Buying a car in Australia
Buying a car in Australia
Planning on driving round oz but think we’re gna just try and buy a car once we get out there and not rent beforehand. So was wondering if anyone knows how easy/hard it would be to do this (getting taxes,slips,mot etc) and roughly how much it costs to buy a wagon/saloon car?
Thanks very much if anyone can help!!
Planning on driving round oz but think we’re gna just try and buy a car once we get out there and not rent beforehand. So was wondering if anyone knows how easy/hard it would be to do this (getting taxes,slips,mot etc) and roughly how much it costs to buy a wagon/saloon car?
Thanks very much if anyone can help!!
Hi Pete
Buying a car is easy enough but depending what state the car is registered in can make it a bit more tricky.
In fact, If you have a look on this site I think Denton did an article on this a couple of years ago.
One of the cheapest places to buy a car is Cairns, because lots of people are finishing their travels and looking to sell quickly. And then if you are able to, sell in Sydney because most people are looking to start their journey there.
Another tip, pay a mechanic to give the car a once over before you buy. This kind of service normally costs around $70 but could be a life saver. We nearly bought a death trap, it was so bad the mechanics didn’t even charge us for looking at it! There are some honest mechanics out there! The next car we took to them, they told us was ‘gold’ and it was. We even made money on it when we sold it.
Rego - NEVER buy a car that doesn’t have rego - it’s far too much of a risk. Often the car doesn’t have rego becuase it has problems that are too expensive to fix.
The easiest state to register a car in is Western Australia. We bought our car in Cairns but it had WA rego. So the transfer of ownership process was simple. The previous owner had us fill out our details on a form that they had to send off and then we registered in person at one of their offices in WA, but you can also do it by post. I think the cost to transfer ownership was $75 (in 2011). It’s worth mentioning that we had to write down a WA address, so we used a hostel that we were going to stay at.
I’m a bit sketchy on the details but believe other states require a green slip (which is like an MOT cert) to prove the car is roadworthy before it’s registered. And if I remember rightly, NSW is the hardest state to do this in. I would suggest you do some research into this if you decide to buy a car registered in any state other than WA.
We had a Ford Falcon that cost $2500 and the 2 mechanics we had look at it (when we bought it and sold it) said they were good cars that are built to drive 1,000,000 km in their lifetime.
Our car got us from Cairns to Alice Springs, up to Darwin and down the west coast and all the way to Sydney. We even went to Uluru, Litchfield and Kakadu ourselves and save heaps of money. The only regret we had was driving it down the west coast because we needed a 4x4 for going to most of the national parks.
I personally wouldn’t spend any less than $2000 and would definitely get it checked out by a mechanic before buying.
I hope that helps!
Thanks a lot for this! Very helpful and exactly the sort of info we were looking for! :D
Ford falcon is the way to go, cheap, very reliable and there so common and cheap to fix. i had a few cars in OZ, but by far the falcon was the best, 398,000k on the clock, owned by a hospital most of its life so very well looked after, and only cost $1000-$2000 max, ended up selling mine for $1250 with all camping gear, satnav, maps etc etc.
^ what she said…good advice.
Only thing to be cautious of if looking to buy in a smaller place like Cairns is (as bad as it sounds) backpackers - be aware that the car may have had a hard few months in some weird places. Some of the larger southern cities may have better prices, I know Darwin (where I live) can pretty much add $500-$1000 to a cheap cars price for the same as what you would get elsewhere. Definitely get it checked out first - it may cost a little but save a LOT in the long run. Rego is a must - make sure it has rego to last you as long as you can as you don’t want to have to deal with trying to pass inspections.
The other thing is I would highly recomend taking some basic tools and a spare fanbelt, radiator coolant and oil with you. A fanbelt is a pretty cheap spare but if you break it you will be immobilised. Also check condition of the spare tire and make sure the air pressure in it is good before you go as you might be hundreds of kms from anywhere when you need to use it, last thing you want is to find is that it’s flat. Also highly recommend doing a few checks every now and then, just the basics oil, raditor coolant, levels in the battery, power steering, brake fluid, obvious oil leaks ect maybe once a week. Simple checks but if some of these run low it may be the end of you car or expensive repairs. Last tip is make sure you check the distance to the next fuel stop before you go as they can be some distance apart depending on where you are. Oh yer and if you are in the North during the wet season make sure you check road conditions as some areas can be cut off due to flood waters, not worth trying to cross unless you know its shallow, there are people every year that under estimate a river crossing and have to be rescued from the roof of their car…thats my input…
