Importing cars from NZ to aus

[zandi2000]

hey guys, i recently got back from NZ, and i was suprised to see how cheap the cars are there, im thinking of buying a second hand skyline there, would anyone help me out with what sort of procedures and costs that i would have to deal with, to bring the car to melbourne... thanks

[redline2003]

yeh NZ is home to imports as they hav no import tax, also they can import wateva car they want(unlike us where we cant import cars that hav been aus delievered)... lucky bastards. do they hav strict mod laws like us??? coz im gona go there these summer holidays or next yr maybe. btw is that you in the avatar next to the ferrari? how does the beast feel/look in real life?

[zandi2000]

hey mate, yeh i just got back from auckland a few hours ago, and i absolutely loved it, ull have a mad time, theyre all so friendly and its a beautiful country, i just wish i could have had a bit more time there... The first thing that struck me was the amount of cars which we regard as rare here.. on their streets.... like evos are common as muck!! as for mod laws i really dont know, but pretty much every second car on queen street had apexi computers for show for all, loud ass exhausts and they were dumped to the ground... Yeh thats me in the pic, my mate bryan tanti, who looks after cars for lyndsay fox allows me to mess around there.. that cars a beast, but i also liked sitting in the r32 bathurst classic beast

[Parag0n]

Mate also got back from NZ, excatly the same thing he said to me there are so many Lancer Evo's there so common there like commodores he said !

[predator]

... importing a car from NZ will cost you about the same, if not more than from japan.

You still have to pay similar shipping costs, import duties, and GST, etc as if you'd bought from Japan, except you're paying $NZ. So add what it would cost to ship the same car from Japan to your $NZ purchase price and then think about how it again ...

If you live there and own the car for a year, you might be able to get away with the personal import rule.

Don't worry, everybody has thought about it..

[zandi2000]

when i was there, i heard about a lad who kept the car in storage for 3 months, then shipped it to australia via samoa... and apparently theres a kinda loop hole there, would anyone be able to elaboreate on that.... The savings are HUGGEE like, heres some of the deals that struck me... a nice r32 turbo like mine for 7 grand.. and thats not one off.... mr2s for around 7, wrx stis for around 13-16.... i mean, who are the australian government joking with here??

[predator]

They're protecting the local industry..

It would collapse overnight and thousands would be out of work otherwise.. Think about how many tens of thousands of people Ford, Holden and the like employ throughout the country. Much as it would be nice to have cheaper imports, I don't think anybody really wants that to happen.

[zandi2000]

beg to differ mate... protecting local industry i agree with, however to do so, the companies must be competative... The laws are in place to bias the customers to buy australian made cars, which are of a lower quality and less cost effective than alot of the imports.... Even in bloody england cars are less than half price... who are they kidding

[predator]

Well I didn't say I agreed with that policy.. i was just saying that is why it is the case

If the laws were changed the balance could quickly tip Ford, Holden (and especially Mitsubishi) local production out of business. They already are teetering and have been for many years due to the very points you raise - lack of competitiveness on the world stage. Happened to Nissan Australia a few years ago afterall.

[zandi2000]

well, its only the fault of the australian manafacturers in the first place i guess... im from england and there they embrace imports as competition... there it was alot easier to import cars, i bought a merc in germany and brought it to england the next day paying near nothing for tax... and the english car companies are now forced to compete, which is what they are doing...its not fair to force the public to buy a lesser product

[Daz]

I know that you are not allowed to import series 6 RX-7s from Japan but can you import them via New Zealand??

Does anyone know.

[whodaman]

check out: http://www.dotars.gov.au/transreg/vsb/vsb_10.htm (Vehicle Standards Bulletin VSB10 - Importing Vehicles to Australia)

You can read up on the other categories... but the category I fell under was Personal Imports. You need to own the car for at least a year and must have stayed in nz for that 1 year (they get photocopies of your passport).

costs:

- application to import

- shipping + insurance

- steam cleaning

- quarantine clearance, aus tax

- engineers cert

then the usual roadworthiness and rego

guess what. in nz, commodores and fords are looked up to because they are rare and expensive. most (if not all cop cars) are commodores as well...

[zandi2000]

yeh, noticed those commodore cop cars, they look like toy cars... thanks alot for that.. damn looks like im leaving home for a while

[zandi2000]

so where in nz were u?

[redline2003]

wat the aus govt does to car comsumers is disgusting, forcing ppl to buy either family cars, goofy young ppl cars, or the occasional aus delivered performance car like wrx which IMO is rather ordinary now, the comsumer is king period, just because the aust govt cant keep unemployment down is no reason to pass the cost down to hard workers wanting to buy an imported car. as i was saying im goin down to NZ either this yr or the next and if i like it i may consider moving down there depending on the circumstances, btw i hear they are no way near as strict as us on mods etc, anyone fill us in??

[skyla]

Hi guys,

Reading your posts with a bit of intrest, as I live in NZ and I guess I take things for granted, when it comes to jap imports in NZ.

The large majority of cars on our roads over here are Jap imports. As recently as april 2002 we could practicaly import any japanese car we wanted, but then the NZ government brought in the new frontal impact laws, which pretty much out lawed many of the high preformance imports, that were manufactured before 1996, from comming into the country. So the likes of all R32 skylines, R33 skyline series 1, evo's 1,2,3, etc... can no longer be imported into NZ:( . Which in turn has pushed the prices up on japanese performance cars, you pay an extra $4000 plus for a post 1996 performance car now days, but slowly the prices are comming down.

As for the laws in regards to modifications, up to april this year, anything was pretty much the go, Once again the NZ government and NZ police have made a combined effort to rid the streets of modified high performance japanese imports, quite personaly I think they want to get rid of any thing that they could out run one of there patrol cars (Commodore and Falcons).

The new laws knowen as the boy racer bill, has been put in place to stamp out the illegal street racing scene, burn outs, dropping substances on the road etc... (which is fair enough), they have given police huge amounts of power. But they have also made some crazy changes to the law reguarding exhaust noise, which stated a car should be no louder than what it would have been comming out of the factory, this new law caused a public out cry from performance car enthusiasts and is getting reassessed to find a acceptable Db reading.

There are also proposed changes in laws, relating to lowering your car, bigger aloy wheels, and even sounds. curently you don't need to get a low level cert unless you increase the power out put of your car by 20% or more, add parts to your car that wouldn't be classed as normal factory replacement (ie; Coil overs), there are other laws as well, just can't remember at the moment.

So things sound like they are definitely going to get tougher here, in the near future. Police are already cracking down on owners of japanese preformance cars, for the smallest things, things that the middle aged boy racer in his clubsport can get away with.

It will be a sad day for car preformance car enthusists in NZ, if these proposed laws come into effect:(