Is it worth importing
 

Hi Everyone,
I currently live in Oz and have a MY2003 Forester 2.5XS and will be coming back to the UK in the next few months.
Is it worth me bringing this with me? -- this model is not available in the UK so how will that effect its value and will servicing be more difficult/expensive etc?

Many thanks

you have a couple of things to consider.

1. Subaru UK dealers will not touch the car, but there are plenty of specialists that will depending how far you want to travel.

2. The tax costs when you import the vehicle.

3. You will need to get the car SVA'd and registered.

4. The car will be worth less on the open market when you sell the car.

5. The costs of shipping

6. Your remainding warranty will not be valid over here

Adding all this up i would doubt you would save any money it may even cost you more in the long run. But it depends if you really want to keep the car.

PBEE,

I think the law changed on 1st April this yr......I think all dealerships/garages now have to take on work on imported cars....don't quote me on that but I that that is the case now.

The reason I say about this is because I have a Jap Impreza MY97 WRX STi, and the garage near would never touch it....then in the 1st wk of April I needed some work done ASAP so I rang them, and they said that "As of 1st April we are now not allowed to turn any import work away"........I can't remember where, bit I looked it up, and it confirm what I was told...

Tim / P5TPB

you will find it hard mate if you say that this model is not available here then you wont be able to get it sva'd because there wont be a model report available for this mate. this is the first thing you should look into because if there is no modelreport available then you cant get an sva test donce hence you cant get it registered and on the road mate,also your car must be bogstandard to get through the sva so if it heavily modded youll have a problem check www.modelreports.com mate hope this helps