Make Money Importing Cars in a Foreign Country?

[YTNUKLR]

The thread about buying a car in Germany got me thinking.

There are plenty of cars that are way more expensive abroad compared to the U.S.

Buy a car, do the correct modifications (if any) to be compliant in the destination country. File the paperwork and check all the boxes. Make some money.

My guess is that people do not do this because it is a big headache or there are lots of taxes levied on the cars when they arrive.

Is there something I am missing?

[sc_rufctr]

Sounds good but it would be hard work.

In Australia for instance they want RHD Australian delivered cars.
Anything less and the cars suddenly are worth about half the "local" equivalent.

The RHD/LHD thing is the biggest problem here.

So if you focused on Europe etc you wouldn't have that issue.
Also having a LHD in the UK seems to be less of a problem than Australia.
I'm guessing it's because they're so close to Europe.
Forget Japan. A car there has to be almost perfect to get past registration inspections.
China would be a huge LHD market but difficult to do business with.

What sort of money (% not dollars) would you be expecting to make on each car?

I'm guessing you would have to make at least %30 above all costs to make it worth while.

Also. How many cars could you expect to sell and ship every month?

Again I'm guessing >>> At least 4 cars a month to make it worth while.

[dewolf]

You'd be better off the other way round. Seen the price of luxury used cars in the Arab states. They almost give them away.

[Sapporo Guy]

In Australia it also seems you need to go through the certified rights owner to that specific make and model. Most Auzzies I've met only import for personal use / later sale.

Japan, you need to go through about 100 pages of red type it seems ... only worth to bring in certain collector items. However, shipping out GTRs would be something that might make sense

[s_morrison57]

I looked into bringing in vette's from the states, biggest draw back was no matter what you paid for the car, customs would value the car. Its a real crap shoot, you get a deal and pay 10K, this is a while back, customs might say it's worth 18K and thats what all your duties and taxes are based on, end of story. There is no re-course it will be based on 18K

[dewolf]

Originally Posted by s_morrison57

I looked into bringing in vette's from the states, biggest draw back was no matter what you paid for the car, customs would value the car. Its a real crap shoot, you get a deal and pay 10K, this is a while back, customs might say it's worth 18K and thats what all your duties and taxes are based on, end of story. There is no re-course it will be based on 18K

The way around that in Oz is to remove the engine, trans and interior and ship it separately.

[The Gaijin]

A lot of 5+ year old and perfectly good Japanese cars get exported to the UK, Australia, NZ, Jamaica and other places. Only a few 1/4 ton farm trucks come here, but they are cracking down.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by YTNUKLR

The thread about buying a car in Germany got me thinking.

There are plenty of cars that are way more expensive abroad compared to the U.S.

Buy a car, do the correct modifications (if any) to be compliant in the destination country. File the paperwork and check all the boxes. Make some money.

My guess is that people do not do this because it is a big headache or there are lots of taxes levied on the cars when they arrive.

Is there something I am missing?

Taxes. The primary reason that cars are expensive in certain locations is that they have a VAT and then many have very high fees to limit the number of cars. What you are thinking of doing may not change any of the above.

There are exceptions. I know that many of the Irish guys I worked with in Pakistan would buy used US cars and ship them to Ireland, and sell them for almost full new list price. I don't know the exact reason, but this was also the late 1980's, so I'm sure things have changed.

[TerryBPP]

Also be weary of shipping through unstable or corrupt governments. If they like what you have it will be "lost" before it gets where you want it to go.

[pwd72s]

Despite my giving Evren a "half price sale" on my old 911S, by the time he's waded throught the Turkish bureaucracy, the car cost him more than he paid me...(edit: Meaning, he laid out more cash to get the car out of customs there than he paid me for the car.)

[Erakad]

The other option would be to buy the cars cheap, dismantle them, and sell the parts in the US. Japanese cars routinely have very low mileage. My 95 Corolla has only 50K miles on it! Why not just part them out?