Buy bike in UK and import to Australia
 

I'm considering "all options" for Sydney - London or London-Sydney ride.


I'm interested to hear experiences of anybody who has bought a bike in UK and ridden it back to Australia for permanent import.


I'm expecting the paperwork would make this prohibitive - not something you'd want to deal with while on the adventure.


The other option is to ride a bike back and sell it for parts. You'd lose your CDP security, so this only works if the bike has a low valuation. I'm not clear if the "loss" would be based on the country with the highest value deposit (e.g. Indonesia is 150% of bike valuation), or the Australian deposit.


To make it explicit:
Bike assessed as being worth $5,000
Highest deposit country 150%, so actual deposit is $7500
Australia deposit 100%, so loss of deposit is $5,000


You lose the bike (still has some residual value) + the deposit. This only works for a cheap bike, otherwise might as well freight your own bike.

I understand there have been rule changes. I believe you can import a bike into Oz if it’s not sold here with limited ‘penalties’.

Maybe ring Dept of Infrastructure, transport etc and speak with technical standards

Good luck.