[vixxann]

ok, current thoughts are along these lines..

1) house for sale next week - hopefully quick sale but we can stay in house till about mid July (when kids finish school for summer)

2) Get shippers in to pack up our stuff and put into storage until we are ready to send for it (going to NZ as a tourist and getting WP/PR when there)

3) Sell my car, keep Sams Double cab pickup for time being, buy a nice touring caravan and once we have to leave the house we can live in that plus fit in some touring around UK to visit places / friends before we leave around September

Sam will be out of work when business sale goes through in May , however he can get jobs to tide him over until the UK summer when we go "travelling" I work in a school so plan fits me perfectly.

OK - questions are...

- From what I've read, John Masons and Pickfords seem to be mentioned positively a lot so going to get quotes from both of them. Anyone had to store in UK for a while until they can get it sent over to NZ? If so, with whom and what kind of costs are we looking at?

- How would we go about sending over the pickup and caravan separately from container thats already been packed? We'd want to use them right up to time we fly out to NZ.

- specifically has anyone shipped a caravan ? What are details ?

and finally (for now!) - we are having trouble finding out if Sams pickup is ok for NZ frontal impact regs. Spent last night on phone to LTSA and AA in NZ and there's some question over whether its a passenger car, light goods vehicle or what. It's a Ford Ranger Thunder double cab pickup, we saw some in NZ but I think they call them couriers or something. Any advice :confused:

[Patricia]

We are shipping our motor home to NZ.
The way we are doing is by RO RO ferry we have had quores from John Masons, Pickfords, Anglo Pacific and Brittannia are coming on Wednesday the cost is about £3,400 there is quite a lot of paper work to do but you canfind that from the Land transport people in NZ can't remember their web site at the moment. If you want you can pm me.

Patricia

[nippa&pippa]

we are having trouble finding out if Sams pickup is ok for NZ frontal impact regs. Spent last night on phone to LTSA and AA in NZ and there's some question over whether its a passenger car, light goods vehicle or what. It's a Ford Ranger Thunder double cab pickup, we saw some in NZ but I think they call them couriers or something. Any advice :confused:

Just warn you...my OH want to bring his landrover 130 double cab over to NZ, but didn't not go ahead after found out this;
If your pickup got any rust, it will fail WOF on arrival as kiwis doesn't like car from other countries got rust on it :roll even there is lots of rust cars in NZ :confused:
If I was you, check with customs about rust in the import car from UK!!! no matter how small rust is that his workmate had same problem with his mini cooper from UK! fork out lots of money to get it fix to pass WOF.

[vixxann]

Thanks folks

Pickup is less than two years old , so very good condition (no rust!) We've spoken to Land Transport but they weren't much help really. We were trying to find out if its classed as a car or a light goods vehicle as I believe it doesn't need any frontal impact regs if its a goods vehicle. Anyone any wiser?

For your info its one of these...
(in UK) Ford Ranger XLT Thunder
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/8195/fdran014dh2.jpg

Regards the RoRo - being a bit ignorant here.. does that mean someone drives it on and off (eg. its not contained)? Can they do that with caravan too? Or are you better off shipping in container?

[Pip]

Just a quick word of caution.. we were very strongly advised by people to avoid 'ro ro' boats where vehicles are literally tethered to the deck - although for over £3k, I'm assuming thats in a container, as our car was only £1200 in a shared container. We've heard some stories (not sure how accurate) about cars being in a terrible state after they arrived when sent like that.

(although come to think of it, we haven't yet seen ours and it was due in over a week ago, but the boat is Awol around Sydney..:uhoh )

[Pip]

Oops..forget to mention, our first step was to check on the Land Transport list to see whether its an approved vehicle (apparently if its not on the list, its going to be an uphill battle).

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/importing/frontal-impact-compliance-status.html

this link might be useful if you haven't already seen it..

couldn't see anything called a ranger.. unless its known by something else..

hope that helps...

[vixxann]

Have been on Land Transport website (and rung them) going to make some more phone calls tonight - still confused over whether its a car or light goods vehicle - apparently its different regulations for each of these.

Anyone any more tales of sending car on Roro or in container (not as part of household container) also caravans???

[speckythecky]

When we got quotes for container we asked about shipping campervan which would have meant a 40ft fro van and belongings. Sorry we didn't ask about seperates.
The quote for a 40ft was about £1500 more than a shared 20ft and about £750 more than 20ft on own.
If both the pickup and caravan will fit into a 40ft (I would think so), then you are looking at just over £4K. The insurance for shipping vehicles was more expensive also.

[vixxann]

Just got off phone with John Masons - basically unless its a tiny caravan it won't fit in a container and will need to go to Southampton to go on a RoRo to Auckland. No idea of cost until have caravan sizes. Caravan will need to have WOF in NZ also NZ electrics certified. Not sure if it would be worth our while or not to bring one now :confused:

[Patricia]

If you can possibly take it I would cos caravans in NZ are pretty poor compared with the U K ones. I priced a like for like with motor homes and they were nearly double the price. So we reckoned with the cost of buying one here and shipping costs it worked out cheaper than buying one over there. :roll Just a thought.

Patricia

[vixxann]

Another question - if we ship before we have work visa I know we'd be liable for import tax,but I believe you get it refunded when you get a work visa. Is this correct and has anyone done it? I was wondering how they calculated the tax and exactly how it all works. Just thinking that it might be cheaper to send it over before we have visas sorted rather than pay for storage - and at least we might get some money back:D

Patricia - I think we've decided to leave the caravan option, to be honest we don't own one in UK now we were just thinking how worth while it would be to bring the one we are going to buy for the UK summer (instead of renting) but it won't particularly be a very good one and probably not worth spending the money we'd have to get it to NZ. Thanks for your help anyway.