't count your chickens until they hatch" rather than "Don't set foot in this country until you get the stamp".

Are you sure? Because this says

IELTS test results are valid for two years, so I expect that you'd be able to do this... but I would think that the only way to be certain would be to ask the British Council. To be sure that you're safe, perhaps you could do IELTS Academic for the skills assessment, then PTE for the EOI (I think that it is accepted now as evidence of English ability, but you'd need to check). All that's assuming that you don't get the score you need right away in the Academic IELTS - there's every chance that you will! Edit: After reading wrussell's post above, I can assure you that the word 'only' is in the right place

Yes, that is an option but I'd rather not have to, since I have plans for shortly after I arrive (or, shortly after I intend to arrive!)

I'm flying out to Australia in April, so I'm getting particularly twitchy about waiting for my 189 visa to be granted. I'm wondering what my options are if it's not done in time. Can I apply for an eVisitor visa so as not to waste the flight - I'm aware that I can't work on this visa but never mind - and if I do, will it interfere with my 189 application? And if I'm in Australia when my 189 arrives, do I have to leave and come back to activate it? Hopefully this question will be redundant since it'll be granted OK, but...

It's difficult to say how hard you'll find it to get a grade 8 in the IELTS, without knowing how good your reading/writing skills are. There's not a lot of wriggle room - I think 4 wrong answers in the reading or listening test will drop you to a 7.5, so you've got to be on your game. I used ieltspractice.com to get some practice in - it's not free but it included a lot of sample tests which did give me some confidence that I knew exactly what to expect in the real test. Having said that, the native speakers in my exam all exchanged a glance when the listening test was over because it went off at a speed and complexity none of us were expecting, so perhaps no amount of sample tests can really prepare you entirely! What the foreign examinees must have made of it I can't imagine. There are some free sample resources on the British Council site, too and listening to the tutors' videos was useful. Not least since one of the guys taking the test the same day as me was doing a retake, since although he'd scored a 9 in three parts of the test he'd only got a 6.5 in the written part and his message was that even if you're a native speaker you need to understand what it is that they're going to be looking for in the written test; you can't just turn up on the day and hope to busk it. It wasn't much good telling us that as we were queuing to get in, but I pass it on to you early enough to do some good, I hope! Re: the agent... depends how confident you're feeling. I didn't use an agent, I did all the work myself and it's quite hard to see how a fee of £2000 can be justified, since most of the work of collating the documentation is still going to have to be done by you anyway. NB I haven't got my visa yet so I should probably wait to see if I'm successful before I give advice on how easy the application was to do

Many thanks