buying in UK, selling in Australia - Horizons Unlimited

**davidmc** · #1 29 Dec 2003

I am headed from Europe to Australia in early 2005, and was planning on buying my bike in the US and shipping back to the US at the end of the trip.

But shipping costs are adding up, I only plan on spending $3-5k on a bike for the trip. Would it be any better to buy a bike in Europe and just sell in Australia?

After reading many of the posts here, it sounds like selling the bike in Australia would be a big hassle and perhaps the carnet issue also, but I would probably save $2-2.5k in shipping costs. I guess the ideal situation would be to buy a bike(an Australian registered bike) from someone who rode from Australia to Europe and buy the bike from them, but I would imagine that this would be a long shot.

Has anyone had experience doing this, or is too much of a hassle? I will most likely sell the bike at the end of the trip anyway regardless of where the bike ends up...

-Dave

**David and Cheryl Laing** · #2 2 Jan 2004

Hi, Do consider that you will find that your bike becomes a very important extension of you once you have used it for a long time in foreign countries. Am not sure that we could sell our bikes. Other overlanders have sia the same thing. And just as well in our case as when we came home we had no idea that after 18 months on the road we would be doing it all over again in less than 3 yearsOn the same two bikes. In fact we would have bet a million dollars that we would not be doing this a second time. While this has not answered your question what I am saying is dont worry about it at this stage, wait until it is an issue.

**beddhist** · #3 2 Jan 2004

Hmmm, I wouldn't have thought shipping Oz-US would be that expensive...

May I suggest an alternative: make sure the end of your OZ trip falls into the Southern summer. Air freight your bike to NZ. You can import it (without carnet) and register it there. This is easy. NZ customs charge GST on the current value of the bike plus the freight(!). Travel a couple of months around NZ, then sell your bike. If your bike is a Harley you will get a very good price for it, but you need to guard it well during your travels in NZ.

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Salut from Southern France, the bikers' paradise,

Peter.

**davidmc** · #4 4 Jan 2004

Actually the $2-2.5K is shipping from US to Europe AND shipping from OZ to US. So its two long legs I would save. Going from UK to OZ I would only have to ship Nepal-Thailand, and East Timor to Darwin. I will be getting the bike next summer (if in the US), most likely a KLR650, so I would imagine it will be pretty thrashed at the end of the trip.

NZ is definately an option, although I am not sure if I will have time to squeeze it in.

I would imagine a bike like a KLR650 with 40,000 or so miles won't be worth a heck of a lot at the end of the trip, so it seems silly to pay another $1000 to ship back to the US where I will most likely sell it for maybe $1500 or so.

Thanks for the replies so far, any further advice?

-Dave

**Nigel Marx** · #5 4 Feb 2004

Getting your bike registered for sale in NZ will cost you about NZ$370 for complience chesk and registration plus the 12.5% tax on the value of the bike including costs to get it to NZ (ie freight). Taking the bike to a couple of sympathetic dealers will get you a valuation on the low side of correct and reduce the tax. Bare in mind that as it is relatively simple to import and sell a second hand bike here, there have been dealers over the years who have done just that. This means the price on second hand bike in NZ is lower than some countries. For what the bike market is doing here, you could do worse than checking these two links. The first is to mostly dealer listings and therefore 20-30% higher than private sales.

http://www.bikepoint.co.nz/Home/HomePage.asp

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motors/index.htm

The second URL is for an on-line auction site.
Hope this helps your plans. Drop by and visit us WHEN you get to NZ!

Regards

Nigel & Kitty in NZ

--"How can I be lost if I don't care where I am?"--