Shipping car and household plus deadlines

[Mopoke]

First post of many I'm sure! I'm an Aussie [dual] who has spent most of my working life in the UK. My British wife [permanent resident for Oz] and I have made the decision to head back to Australia and see where life takes us - sometime before March. I've been an avid lurker on the forum for a while and I have found a couple of questions peculiar to our circumstances, that I'm sure others may have tackled. 

Firstly, we have no idea where our plans will take us yet and where we'll be living in Australia - beyond using Air BnB initially and taking it from there. The question I have is if we put our household possessions in long-term storage in the UK [any recommendations?] and ship them out to us, say, in a year's time, do you run the risk of paying extra import/customs/taxes because the Aussie authorities don't recognise that they are your household effects? I'm sure they are used to most people moving and shipping at the same time.

Secondly, I've read a lot of the removal threads with interest and it seems that people either engage a removalist for a full service door-to-door or sending their vehicles separately as they are rarely mentioned together in the same thread. I've also seen the excellent posts from @Iron Chef but I'm wondering if people haven't used a broker and still managed to get a vehicle in, particularly if you have had mixed belongings too. Many of the specialist car shippers in the UK seem to have local Aussie partners.

We're shipping a 4WD that will take up a 20ft container with room for nothing else so that has made us reconsider a 40ft container to get some stuff in. We feel that storing our furniture in the UK will be environmentally safer than Australia initially [I used to have to pack books with camphor in Oz] and this is leading us to go round and round in circles a little bit.

Thanks for any advice. 

[roomummy]

I am also interested in the option to ship a 'vehicle' with our belongings. I have been quoted £9k to ship out my horse float which is absolutely ridiculous! I would like to have it professionally serviced to meet the quarantine rules, than fill it with boxes and load it with my household belongings. But cant seem to find information about combining contents into one container. 

[Mopoke]

It's frustrating roomummy as we can't be the first to ship cars with belongings. I've tried two Aussie car importers who have said "cars only". You may have some luck with Dazmac who seem to have trailers as one of the things they import.

[SusieRoo]

I'm also interested in a combined shipment of 4WD and household. From what I understand from google research, it's not cost effective arranging a full shipping container yourself.

Apparently shipping costs globally have never been cheaper, but there is a huge markup when an individual books a container, as apposed to a business. I think this may be due to the additional hassle of dealing with Joe Public. We did a container shipment from the USA many years ago and there was a lot of addition costs for road transport.

So my current plan is to ship the car from Southampton on the standard car ship (no container) for under £1000, then do the import and inspection arrangements ourselves, allowing an additional £2500. Then ship the household with a removal company, allowing £3500 (ball park) for door to door. Total cost for £7000, which appears to be about the same price for just the 'sea' part of a 40' container.

Another concern I have about a filling the car with household items, is the car will need inspecting, and possibly cleaning on arrival, so this my cause additional problems and cost.

I'm no expert, but I will follow this thread to see if anyone has advice.

Also, I would be careful of what you put into storage, it's very easy to keep items you later don't need and end up selling for less than the cost of storage. Best to have a big sort out and boot sale then only keep the things you really need.

[Marisawright]

These guys do car and goods together

https://www.autoshippers.co.uk/container_car_shipping.htm

This is an Australian company:

http://www.willship.com.au/roll-on-roll-off-vs-container-shipping-which-is-right-for-you/

[ArrowsEng]

10 years ago, i returned to Australia after living for 10 years in UK. I packed 3 cars in the bottom of a 40ft container and the shipping company built a mezzanine floor above them and packed all our household goods above the cars. It was cheaper that way as the price difference from a 20ft to a 40ft was about the cost of shipping 1 car by itself so I got 2 cars shipped free (in a way).

[Mopoke]

Thanks Marisawright. Is it safe to assume PSS and the usual removalists also offer car services - it says so on the site so I'm assuming so but I've not seen anyone post here saying they shipped a mix of car and personal possessions so it made me wonder. ArrowsEng can you recall the name of the company you used? Guessing you didn't do the 3 cars via Personal Import [unless you owned all three for longer than 12 months]?

 

[ArrowsEng]

Hi Mopoke, we used Allied Pickfords out of Oxford.

One car was a personal import, one car was a pre-89 import and the other was a race car import (a lotus 7 type clubman which was only going to be used for track days).

You can only bring in 1 personal import per person. You can bring in as many pre-89 cars as you like but getting them complied is far more hassle than a personal import (unless you have owned it for mare than 12 months). You used to be able to bring in race cars but now they want you to prove you have a racing licence.

[Mopoke]

Thanks ArrowsEng. I can't message yet as too new but how did you find the asbestos issue? Banned in 1999 in the UK our 4WD is 1994 though but we've replaced the brakes/auto box gaskets/ and a lot of gaskets in routine servicing so we think the risk is remote - however it doesn't stop ABF requesting an asbestos check if they wanted to. According to ABF site a letter from a mechanic is not enough. Sorry - a bit off topic.

[ArrowsEng]

10 years ago there was no asbestos issue. It has only been a problem for about the last 18 months when the Australian quarantine inspection service decided to have a 100% implementation of the rule thats been around for a long time but had never really worried about. Now adays some people ship cars with no brake pads, etc and get them fitted in Australia so as they don't have to run the risk of testing. It means the vehicle has to go in a container and have a big sign on the windscreen saying "NO BRAKES, DO NOT START VEHICLE".

 

[unzippy]

Or in some cases - ship with no engine/box/brakes and then stuff a RB26 in 

 

 

[Mopoke]

I know this won't be a surprise to many on the forum but Britannia, PSS and Pickfords all are fine mixing car shipping with household shipping. In my various searches, I found a good company for car shipping http://www.farandwidelimited.co.uk contact is Tom Steel. We didn't go with them in the end but he was really helpful and responsive. I know another person who used them and had a good experience. As with all of the companies, much depends on their local partner on the ground. Karman Shipping was also highly recommended but the owner told me he was retiring imminently. That said he has great information on his website.

[Marisawright]

7 hours ago, Mopoke said:

I know this won't be a surprise to many on the forum but Britannia, PSS and Pickfords all are fine mixing car shipping with household shipping.

I can't recall, but I assume you posted on the "Iron Lady"  forum to make sure your car is worth bringing with you?  The results can be surprising, never assume.

[SusieRoo]

17 hours ago, Mopoke said:

I know this won't be a surprise to many on the forum but Britannia, PSS and Pickfords all are fine mixing car shipping with household shipping. In my various searches, I found a good company for car shipping http://www.farandwidelimited.co.uk contact is Tom Steel. We didn't go with them in the end but he was really helpful and responsive. I know another person who used them and had a good experience. As with all of the companies, much depends on their local partner on the ground. Karman Shipping was also highly recommended but the owner told me he was retiring imminently. That said he has great information on his website.

Thank you for sharing this info. Can I ask who you used and what sort of prices did you find for a 20' or 40' container?

[Mopoke]

Hi Marisa, we haven't used Iron Lady because we are shipping a 4WD land cruiser completely kitted out for overlanding so "worth" becomes relative. In fact, PSS's local Sydney partner Palmers Relocations seem really helpful and on the ball - they have an agent to do the pink slip/blue slip engineer checks for our modifications - up to the point of registering it. 

[ArrowsEng]

I know Iron Lady has that service in Victoria (Engineer, RWC, registration) I'd be surprised if he doesn't have it in other states also.

[Mopoke]

Hi SusieRoo, a number of exporters have told me that rates are as cheap as they have seen for a while to Oz - it's just when you get to Australia you have to start throwing money at people. So shipping only for a car at 20ft has been around £1100-1300 and 40ft £2100-2300. Interestingly, hi-cube 40ft [what we're opting for] doesn't add a lot at the moment and you get a decent increase in volume.   For cars, some charges include: Clearance, Import Inspection Fee, Quarantine entry, Wharf transport, Container unpack, Quarantine inspection(s), Steam cleaning, Customs vehicle valuation, Management fees

We got quotes from Britannia, PSS and Pickfords - the first two were similar and the latter was a lot more than the other two. I can't give you shipping only for these guys as they lump all of the costs together. We are almost certainly going to choose PSS as we like the customer service we've been receiving. DM me if you'd like further info. As I'm still negotiating I don't think it is fair to publishing the nitty gritty as yet.