Anyone brought their UK campervan over?

[Guest Abyss]

Ive read various threads on other forums re importing cars, i think im gonna sell our cars before we head over, but we have a massive emotional bond and future use for our campervans that we are looking to bring one of them over, at the very least! I dont think i can bring both due to cost and both are in my name, but i guess the question is realistically how much in total did it cost you and any fun tales or stories? I plan to ship it to Perth and do the Nullabor plain over to Adelaide

[Guest Claire-n-tel]

Hi Abyss!

 

Hmmmm.....not sure about shipping your camper?......i'm guessing that it would need all of the same changes that you would need to do with a car plus possibly a few more specific to a campervan, google motorhome compliance standards.

 

Also what make of camper is it? There are some that are far from ideal here......vw campers for example, you do see them but tbh i wouldn't go far out of town in one, an air cooled engine is not something you want to be relying on in 50c and dusty conditions!

 

The Perth to Adelaide run is an easy one really (unbeleivable coming straight from the uk i know) If you just want to do it to get here i guess you would do 4 x8 hour days of driving. (You really need not to be driving around dawn or dusk or in the dark) If you have more time you can spend an infinate amount of time doing it.

 

We spent a year in a motorhome driving around Australia and could have kept going forever! We still own a motorhome and go away as ofter as possible, planning the next "big one"! If you want to know any more i'm happy to try and help

 

Claire

[DougM]

I think I might have said this before but here goes. Back in the 70's, my first wife's uncle decided to emigrate to Aus so he bought a small and nearly clapped out removal van, loaded it with all the families belongings and shipped it out as deck cargo. This was pre-cargo containers. Deck cargo was the cheapest form of transport back then and I doubt that you can do it these days. All arrived safe and well although the van suffered from the salt air and spray. He used he van for some time before finally deposing of it.

 

How much or your stuff can you get into your van? Worth thinking about perhaps.

[Guest Abyss]

Thanks for your reply guys. The van In question isn't a massively old one, it is a VW, water cooled diesel from 1998. It is registered as a motorcaravan here, Ive done a lot of the work my self to this vehicle, but is of a professional grade. I have literally spent thousands recently on a poptop roof, respray, and interior refit. I already have a roo bar fitted

 

I did the nullabor plain ten years ago when I was on a WHV in a EA ford falcon so know the route anyway. I have read some mods people have needed to do to their cars to get them over, and lets just say this, there isnt a weekend that doesnt go by without me fiddling with tools on one of the vans so i'm not afraid of changing the spec of my vehicle. I will shortly be adding the 4wd system to the vehicle so it will really be at home in OZ.

 

My plan would be to ship this in a container and cram as much gear in this as possible without it stopping us sleeping in it for the journey to Adelaide, there would be spare parts like the odd extra diesel engine along with some of the mrs clothes i guess I would sadly have to sell some of my older ones as I dont think its feasible to be bringing over all my toys

 

 

Edited April 3, 2014 by Abyss
pics

[cliffy]

Looks great!

[DougM]

Hope that lid doesn't pop up whist you're driving. I toyed with the idea of bringing my boat out in a container but found it was 2 feet too long to fit so dropped the idea.

[Guest Abyss]

lol no its pretty secure and aerodynamically designed to not catch air! It will go in a half container or full one. But tbh I want a small container and sell all my crap before i go. Which reminds me, I don't have loads of awesome furniture, only tools, and vans lol oh and some crappy ikea stuff that i would glady burn! Then the US style fridge freezer gave up the ghost last week, (3 years old great eh), washing machine is 7 years old, though still prob better than them there stoopid top loaders!

[Guest wen66]

lol no its pretty secure and aerodynamically designed to not catch air! It will go in a half container or full one. But tbh I want a small container and sell all my crap before i go. Which reminds me, I don't have loads of awesome furniture, only tools, and vans lol oh and some crappy ikea stuff that i would glady burn! Then the US style fridge freezer gave up the ghost last week, (3 years old great eh), washing machine is 7 years old, though still prob better than them there stoopid top loaders!

We looked into bringing ours over, she's fully converted camper T5.......Check out Iron Lady Imports. I spoke to Iron Chef on Poms in Oz site. He gives you a pretty good breakdown of the costs.

I would love to bring mine but need to sell her now:-(

Good luck, that's a cool van, you've got.

[TonyD]

whilst not a campervan, we imported my wife's mini convertible as that had sentimental value and only yesterday took it for the inspection.....after all the tales we have read of changes required and the costs associated with it Macy Moo came out with a clean bill of health! she now has her SA plates and whilst I am at work today my wife will be zooming around with the roof down! in terms of cost, it cost us 1500 pounds to ship her over and we were advised not to bother cleaning her underneath as customs would clean it anyway - that turned out to be a load of bollox as customs told us it was only because of a bit of mud in the wheel arches and some leaves trapped in the engine compartment that they had to clean it and charged us 260 dollars for it! they told us that if we'd have given it a quick clean itwould have passed so our advice is to clean it prior to shipping! the only other cost was 96 dollars for the inspection yesterday.

 

To summarise,

[TonyD]

......don't believe the tales of woe - we found everyone in the process very helpful and if you've got a vehicle you love go for it and bring it over, an equivalent over here will cost you a lot more.

[monty9110]

I would.. camper vans seem to be really expensive here & at least you know how well your one runs!!

I wish we'd bought a caravan over but its too late for us now!

[Guest Abyss]

Thanks everyone

 

I will be taking my van. love her to bits and she's looked after us a lot over the years. I really hope it costs under £2k in total as some of the calculations look scary! The good thing is we can use her as temporary accommodation so her uses are endless. I have been looking at the ADR and type approvals and think I am going to have to make some modifications, which are fine, I may even import her for a 12 month max stay, then default on the bond as that seems like a way to side step the ADR stamp...something I'm not looking to do is cut holes into my body work to make an external gas locker, an internal one with gas drop out vent is fine in the UK...its either that or rip any gas out.