I use Mainfright ( kiwi shipping in the US ) they charge about $3500.00A California to east coast Australia. vehicle is shipped in a container with 4 to a container.
If you bring in 4 cars you can get it down to $2,800 per car
At the time I decided to ring around to compare prices. Schumacher charge $1,550 for shipping and charged me $250 to de-gas the air-con. Mainfreight they say it costs $100 to degas in L.A. and they add $25 to get it done at their facility so getting back to Schumacher I asked how they justify $250 for a de-gas, they told me they have their own set price and I knew of it beforehand. True, I knew of it ... after I was locked in and paid them for shipping and it's not like I can get someone else to do it while it's in their hands. They were however kind enough to throw in a free clean of the car (it was covered in dirt when it arrived) and to waive a second online transaction fee since they billed me later for the de-gas. I also insured through Schumacher at 2.25% of market value, some shipping companies include insurance in their price for total loss or up to a certain value so it's definitely worth shopping around for the best deal.
Freightnet's price seemed high, they get charged per container and then charge each car owner a rate per cubic metre, after a bit of negotiating they gave me some relief on their cubic metre rate and the final price was $1,712. Add to this $200 for AQIS steam cleaning, at the docks I could still see light dirt in the engine bay and grille so I don't know if they really cleaned it but I wasn't going to point that out to them and get hit up for another clean.
I had a good chat with Lee Amour at Mainfreight, they bought out Kiwi shipping and acquired a large depot in L.A., it's run by an Aussie and they ship to Sydney Brisbane and Melbourne every 2 weeks. They charge around $3,000 all up for shipping so I could've saved a few hundred going with them and it may have arrived a little sooner. Mainfreight did mention the first 3 weeks storage in L.A. is free then they charge by the week for additional storage, Schumacher didn't charge for storage in L.A. If you go with Mainfreight and the car is held up in L.A. it could be a case of, 'what you lose on the swings you make on the roundabouts' when compared to Schumacher.
One hiccough, the owner of the car had the wrong VIN on the cert. of title. I could've kept hush and let it sail with the wrong VIN but I didn't want to risk it so alerted Schumacher. Matt (Shermatt) in his wisdom applies for another import approval with correct VIN, it arrived in the meantime and didn't affect the wait (afaik) as the car was already booked to sail. Schumacher charged $200 to get the title corrected.
Lee (Mainfreight) said that price sounds right and Schumacher did the right thing to wait for approval, if you send a car over and the approval isn't ready when it lands, you'll get charged like a wounded bull for storage in Aus. till it's approved.
I've seen some US car dealer ads where they claim they can ship a car to Aus. and quote a cheap price but it's only the shipping price from US port to Aus. port, add to this any trucking fees to the port and what they also don't tell you (as you can see above) is you have to pay at least that much again at an Aus. port to unload, so keep that in mind.
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