Pip
15th May 2007, 05:45 PM
Thought I'd share with you our experience to date! From reading other threads apparently it can go quite smoothly, but I think ours is an example of what can happen.. and its still not over...:uhoh
Back in Jan, we looked into shipping our car (fairly high spec audi) as well as our belongings, and decided against it. Put it on autotrader, but the best offer we got was £3K from a dealer under what it had been valued at. We were about to accept and then thought about it, and worked out that it was £1200 to ship, another £600 for insurance and a couple of hundred to re-register. That way for approx £2k versus a £3K loss, at least we would have a car that we'd had from new, knew the history of, was four wheel drive, and should hold its value in NZ etc...so far so good. Checked with Wallie at NZ AA that it was frontal impact compliant and all was looking good.
Having made the sudden about turn, we decided to send it ahead of our other stuff, working on the assumption, the quicker it got here, the less time we would need to rent a car. dropped it of to John Mason who steam cleaned it, prepared it for shipping etc and got on with packing up the rest of our lives.
Get to NZ at beginning of March, chased up car and find out that sadly it didn't ship from Southhampton for several weeks after we dropped off and is due in port on April 17th. Not great, but thats life.. had several conversations with moving co about registration paperwork etc for customers and then called on 16th to finalise arrangements, only to be told the ship was delayed a week. (hmm.. maybe they could have mentioned that earlier!)
Called back a week later (in the mean time the rest of our goods had arrived, so so much for that plan!), and moving co assured me it was arriving that day ( April 24th). By this time, we've learnt how to read the shipping schedules and know its not actually due until three days later, on the friday. In fact OH watches the ship dock on friday evening and unload on the Lyttleton port webcam!
Call Moving Co the following monday to chase up on MAF inspection/customs. Despite paying John Mason to steam clean car, MAF send it off for further steam cleaning at $350. Moving Co also report that car is 'damaged', steering rod broken - although exterior is fine. (People with mechanical knowledge advise this is not sue to voyage but careless loading/unloading and it prob fell of the ramp either due to JM/MC.) Another three days pass while MAF approved cleaners come and take it on car transporter (can't be driven as not registered), steam clean it and return to Moving Co. MAF re-inspect, and pass it. Moving co agree to take to compliance testing centre (and after several phone calls and a couple of days actually get round to it). Compliance test centre reports no damage to steering (they can drive it on dealer plates), but a gouge out of spoiler underneath, so looks like MC thought they had damaged it after some reckless unloading, but actually hadn't - phew visions of UK insurance claims nightmare start to recede).
Compliance centre come back and say that the brakes need new brake pads and wheels aligning. OH arranges for car to be taken to wheel alignment place recommended by compliance centre, pays for wheels aligned and returned to compliance centre, who look at alignment and are still not happy. At this point,I suggest to OH that we send it to Audi, who look at the wheels and say, "ah - previous garage were working from out of date book", so have to pay Audi to align wheels correctly! At this point was getting quite excited, as just the brakes to be done, then checked by compliance centre and car would finally be ours (nearly four months after dropping it off!). However this afternoon, Audi phoned and said it needs new suspension springs to pass compliance (even though compliance people didn't mention that), and guess what - the parts are in Singapore and will take at least eight days to arrive!
At this point, I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry or both! Now hopefully our tale is an exception, but I know a few people have been thinking about shipping vehicles, so wanted to show both sides of the coin...
As you can imagine - the saga of the car is now running joke in OH's office as I have to drive him to work every day, so much for being unemployed and getting a lie in..:laugh
Back in Jan, we looked into shipping our car (fairly high spec audi) as well as our belongings, and decided against it. Put it on autotrader, but the best offer we got was £3K from a dealer under what it had been valued at. We were about to accept and then thought about it, and worked out that it was £1200 to ship, another £600 for insurance and a couple of hundred to re-register. That way for approx £2k versus a £3K loss, at least we would have a car that we'd had from new, knew the history of, was four wheel drive, and should hold its value in NZ etc...so far so good. Checked with Wallie at NZ AA that it was frontal impact compliant and all was looking good.
Having made the sudden about turn, we decided to send it ahead of our other stuff, working on the assumption, the quicker it got here, the less time we would need to rent a car. dropped it of to John Mason who steam cleaned it, prepared it for shipping etc and got on with packing up the rest of our lives.
Get to NZ at beginning of March, chased up car and find out that sadly it didn't ship from Southhampton for several weeks after we dropped off and is due in port on April 17th. Not great, but thats life.. had several conversations with moving co about registration paperwork etc for customers and then called on 16th to finalise arrangements, only to be told the ship was delayed a week. (hmm.. maybe they could have mentioned that earlier!)
Called back a week later (in the mean time the rest of our goods had arrived, so so much for that plan!), and moving co assured me it was arriving that day ( April 24th). By this time, we've learnt how to read the shipping schedules and know its not actually due until three days later, on the friday. In fact OH watches the ship dock on friday evening and unload on the Lyttleton port webcam!
Call Moving Co the following monday to chase up on MAF inspection/customs. Despite paying John Mason to steam clean car, MAF send it off for further steam cleaning at $350. Moving Co also report that car is 'damaged', steering rod broken - although exterior is fine. (People with mechanical knowledge advise this is not sue to voyage but careless loading/unloading and it prob fell of the ramp either due to JM/MC.) Another three days pass while MAF approved cleaners come and take it on car transporter (can't be driven as not registered), steam clean it and return to Moving Co. MAF re-inspect, and pass it. Moving co agree to take to compliance testing centre (and after several phone calls and a couple of days actually get round to it). Compliance test centre reports no damage to steering (they can drive it on dealer plates), but a gouge out of spoiler underneath, so looks like MC thought they had damaged it after some reckless unloading, but actually hadn't - phew visions of UK insurance claims nightmare start to recede).
Compliance centre come back and say that the brakes need new brake pads and wheels aligning. OH arranges for car to be taken to wheel alignment place recommended by compliance centre, pays for wheels aligned and returned to compliance centre, who look at alignment and are still not happy. At this point,I suggest to OH that we send it to Audi, who look at the wheels and say, "ah - previous garage were working from out of date book", so have to pay Audi to align wheels correctly! At this point was getting quite excited, as just the brakes to be done, then checked by compliance centre and car would finally be ours (nearly four months after dropping it off!). However this afternoon, Audi phoned and said it needs new suspension springs to pass compliance (even though compliance people didn't mention that), and guess what - the parts are in Singapore and will take at least eight days to arrive!
At this point, I'm not sure whether to laugh, cry or both! Now hopefully our tale is an exception, but I know a few people have been thinking about shipping vehicles, so wanted to show both sides of the coin...
As you can imagine - the saga of the car is now running joke in OH's office as I have to drive him to work every day, so much for being unemployed and getting a lie in..:laugh