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Car advice for overland to Australia from UK Car advice for overland to Australia from UK
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Equipping the Overland Vehicle Vehicle accessories - Making your home away from home comfortable, safe and reliable.
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  #1  
Old 21 Jun 2013
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BMW 530d manual estate , will do 50+mpg very reliable, big enough to sleep in , very comfortable travel . Probably worth a couple of mods re tyres and fitting a bash plate underneath . £1500 might be stretching it abit tho
what route you thinking , also time of year critical . You can import into OZ , but will need quarantine clean and clearance , and a carnet or deposit money , to guarantee export at end of 9mnths IIRC
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  #2  
Old 22 Jun 2013
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Merc 230 estate, easy to fix, reliable and you can sleep in or on it..

regards

Gren
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  #3  
Old 24 Jun 2013
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I would go with an old merc. they are known the world over, tough as old boots and can be had quite cheaply. The build quality of the older ones is legendary, the newer ones not!
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  #4  
Old 24 Jun 2013
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As said above - the 'problem' will be getting rid of it at the end ... it may be cheapest to sell it to a wrecking yard and have any carnet cancelled (check that you can get it signed off before the car is wrecked!). It may well be best to do that before Australia as the shipping cost may be more that the car is worth. In fact buying and selling for each border might get around carnet costs... worth thinking about?
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  #5  
Old 27 Jun 2013
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Be cautious about having the car scrapped in Oz - you can only bring the vehicle in on a carnet - the destruction of the vehicle has to be supervised ($$$$) by Customs. There are not a lot of vehicle wreckers who will crush a complete vehicle as usually its just the body that get gets crushed and sent to China/Japan after all the good bits get taken out for on selling.
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  #6  
Old 5 Jul 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tacr2man View Post
BMW 530d manual estate , will do 50+mpg
I currently have a saloon one of these. Where did you get it from that it can do that many MPG?
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  #7  
Old 5 Jul 2013
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Where it came from is irrelevant , it was on long motorway journeys at sat nav 65mph on cruise control it was chipped it was 2000 saloon with 1 owner 98,000 miles, BMW FSH . I am using past tense as the engine has now been removed for transplant into my 110 CSW HTSH
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  #8  
Old 6 Jul 2013
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This isn't what the thread is about, but it happened to be in my mind when I saw your comment about the 530D. I drove my 1999 530D back to London on the M5 and M4 lust last weekend. After filling up in mid-Cornwall, I cruised for 230 miles at 90 all the way apart from a couple of brief roadworks interludes and the trip computer registered an average of 49.5 mpg. I thought that was pretty damn good for that size and age of car at that speed with 189K on the clock!

So getting more than that if cruising at 65 is probably about right.

A Landrover CSW with that engine will probably be quite a nice vehicle. I always thought it was a pity that Landrover didn't put bigger diesel engines in their Defenders.

PS - what does HTSH mean?
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  #9  
Old 6 Jul 2013
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Have to agree re engine size , thats why i went for the V8, and reason for the BMW to replace rather than a 300tdi or TD% engine . Hope Thats Some Help
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  #10  
Old 8 Jul 2013
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Tac - thanks

OP - back to the point of the thread - your mention of a Citroen ZX set me thinking - knew I hadn't imagined this! [http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...-300-car.html]

If you have any trouble finding the article, google 'Dwight Wood the sun Round the world in a £300 motor'
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  #11  
Old 11 Aug 2013
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If you go through Central Asia I would go with a Merc or BMW over anything else as you can get spares everywhere.

VW seem to be all the rage in Mongolia and Kaz with Audi 80s and old passats everywhere.

Cant help you with choice, just my observations on spares/repairs availability. Don't take anything French, I haven't seen any!

With regards to ditching the car I would look into this carefully. Most countries we passed through had a temporary import document issued. With exception to Kyrgyzstan.

That is if your coming this way, your opening post didn't reveal much

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