[Smiler]

Hi All

HELP!!

Him upstairs in insisting on bringing the car with us. :wah

His reasons in support so far are, it won't take up much room in the container, I like to drive it, its a boy thing you wouldn't understand etc

It's (to me) a normal peugeot 206 gti6, newish, very good condition. I think it's a waste of container space and an awful lot of effort, steam cleaning certificates and stuff.

When we were therein feb, there seemed to be 'normal' car sales places and garages and a good second hand market.

Has anyone any experience of this please? Was it worth it? Spares availability etc?

Not car crazy smiler

[Kenny]

We brought a Renault 21 GTS with us a few years ago.
The cost of second hand cars dropped just after we got here so it was not worth as much as originally estimated.

I did a lot of research before bringing it. Checked the price of parts etc and found that, being a european car, the parts were about 10% more than the UK and quite a lot more expensive than the 'local' cars. Hey! I can live with that , I've got a good european car. Not!
What they don't tell you is that they do not keep the parts on the shelf. Due to the smaller market and the number of different parts, they generally order the parts in when needed. Great.
Unfortunately, they were ordering from France. I ended up ringing up the main dealer in the UK where I bougnt the car, giving him credit card details and getting him to send the parts from the UK. The dealers here were giving me a delivery time of 2-3 weeks. I was getting them from the UK in 5 days and then getting them to fit them.
It meant that everytime I needed work done on the car, it was a week to 10 days off the road. Great if you have a second car but useless if it is your only transport.
You cannot survive without transport here unless you live in the central city area's so I would think very hard before bringing a european car.

(By the way - The Renault and Peugeot main dealers in Wellington are the same garage).

[Carol]

That said.......from the "wife's emotional point of view" it was LOVELY to see our lovely shiny red Renault arrive here in NZ and know we didnt need to go out and buy anything.


Of course the receiving shipping company in NZ blew up the starter motor when they attempted to connect everything back up but that's another story.....at one stage I think I told them to "Get their y hands off my car before they did any more damage" and we got Renalt to come and sort it out for us!

[Smiler]

Hi Kenny & Carol

Thanks for the info.

As it's a peugeuot I'm sure we would have a similar problem with the garage/parts and 5-10 days min seems a long time to be without it.

Unless the job offer comes up in Auckland we may well be living out of town, so its still a lot to think about. I'm still unconvinced. that it is right to bring it.

Do you know what happens if its a japenese car say, would we still have problems with parts stock? Or is there a make of car to buy that we wouldn't have these problems with?

Thanks for your help.

Deborah

[jonSE]

French and Italian cars in particular seem to have no real support here at all. German cars are reasonably well supported. The Rover dealers (Not Land Rover) seem to have had massive pricecutting sales recently I wonder why.

I suspect importing a recent Citroen,Peugeot or Renault would be a recipe for financial disaster out of all proportion to the value of the car.

If you can't bear to sell your Japanese car bring it, but you may find you could have sold it and replaced it like for like for wht you sold it for in the UK. The exception to this is cars like Nissan Sunnys between say 5 and 8 years old which fetch lots more than in the UK. Having driven a Rent A Wreck Sunny with >250,000kms on the clock I know why. I was seriously considering buyin one to add to the 2 Porsches and a Land Rover stable, 'cos it was so good for what it was.

Jon

[Smiler]

Thanks Jon

I guess what you guys are saying about some importing some cars is what I had been already thinking, but it is really good to get the views of someone who has done it and maybe has the T shirt too.

:yes Deborah