Anyone here ever bought a car in Australia? Motoring Questions.

[83C]

Later this year I'm off to Australia for a month, and I'd like to bring back a slightly bigger and better souvenir than a crap fridge magnet or a postcard. 

One of these: 

Or one of these:

Both are mid-2000s mid range sport-ish saloons, both are around $5-7000, or £2500-4000. Top one is a Ford Falcon BF XR6, bottom one is a Holden Commodore VE SV6. 

Why these? I've always liked the Australian Supercars Championship which has always been Ford vs Holden (these days Chevrolet) but I can't run to a V8 engined Falcon or Commodore. I much prefer the looks of the Holden which probably stems from always preferring the big Vauxhall saloons and owning several Omegas, Carltons and a Senator, but the XR6 has the legendary Barra 4.0 24v six and bearing in mind parts availability over here won't be great something that is well known for mechanical longevity sounds like a good idea to me. The SV6 engine is probably the weak link, the cam chains stretch and eventually break on the earlier ones. Later facelift SV6s sorted this issue with a heavily updated engine (badged SiDi) that gave around 280bhp from an N/A 3.6 V6 and sounded pretty good, but they're getting above budget (circa $10k for a half decent one). 

Last year when the planning for the whole Australian caper started in earnest, I did originally have the plan to buy something cheap (non-sports versions of both of the above can be had sub-$2500) to bomb around NSW and QL in because it was cheaper than renting a big car. This evolved into looking at what a little more would buy in terms of niceties and looks, and then the idea came along to bring it home as well. This plan got left by the wayside when it became obvious that for what we wanted as a family, a big motorhome for the first few weeks and a hotel for the last week would be more practical. 

Recently however I've come back to the idea of buying a big Aussie saloon (not least because of Hubnut's series on Betty) but just to bring back to the UK. I've always wanted a VXR8 but they're £15-20k for a half decent one and they rust because they're built for nice, dry, non-salted Australian roads rather than UK roads, and there isn't an equivalent Ford Falcon here aside from a few Coleman Milne limo/hearse conversions.

There is also some practicality to all this madness, shipping back would be by shared container which means I can load personal effects in the boot. Given that Singapore Airlines want £200 per person per flight for 5kg extra luggage capacity over the 25kg allowed, the shipping at £2k (best quote so far) makes much more sense than trying to bring back whatever clothes, paraphernalia and tat we buy by air and being charged up to £800 for the privilege. I can also chuck in a selection of spares (usual consumables like belts, filters etc) for the trip home. At one point in the plans we were even considering taking clothes out there that could be donated/binned before coming back in order to create more space for souvenirs, so avoiding that sort of nonsense seems like a major win.

I know @dollywobbler brought Betty over from NZ and I've been bending his ear about more details on how he went about it, who he used for shipping etc, but has anyone here bought a car in Australia or even better shipped a car from there to here? Mainly my concerns are around sorting out registering it in my name when I buy it out there, to transfer the rego (Aus equivalent of the V5) I need an Australian address. The shipping company confirmed this morning that for their purposes they can put 'c/o SeaGo Shipping etc' so they don't need me to have anything other than a proper UK address, but obviously I can't put my UK address down for rego. 

Anyone done it, or even just bought in Australia for use in Aus? 

[Saabnut]

@dollywobbleris your man

[MorrisItalSLX]

You will need an Australian address for the rego papers and the CTP insurance to be sent to.

My concern would be that you do not hold an Australian drivers license. In NSW your drivers license number is needed for the paperwork and the associated account with the NSW government.

It must be possible to get around this as you can buy cars in different states than your home (e.g. someone who holds a QLD license can buy a car in NSW) but I don’t know how that works, having never personally bought a car interstate, but also considering you don’t hold a drivers license in any Australian state or territory.

One thing I would highly recommend is buying a car that is currently registered and will not need renewal during your visit. Buying an unregistered car is painful for someone who lives here, let alone a visitor, because when a car goes out of registration you need to practically start again to get it re-registered as if it was a new car. Proof of purchase, verifying VIN, thorough inspection for roadworthiness, ect. ect.

Also, you don’t need the hassle of renewing the registration if it lapses during your visit as you would have to pay up for a full years worth of registration and CTP insurance. Both of these things carry across from previous to new owner, so look for a car that doesn’t need to be renewed during your visit. On the plus side, when you cancel the registration and export the car you will be reimbursed the value of the remaining registration.

[cort1977]

I lived there for a few years and did ship a car back.  I can't really add much more to what has been said above really, I left in 2012 so details are fuzzy.

I do recall that Western Australia is easier for rego purposes, and shipping out of Fremantle is cheaper but not much use if you're not going over there.

Do you need to register it in your name at all?  If it's going straight to export can't the seller drop it at the docks, or get it transported there and then fill in the export paperwork with your UK address?

[warch]

3 hours ago, 83C said:

Later this year I'm off to Australia for a month, and I'd like to bring back a slightly bigger and better souvenir than a crap fridge magnet or a postcard. 

I admire your ambition. We are also going in a few months time to visit Mrs warch's 'endz' near Brisbane. I have always hankered after one of these

or one of these

But they're extremely popular and bloody expensive in Australia too. 

My father in law used to work for Holden in the 70s and had a succession of very sexy looking company muscle cars during this period, rather than, say the apeshit brown Triumph Toldedo my parents had. 

 

[DodgeRover]

Queensland rego is easier than nsw and cheaper, just need a fresh RWC (which should come with the car if you are paying decent money or buying from a dealer) to transfer into your name and pay the tax. Third party person only insurance used to be included in the reg don't know if it still is.

Rural Rego is cheaper but unless you actually have a farm address you probably won't get it

A back Packers or hotel address will do, they used to take a copy of your international driver's license and create you an entry for that. So theres one for me in Victoria, Queensland and WA.

I used to make decent money buying unregistered vehicles (mainly Falcon wagons) in Victoria then driving them to South Australia where they could be registered without any roadworthiness checks, they would also transfer ownership by post so were popular with backpackers

[Datsuncog]

I lived out there for a while and bought this heap from a car yard in Brisbane's northern suburbs:

I held an international driving licence but my then-FiL sorted the paperwork with the dealer, possibly using his own licence. The car was in my name, though.

It had previously started life in Canberra, before moving to NSW, and then making its way north - so on its third registration number in twenty years, at least. Small by Aussie standards, with 'only' the 2.4 litre RT142 unit under the bonnet.

One thing that surprised me was that there was really no such thing as a 'cheap' car out there - this one ran us to $2000 in 2005, and although we did look at some slightly cheaper cars advertised privately (Ford Laser/ Mazda 323/ Corolla E70/ Mitsubishi Magna) they were without exception completely shagged.

These were the sort of cars you could have picked up for less than £200 in blighty, but were nearer £800/900 given the exchange rate at the time. The only car we saw priced under $1000 was a 1979 Honda Accord which turned out not to have turned a wheel in five years - and now had a possum living in it.

Fighty buggers, those fellas are.

So if there are hot versions of BF Falcons and VE Commodores available for $5k nowadays, and cooking versions at half that, then that's pretty good going!

Queensland rego at the time did include basic third party insurance - I think I nominated RACQ as my provider, since I got a small discount as a breakdown member (or perhaps it was the other way round). It seemed very reasonable, given what I'd been paying to tax and insure my Escort back in the UK.

It was a reliable enough old bus, very wafty though the power steering was pretty wooden. Seats were great, being a the top-of-the-line Avante with squashy velour everywhere. The battery fritzed itself out in the wilds of Victoria though, with no mobile signal, and that was the only time it ever let us down. A long walk back to civilisation and a new battery from the RACQ patrol saw us right.

I tried to sell the Corona before leaving, but it needed a vehicle inspection in order to do so. Unfortunately, some tit smashed the back window the night before the test, which meant it failed - along with a whole swathe of other failure points, most of which appeared to be totally fabricated and easily disproved.

I don't know why the testing garage did that, but they had no answer when I queried the 'major transmission leak' and 'major oil leak' by wondering why, if it was so bad, there had never been so much as a speck of fluid seen on the white concrete drive where the car was parked every night?

I replaced the back window with one from a scrapyard and gave some serious thought to bringing it back with me, but initial quotes were about $2k for shipping to the south coast of England, plus import taxes, plus probably about another grand to move it up and over to Northern Ireland on a transporter, and I just couldn't justify it. I did spend over $600 (or was it £600?) just getting ONE large-ish cardboard box of books, LPs and clothes sent over by sea freight, which in retrospect was quite a poor economic decision.

It lay on my former MiL's drive for a long time, and she made sporadic half-hearted attempts to sell it with no rego or inspection, eventually letting it go for $200 to 'some boys'.

Typically, when the police came to the door having found it abandoned in a field, it was me they were asking for - as the car was still in my name...

Best of luck, dude!

[83C]

43 minutes ago, cort1977 said:

Do you need to register it in your name at all?  If it's going straight to export can't the seller drop it at the docks, or get it transported there and then fill in the export paperwork with your UK address?

Thats a very good point, because I no longer plan to drive it in Australia that may well be the way around the registration problems. 

1 hour ago, MorrisItalSLX said:

You will need an Australian address for the rego papers and the CTP insurance to be sent to.

My concern would be that you do not hold an Australian drivers license. In NSW your drivers license number is needed for the paperwork and the associated account with the NSW government.

It must be possible to get around this as you can buy cars in different states than your home (e.g. someone who holds a QLD license can buy a car in NSW) but I don’t know how that works, having never personally bought a car interstate, but also considering you don’t hold a drivers license in any Australian state or territory.

One thing I would highly recommend is buying a car that is currently registered and will not need renewal during your visit. Buying an unregistered car is painful for someone who lives here, let alone a visitor, because when a car goes out of registration you need to practically start again to get it re-registered as if it was a new car. Proof of purchase, verifying VIN, thorough inspection for roadworthiness, ect. ect.

Also, you don’t need the hassle of renewing the registration if it lapses during your visit as you would have to pay up for a full years worth of registration and CTP insurance. Both of these things carry across from previous to new owner, so look for a car that doesn’t need to be renewed during your visit. On the plus side, when you cancel the registration and export the car you will be reimbursed the value of the remaining registration.

Definitely going for something that has at least a couple of month's valid rego, and will probably buy from a dealer as they would be more experienced with handling paperwork or as @cort1977suggested, delivering it directly to the docks. Personally I wouldn't mind buying private and I've seen some cracking deals with private sellers, but it's a big ask to involve them as the seller with moving the car around and doing export paperwork. I have heard elsewhere that NSW is a bit more awkward for buying cars as a tourist, the only issue with buying in QL despite being there for around a week is that I could really do with accessing the car at the end of the trip to load it up, hit a Supercheap Auto for consumables etc whilst we have a week in Sydney and a bit of time to do the legwork. My wife would be rather less than impressed if we had to drive both a car and the motorhome all the way from Brisbane back to Sydney!

I am hoping that my wife's relative out there might be able to help out, either by using their details to register it or to just aid with where to go, what to do, but I want a plan B for if they can't help. They live just down the road from Bathurst too which is a bonus.

@warch - if only. 70's Aus muscle cars are bloody cool, but so much money now. 

@DodgeRover I remember you mentioning something like that when I first posted about going to Aus. At the time the plan had been to visit Melbourne and possibly a little into SA, but that plan got shelved when my wife started seeing things around Brisbane that she wanted to do. 

Thanks for the advice so far.

[cort1977]

Expensive cars, spurious inspections, awkward police.  Just some of the tings I don't miss about Australia.

It's a fantastic place but in terms of fiddling about with old shite like we do here it's much harder.  People don't realise how good we have it here despite everything.

[DodgeRover]

This scene from the Wog Boy should tell you everything you need to know about driving 70s tin in Aus

oh yeah pack me a hard top Val with yours because there's no way I can afford the best part of 100k for a charger

 

[DodgeRover]

Oh remembered another dodge you can pull as a tourist if you are buying something sporty, Historic rego is dead cheap although limited to about 80 or 90 days use a year, it used to be that you could only use it going to organised events - used to be called club rego for this reason but that was dropped, in Victoria at least and I'm pretty sure the other states have done the same.

 

[Asimo]

8 hours ago, 83C said:

Later this year I'm off to Australia for a month,

If you intend to rent a vehicle at any point in your trip be aware that rental car insurance doesn’t cover very much. My wife was there 3 years ago and rented a car, she knew of the rental insurance issue and bought extra cover from her travel insurer. This cover is for the difference between the rental-insurance limit and the write-off cost of the vehicle. Even that wasn’t enough: her rented Mitsubishi Eclipse was wrecked whilst parked, by a hailstorm. ( smashed lights, screens, comedy coconut- size dents in every panel). Limits and gotchas were applied by both of these insurers, cost her about £3000 in the end.

But anyway, have a lovely trip, and buy a Leyland P76.