Hello all I am new to the forum so just introducing myself before I ask my first question. My daily drive is a mini 1990.
So my questions are around personal importing . I am moving with my wife to Melbourne from London next year and wish to ship my mini. Now I have done a lot of research with regards to ADR’s etc and have some questions.
Firstly I can bring the car I believe as a personal import even though it was made after 1989? I have owned it for many years so satisfy the 12 month rule.

I restored the car 4 years ago and it has doors with side intrusion bars fitted . Will these be sufficient for personal import ADR certification?

I have all new Securon safety belts fitted which all have automatic locking retractors and the orange tags say are compliant to Australian regs.
I think I need to fit a catalytic converter for emissions (not required here on pre 92 mini) but easy enough to do
I believe I need to fit child restraint anchor points. Is it ok to have the reinforcement plates with the nuts fitted to them riveted to the parcel shelf and then fit the point to this. Also anyone like to give me some measurements for the fitting area? Also anyone who could supply me with these or point me in the direction of where to buy them would be grateful.
Will fit a handbrake on warning light as this is easy to do as think it is needed but my ultimate question is what else do I need.
Does anyone have a full list for a personal import on what’s required as would like to try and get most of the work done before I go so as to make it a little easier when I arrive.I have looked on this and various other forums but am not 100% sure. I understand it is down to the inspection engineer’s discretion on some things but help would be appreciated.

Thank you
Zeroasylum

Hi

Dont despair that no one has answered as yet. The is a 12 hour time difference between us and you and there are a number of people who post here that have both professional and personal experience importing their cars to Australia.

Somebody with knowledge will come along sooner or later.

Cheers Mike

Bear in mind that there are significant differences in the rules for immigrants doing a personal import.

My advice is to get all the details in writing from Australian Customs. You will get advice and personal experience from members on here, but when it comes to the big day, the opinions of 50 bush lawyers is worthless.

Tim

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1951 Morris Commercial J Type Van
1955 BSA C11G
1961 Morris Mini Traveller
1969 Triumph TR6R
1977 Leyland Moke Californian

I looked seriously at this stuff when i was moving back from the Netherlands with regard to importing our 1999 Mini40. Ultimately I decided not to import it, but this was more to do with our personal circumstances than the registrations rules. Although the NSW registration requirement to change our LHD car to RHD was a significant factor - but this has nothing to do with ADRs or personal imports

I will try and dig up all the info i have and PM re the COmmonwealth requirements.

With a personal import, it is the registration authority that ultimately regulates what you must do to register the car. Seeing as you are going to Melbourne, this is the Victorian authority known as vicroads. Note that this is different to the Commonwealth requirements for importing the car. The Commonwealth will not care one way or the other if you have done the necessary things for registration in issuing the authorisation to import.

I am from NSW, so i am not familiar with vicroads registration requirements. You should be able to work it out from their website. http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/Registration/NewToVictoria/ImportedVehicleRegistration.htm



Modifications would include the ADR ones you mention.

The VASS signatory that you use will be able to answer all of your questions. Hopefully some of our Victorian friends can recommend one to you and you can contact them now. Try a PM to Meeni because he is using an engineer to sign off on his conversion.

Otherwise there is a list of them here http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/Home/Registration/WhatHasToBeRegistered/OtherVehiclesvesselsAndRegistrationIssues/VehicleAssessmentSignatoryScheme.htm

Your best bet is to contact the VASS signatory directly. Any advice you receive here, however well intentioned, may result in you spending money that is not required.

Best of luck with the move.

cheers
michael

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the world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page
66 Mini Minor sponsored by http://www.lifeonthehedge.com.au/ The Dog Harness Specialists
It was a pleasure ausmini. I'll miss all you misfits and reprobates

I just wanted to say excellent choice. Some here may disagree with me, however ultimately Melbourne is where it's at for people wanting to ensure a prosperous long term career and life future in Australia for them and their families.

Best move I ever made, moving with my family to Melbourne (from Sidderney) 12 years ago.

Davo

P.S. you could do far worse than to hook up with the good folk from the Victorian Mini Club Inc when you get here (or perhaps before).

DK

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1965 Mk1 Cooper S Sprint/Hillclimb/Rally Car
2012 Land Rover Defender 90

as a personal import you dont need to do much , just prove that you have owned the car for 12 months or more
Good luck , pack lots of mini spares too, wheels ect things that are cheap over there but expensive over here

_________________
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying "Damn...that was fun!"

just a note , u can only bring in 1 vehicle per 5 years so hope the second car is in the partners name
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/vehicl ... s/pis.aspx

_________________
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but a true friend will be sitting next to you saying "Damn...that was fun!"

My Austin Montego was a personal import with the previous owner.
They had to change a few things and add a few things to register it in Victoria. The hardest bit was the rear seat belts and child restraints mounts.

From an ADR and engineering perspective it may be better to import a car with rear belts and child restraints already fitted. They might make you jump through hoops to fit them here. But if it already has them they might pass straight off.

Thank you to everyone for the replies so far you guys have been so helpful but please more advice always welcome.

Mickmini will contact Vic Roads and VASS signatory but if you could PM re the Commonwealth requirements would be great.

Davo yes love Melbourne was there 3 weeks ago as wife is from there so can’t wait to make the move and yes will contact the club

Dodge you right about the parts as at the moment live 16km from Minispare so it will be a change when I move Only have the one mini but my wife wants to buy a Nissan Figaro and as we wont be arriving till this time next year she would own it for 12 months (we going to do some travelling before we arrive) so we are thinking of bringing one of those as well .

Morris 1100 think you right about having things fitted which is why all belts are already done but do need to fit the child restraints. Any idea on the position on the parcel shelf they should go. Anyone on the forums here who can advise.

One final question for the car has a 1275 standard carb engine. Not it never had a catalytic converter or the charcoal canister emission gear from the factory so do I need to fit this stuff ( is it requires as it never had it) and if so can I fit a cat to a carb without the charcoal canister vaccum system and will it work.

Thank you

zeroasylum

Maybe PM Weevel, he imported his rover to Australia.

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You're so square
Baby I don't care

I'm here. I'll kick off by saying it's all very nice to speak to those of us who;ve done it before, but the correct info will all be on the web, better get it straight from the relevant agencies rather than second-hand, out of date, prejudiced or anecdotal....

This was my experience in 2005. I had a 1990 Rover Cooper Carb model and brought it out with me.

Understand that there are 2 levels of bureaucracy to consider.

1) First is the Federal Government (ie Australia) and the Customs laws, you need permission to bring the vehicle into Australia.

That alone does not necessarily mean you can register it and so on, but you need that first.
It's a small fee and a 2 page form to DOTARS (http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/vehicles/imports/)
Info on Personal import scheme:
(http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/vehicl ... s/pis.aspx)
You already fulfil the requirements for a Personal Import in that it's your own vehicle in your name, owned (and been using it, ie actively registered/insured in UK) for over 12 months and you are/will be a permanent resident of Australia (or citizen).

Looks like there's some additonal evidence required these days, I don't recall having to fill in all that guff about proving you're moving here, but there you go, that's why you should get it from the agencies involved and not off random people online

Once you get that permit you can then arrange transportation/shipping. It's recommended that you do not ship the car until you have the approval as you could end up with a car on the dock that cannot be brought in to the country.

I paid for my car to be added to a bigger crate to be put inside a container with other stuff as we were not bringing enough over ourselves to justify our own container load. You are allowed to load up the car with stuff as long as it's still drivable, but of course you have to go though all the customs malarkey for the contents, provide itemised lists and values and pay duties and so on.

In my experience also, the car took about 5 months longer to get out of customs than our tea chests that were shipped seperately, so don't count on having access to the car or the contents straight away after the ship arrives.

On that - Customs charges (again look it up) are 10% on the cost/value of the car+shipping, then you have to pay tax (GST) of 10% on the total of the car+shipping+customs fees (IIRC)

So my car had a value of something like $2500
Shipping was about $1500
Customs fees = $400
GST = $440
So it cost about as much as the car was worth to bring it...

2) Then you have to get it registered for whichever state you're in.

I'm in NSW which for an unregistered car means getting a Blue Slip (which is like an MoT but they also want to verify the ownership bona fides of the car) and get an Import Compliance Sticker (which is a Federal thing). VicRoads should be able to help here although RTA in NSW were very variable with help when i tried to call - ranging from grumpy and ineffectual, to grumpy and outright rude to nice and ineffectual.

For a Personal Import it was must less strict on what needed to be done as opposed to other schemes, I do not know why, it just was. Apparently would have cost me thousands more if i'd brought the car in under the old 15 year rule (which i had the option of doing)

I had to get retractable child seatbelts in the rear and apart from that it was only a few things that were wear and tear (as far as I can recall) items like brakes and new door skins (which had passed a UK MoT but they're more scared of rust here than a UK MoT inspector)

I got a mini specialist to do the Blue Slip, just easier in the end if something was required. They also import ex-Japan minis so were on top of what was needed. Again though it took weeks for the compliance sticker to come through, and with another couple of delays for one reason or another, I didn't get the mini on the road until August 3rd 2006. It had been delivered to the shipping company in Wembley almost 11 months earlier!

So just don't expect to be driving your car the week after it arrives. You will need another form of transport for a while. (I think i was unlucky but it could still be a few months)

Personal imports are certainly far easier to register and having Australian standards seat belts will really help.

As already stated above, you will need retractable rear belts which did not come out in UK Minis until 97-ish. The Rover I used to own had retractors bolted to the rear parcel shelf.

Victorian requiremenst for child restraint anchorages can be found here:

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/42EDA961-77ED-4C12-8282-D031A45397A0/0/VSI17.pdf

The anhcirages cost under $10 each (you will need two) and can be purchaed complete with reinforcing plate, bolts and spacers in any auto parts store or the baby section of department stores (Target, K-Mart etc).

Victorian requirements for Personal imports can be found here:

http://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/382D5D11-C6EC-455C-8AF3-FB080CB61932/0/VSI3_WEB.pdf

When I imported a car in 2006 I used Rohan Carter from Cartech to do the compliance. He was very helpful. I did all the changes myself and he signed it off for $400. But that was a 75 model Japanese car so it only needed seat-belts and mirrors.

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2