vehicle import approval

[jim bugg]

Hi all,

 

Just in the process of submitting my vehicle import approval and have a question.

 

If i am using a shipping company to transport the vehicle to oz and clear it through customs, then their oz based partner to get it registered and adr compliant, who do i put down as the agent on the VIA form?

 

Also, i understand from the notes if its a vehicle pre 89, i put in the addendum for both pre 89, and personel import.

 

Does this sound right?

[jim bugg]

well, this is great, i have now completed the online application twice today, lond winded as it is, and it would appear the system is down, as after, so far, 34 minutes the second time, i am still waiting for the payment page to connect!!

 

not good, surely the system cant be this slow?

[jim bugg]

For anyone in the future, it would appear, if you try to select (it says select all that apply) 2 catagories on the import approval online page, when you have filled everything in the page freezes after for hit the submit button, and does nought from then on, i waited an hour.

 

Towards the end of the hour, i tried again on a fresh page to submit selecting just the manufactured pre 89 option, filled in, accepted and paid in 10 minutes.

 

 

So, it would appear, only select one option to save frustration!!

 

Now to wait and se if i get hammered on tax as the pre 89 option doesnt ask for all the 12 months ownership etc!!

[TessD]

Hi Jim

we are almost at the end of our PI process. Our vehicle isn't pre 89 (2003) and there have been a few hold ups along the way. We shipped ours with our furniture and experienced no problems except that, even tho we had the chassis steam cleaned in UK, AQIS weren't happy here and it cost about $600 to have it cleaned again. There seems to be a gap between what the federal gov and state gov require from you in the process of getting the car registered. Once our car registration is finalised I'll post the whole process on here. In the meantime if you have any questions please feel free to pm me. Teresa

[ArrowsEng]

For anyone in the future, it would appear, if you try to select (it says select all that apply) 2 catagories on the import approval online page, when you have filled everything in the page freezes after for hit the submit button, and does nought from then on, i waited an hour.

 

Towards the end of the hour, i tried again on a fresh page to submit selecting just the manufactured pre 89 option, filled in, accepted and paid in 10 minutes.

 

 

So, it would appear, only select one option to save frustration!!

 

Now to wait and se if i get hammered on tax as the pre 89 option doesnt ask for all the 12 months ownership etc!!

 

Hi Jim,

What year is the build of your car? Is it newer than 1977? If it is I just want to strongly suggest that if you can apply for the car as a Personal Import (if you have owned it for more than 12 months and can prove it with the V5) then please go for the Personal Import instead of the Pre-89.

In Victoria, I am a VASS engineer, I sign off the PI or Pre-89 cars before they get registered. With a PI you only have to make sure the seatbelts, seats and child restraint anchorages are correct and I can sign these off for around $220.

If you go for a Pre-89 import, you have to make the car compliant to the Australian Design Rules for the year it was built, that means if the car was built after 1977 it needs to have Intrusion bars put into the doors, possibly cat converters fitted and other items. The door beams are $450 to $650 PER DOOR, depending on how hard they are to fit.

Please let me know which State and which car you are bringing and I can help a little better with what you might need if you have to bring it as a Pre-89.

[nikkib]

Our Touareg is on the seas atm with Karman Shipping heading for Sydney, the process has been very painless so far. We spent a lot of time and effort getting the car immaculate, removing the inner wheel arch liners etc before steam clean, detail clean inside.....

 

Will post what happens sept when it arrives.... Steve White is the agent Sydney side

[Skippy1]

Our car was in showroom condition.........still hit with cleaning fees here. My advice is give it a good clean forget about paying to get any cleaning done as i think its a bit of a given they will request it is professionally cleaned here.............

 

Funny there are only a few companies that do it here, so someone is making good money at this end. oh and our car was even dirtier than when we put it on the container when we got it back "professionally cleaned"

[ArrowsEng]

I have to agree with Skippy1, when I brought 3 cars over with me, 1 was a bit grubby, 1 was clean but not showroom condition and the 3rd was showcar spotless. All 3 still got sent for steam cleaning as the Quarantine department in Australia want to make sure that no rogue seed pods or mad cow disease (or whatever other excuses they have this week) gets into Australia, so they all get the $500+ steam cleaning charge.

2 of my cars returned to me grubbier than when they went into the container, guess which one didn't!

[pwkl]

It's hard not to be cynical about the 'cleaning fees' imposed at customs, but as a tale of optimism and hope, I did not get charged with a cleaning fee. It was even raining on the day it was loaded up in the UK.

[miw54]

Hi

would really appreciate your posting of the entire experience and costs. We would like to take our 2004 Renault with us to Oz as it is a great little car, air conditioned, tinted windows and has been a reliable runner for us for the last 5 years, but we are baffled by all the requirements, charges and duties. We have been advised that it probably isn't worth taking really but we'd get so little for it here and the cost of replacing it in Oz seems enormous in comparison. :smile:

[ArrowsEng]

Hi

would really appreciate your posting of the entire experience and costs. We would like to take our 2004 Renault with us to Oz as it is a great little car, air conditioned, tinted windows and has been a reliable runner for us for the last 5 years, but we are baffled by all the requirements, charges and duties. We have been advised that it probably isn't worth taking really but we'd get so little for it here and the cost of replacing it in Oz seems enormous in comparison. :smile:

 

Hi miw54,

In reality, if you wish to replace your 2004 Renault with another 2004 Renault in Australia, then you would be better off selling your car and buying another one here in Australia. You can get 2004 Renault Megane, 75000km for around $3500 or a Renault Scenic, 110000km for around $3000 or a Renault Clio, 86000km for around $4000.

Every state in Australia has different cost involved with changing ownership of cars or indeed registering a second hand car brought in from overseas. I can only advise you about Victoria's costs as thats where I live and deal with VicRoads, the licensing authority for Victoria.

 

It is best to get a price for shipping your car to Australia from someone like the Iron Chef, on this forum, its his business to get cars shipped at a good price and I've heard he does this well, so best to start with a shipping cost from his company "Iron Lady Imports".

There are 2 ways to ship your car. One is Roll On Roll Off, which means the car goes by itself on a ship and this is not bad if you can ship it 6 weeks before your due to leave and maybe borrow a friends car in the UK until you are ready to fly, this cuts down the amount of time you need to hire or be without your car in Australia until yours is ready. Iron Chef can give you better idea of shipping times but i think its 6 to 8 weeks from UK to Oz.

The second way is to pack your car in a container with your household goods, the cost of this is generally the difference that the car takes up in space in a container, so if your household can be packed into a 20ft container then the cost of shipping your car is the cost of going from that 20ft container to say a 40ft container to be able to fit the car in.

I did this in 2008 because I could cleverly squeeze 3 cars into the bottom of a 40ft container then build a mezzanine floor above the 3 cars and fit the equivalent of a 20ft containers worth of household goods above the 3 cars (my 3 cars were 15ft long, 14ft long and 10ft long).

Back in 2008 the cost was approx. pounds 7000 for the 40ft compaired to 4500 for the 20ft, this included all packing and unpacking etc.

A rough guide for RORO shipping was pounds 1200 for each car, but as mentioned above, please get up to date numbers for these from a professional like Iron Lady Imports as mine are a bit old. You also need to pay 5% import duty and 10% GST on the whole cost of car and shipping and also customs entry fee $65 and customs agent fees - need to get quotes. As your car is air conditioned, you can't import the gas in your AC into australia without a gas licence, some agents can help you with this but sometimes you have to get your local garage in the UK to de-gas the AC and give you a certificate to say its empty and then get the AC re-gassed in Australia, approx $150.

 

Once your car has arrived in Melbourne you need to go through the following process (I'm going to put this on the Victoria Forum soon too as I have been asked a few times what happens once the car arrives).

Once the car is in quarantine, you have to budget on it being steam cleaned, this involves the car being put on a tow truck, taken to a special place that blasts it with water and then gets returned on the tow truck, it will cost over $500.

Once this is all paid, you can get your car delivered on the back of a tow truck (about $200) or sometimes you can pick it up. If you wish to drive it on the road you have to get a 28 day unregistered vehicle permit from Vic Roads for this, i think they are about $60.

 

You then need to take the car, with your Personal Import Approval letters (there are 4 in total) to a VASS engineer, there is a list on VicRoads website and I'm one of the engineers on that list.

The VASS engineer checks that your car has correct working seatbelts for all seats, that the headrests are correct for each seat and that there is an ADR 34 acceptable Child Restraint Anchorage for each of the rear seats. This is where some European cars need these fitted at an approx. cost of $110 per seat (usually 2 or 3 required). Once this is done the Engineer signs the Personal Import papers and one gets sent to Niddrie nameplates for the yellow PI sticker that gets stuck to the passenger door B-pillar to say it complies. VASS engineers charge $165 to $220 for this.

Once the sticker is fitted, you take the car to a Road Worthy Certificate garage, who will check the car is mechanically safe - similar to a MOT but you only have to do this when the car is being registered on changing ownership, not every year as with an MOT. The RWC costs around $265, unless there are issues that the mechanic wants fixed, common issues for older cars are sand blasted, stone chipped windscreens to be replaced or suspension ball joints are worn. These costs vary from almost nothing to many hundreds of dollars to fix.

Finally with the Import Approval signed and RWC, you can go to a VICRoads office and get your car registered but there you get another lot of fees:

Appointment Fee: $16.90

Inspection Fee: $27.00

Registration Fee: $270.40

Transport Accident Fee: $443.00

Insurance duty: $44.30

Number plates: $34.00

Motor Vehicle Duty: (4.2% of the value of the vehicle, based on a $3000 car, this is:) $126.00

VicRoads charges = $961.60.

 

Many of the above VicRoads charges you will incur, whether you buy a car here or bring your own but if your buying a car here you can make the seller supply the RWC and it should already have number plates.

 

You can then finally insure your car but be careful not to mention its a personal import, unless you have to, its not dishonest but the insurance companies will put on a premium if they think the car is not Australian delivered. Finally most insurance companies give you the option of Fully comprehensive insurance (covers you and whatever you might hit) or Third party-Fire and Theft if the vehicle is valued under $1000 but this means if you hit someone, there car is covered but not yours.

 

Regards, Blake.