Private Imports Of Altezzas Into Australia, How to do it

OK, I'll start this now and add to it as we pay the final bills. The moment Greeneyes is on the road my big holiday is over and I am flat-out painting a rental house I bought last week.

This is locked as a read-only until I finish

HOW TO IMPORT A PERSONAL ALTEZZA

You start by living overseas and owning & driving the car for 12months. I don't know if they check up closely on this, but ultimately your time overseas shows in your passport and they wanted a copy of that...

DOTARS are the start, you apply to import a car into Australia and pay $50 with the application. They send you 5 almost identical sheets of paper saying you are allowed to import the car as described with this VIN number.

You will also have a "Motor vehicle Customs Form" Australian and/or Quarantine "Unaccompanied Personal effects" forms to fill in. MAKE SEVERAL COPIES OF ALL OFFICIAL PAPERS!! Things get lost very easily and you need extra copies as proof of EVERYTHING. Also make copies of your ownership papers, any paperwork from you buying the car & your passport.

You need an international removal company, and I sorted 3 or 4 quotes from $10k to $16k for a 40ft container to be shipped over, containing two cars and everything out of our house in Howick. You could expect to pay $2500 to $3000 at a guess, more than it costs to get a Jap import from Japan to NZ! Then you need insurance- the moving companies all offer insurance at 3% of the shipment's value, but any insurance agent will get you marine insurance for 1%. None of them offer much for damage, they usually write it out, especially scratches and dents, the most likely thing to happen.

One of the five DOTARS sheets is labelled "This page stays with the vehicle" & goes in the glovebox, then the car goes to the shipping company three days before the ship sales. Photograph the odo as you drop it off! The wharf company want the container on the wharf in NZ two days before the ship sales. It take about 8days & it arrived in Sydney at Easter, about a week later. You're not allowed to load luggage in the car, although I had odd stuff like the stock air filter, some bottles of polish, other odd stuff and that didn't cause any problems. I wasn't allowed to load computers onto the seats. In contrast the Datsun 1600 had just been re-sprayed and not re-assembled, so it was full to the windows with car parts!

King & Wilson were the local agents in Sydney, they unpacked the container and contacted Customs & Agriculture. The first problem was that they did not have all the paperwork, it had got lost somewhere, so we waited while more forms were mailed to us, we filled them in, they got mailed to various places... weeks went by..

On top of that the wooden frame over the top of Greeneyes had collapsed and dented the roof. So although it is unlikely to happen and all carriers said they had never had car damage... it does happen!

The NZ moving company, World Moving, were very good and although in theory they could wriggle out of any blame and say I should have insured it with them, they paid $500 towards the panelbeating, which was about 2/3 of it. That was by far the worst thing that happened in the whole project, and Raymond Dobbe was excellent about it.

King & Wilson's Melbourne office dealt with Customs & asked for a value. I paid $43000 in 2001, buying it in my company name, then transferred it out of the company when the depreciation/Fringe Benefit tax made it worthwhile. It went into my wife's name at $18000 in about 2005, and the market value this year is about $12000 in Auckland


I put forward $11,000 that they accepted, and added an estimate of the shipping cost, then charged me 10% of that in tax. They added the tax onto the value and charged another 10% of the total for Govt slavery Tax.

Yes, they added a tax as a percentage of a tax they had already charged...

Week five- Having paid King & Wilson $2600 in import tax then Agriculture eventually inspected the unpacked containerload. I spoke to K&W in Sydney and they said Ag had been and the cars were fine, so I booked a two-car towtruck and headed for Sydney at 4am. When we arrived 4hours later we were told 'no the cars aren't ready they need cleaning' Luckily the towie phoned around for a load back to Orange, as that trip was quoted at $600. However, while we were down there we removed all the stuff from the Datsun and put it in the furniture container
as we didn't want every item steamcleaned!

So the cars were loaded on "special" enclosed towtruck to go to the "special" steamcleaning place in Sydney, in case they contaminated Australia with NZ dirt! Another $440 FOR EACH CAR and then await a re-inspection.

Meantime the furniture arrived in Orange and we unpacked and sorted a house out for a week or two.

Once re-inspected the Melbourne office was now happy the cars were ready.

Off to Sydney again at 4am, but we were more organised this time and took a wreck down to the auctions to spread the cost. We went to the "special" steam cleaning facility, a garage that specialised in ripping people blind when they imported Audis and Range Rovers and Austin Healey 3000s. They said the cars WEREN"T ready, the paperwork hadn't been done. They did manage to sort that out while they said for only $2700 odd they would get the Altezza on the road & complianced. I politely declined and we pushed the two cars to the towtruck- the Datsun never had a battery and the Altezza was so flat it had no ignition lights.

Still, I finally had Greeneyes in my hands!

Pictures here- more soon

http://forum.altezzaclub.org.au/index.php?showtopic=4481&hl=

One DOTARS sheet went to Niddrie Nameplates for a VIN sticker with a cheque for $40. While we waited a couple of weeks for that we investigated compliancing.

We had a lot of opinions as to what sort of compliancing was needed, but one thing for sure, the RTA knew nothing! I spoke to the local compliancing engineer who lives 3hours away and come through once in 6weeks for a $1500-$2000 inspection. He said to hurry as he was finishing work soon & retiring, and there was noone to replace him for 1000km!! Another local garage said we only need child seat restraints, and a pink, blue or green slip...

I went down to the local RTA and everyone looked blank, but they gave me the gold pass... the phone number of the technical Dept!!

THEY said there is NO compliancing with personal imports! Just get a blue slip and get it registered.. !!

So I found a great little local garage, John Stojanovic Motors, who did the inspection... He phoned RTA and they said 'just follow your book'.. We worked through it page by page filling in forms but we couldn't find the engine number! Back home and Altezzaclub turned up with it in a couple of hours... Someone had a diagram of where to find it!

The next time down there we discovered there was no sheet labelled "This sheet stays with the vehicle".. it got lost somewhere, so a lot of chasing around with K&W and it was discovered hiding in Sydney. Someone had removed it from the vehicle.

When it eventually arrived in Orange it was back to John's and the paperwork done. Cost me $115 and we headed for RTA. This was week 17...

THEY discovered the NZ VIN and the Aussie VIN were different!

There was no getting around it, DOTARS & RTA wanted a new VIN, so it was another $40 to Niddrie and a wait for another few weeks, then we had a VIN that meant 'Toyota Altezza' not 'Truck'.

Back down to John's for confirmation that the chassis had the VIN on, more paperwork filled out, and finally the RTA were happy. Eventually, number plates and a rego sticker!!

Costs-
DOTARS application $50
Freight to Aussie- say $2000
Customs Tax & GST $2600
Steam cleaning $440
Niddrie VIN $40 (twice for me!)
Weighbridge $25
Pink slip inspection $130
Rego Fee $260
Rego tax $35
Stamp tax $400
Number plate $75

Plus I had to freight it from the wharf to Orange, another $440.

So the Govt made $6350 of the $6500 listed there! No wonder income tax in Aussie is lower!

World Moving packed everything into the container in NZ & got it onto the ship they had organised. Once it hit the Sydney wharf their Australian agent King & Wilson handled unpacking, Customs & Agriculture inspections, and trucked the car to the steam cleaning company. Complete Car Care did that, cleared it with Agriculture then finally we could truck it home & start organising rego.

Is it worth it? Well, of course it is!! What else would I buy if I hadn't bought Greeneyes with me?? IS200... BMW... So not only do I have my baby, which I enjoy driving every time I get in, but in NZ you can buy one for $12k and over here they're worth $23k!

Naturally I'd love to have owned a 2005 model and bought it over!

So, one chance in your life.. go for it if you can!

For future reference, you can go to http://www.carjam.co.nz and enter your rego into there and it will tell you your engine number from there

Only if it was entered when the car was imported ... my rego papers list only the chassis number; engine is listed as "UNKNOWN"

Ok so say my mate has been living in NZ for 2 years, can he purchase an altezza now and bring it back home to Oz with him, or does he have to have owned it in NZ for 12 months?

Pretty sure he needs to own it for 12 months.

I'm afraid they not only say 'owned for 12months',

but "owned and driven for 12months"

Hmm damn...

Wonder if purchasing a wrecked IS200 for 3k and rebirthing it into an imported altezza would be possible....

The engine code and chassis code wouldn't match, so you could get it engineered as an engine swap, and have to attach the IS200 vin tag to the altezza, and somehow restamp the correct chassis code onto the altezza...

Perhaps I could import an altezza and take it into 2SUS or Queen St and ask them to sort it out for me to get it regoed

funny you shuld suggest that mate.

there was a loop hole that has now been closed that did exactly that.
It was called rebodying. and then all you had to do was an engine conversion - well on paper at least.... an bingo - an altezza bodied is200 fitted with an altezza motor and interior etc etc....
i actually considered one that was already here that was done that wy, before buyin our one.

cheers
Stew

Well, I supose if you had an IS200 that had been in an accident you could get another VIN sticker to replace the one on the strut tower you replaced... That's just a $40 paperwork trail with the Niddrie, VIN people in Adelaide.

Then you have to cut the chassis number out of the IS200 firewall and weld it into the Altezza... Slap on the VIN sticker and get it engineered as an engine swap in an IS200.

Meh- too much work!

Hell, that was a laugh!
I have brought various cars in from Japan and never experienced your nightmare. Have brought all through Melbourne though.
Shipping costs from Japan are far far cheaper - in the order of 1200 dollars. As to value of vehicle, well that can be arranged between you and the seller if you know what I mean.
Customs agents are worth their weight in gold as they know the ropes and save you oodles of time. Plus a slab of their favourite beer will speed things up enormously.
Did think about it with an Altezza, but then I already have a couple of cars.

ive been looking at importing a car for a while but the only thing i cant get over is, when i hand my money over how do i know the car i looked at is going to be the car that arrives if it arrives at all? are there people that can help you import the car that actually knows someone in japan orrrrr?

You've got to find someone you can trust.

I have heard of people having a car delivered that was not the one they saw in the photographs when they paid for it! Its all too late when its on the wharf!

Ok, i was just wondering. Is it possible... Say i go over to NZ and found an altezza, but since i havent owned or driven it for 12 months, can i ask the seller to import it for me (assuming they have owned and driven it for 12 months) to aus?

Also i thought Aus and NZ had free trade agreements which made importing goods much more easier than importing things from overseas.....

Only if they are immigrating from NZ to Aussie- So they show Aussie banks accounts, job offers, proof of residence... My son is hoping my brother actually immigrates over here instead of just talking about it and brings his Aristo with him. He's had it for a few years now and it would make a great cruiser over here.

What we need is a register of all people planning on immigrating over here so we can 'advise' them about what to do with their car!

Yeah riiighht... Like all Govt things there is a lot of smoke and mirrors with very little substance. Aussie blocks as much importing as they can to preserve local inefficient jobs, and Altezzas were put on the special 'banned' list by Toyta to preserve the Lexus image. Otherwise IS200s would be $10k by now!

Its easy to bring in any car that was produced here, like S13 Sylvias or Skylines, or even IS200s themselves... The duty and tax is meant to kill any incentive to do it by making them cost the same as buying local.

Yeah, i reckon someone should find the list of people immigrating to aus . We can put a few extra $$ in their pockets to help us get our dream car

I hate Australia i dont want to live here anymore . I think i might move overseas so i can just drive an altezza.

Wait why is it easier to bring cars that are produced here? So u dont need to prove u have owned and driven an is200 for 12 months if u wanted to import from NZ?

Nono.. there are two things here-

you can privately import anything you like I think, but its only one car per lifetime so you have a bit of a wait if you decide you bought in the wrong one and want to bring in another..

you can bring in cars as a private importer, commercially, but then you run into all the lists of what is allowed and what is not. I don't think there is a worry of imports depreciating local values as very few cars get imported overall, but manufacturers use the regulations to ban cars they don't want to see here. The Altezza versus Lexus would be a good example, and I assume you would have trouble with the other JDM versions of Aussie Lexus.