Buying parts from USA.

[deesun]

I need a part from US and it is about $600 AU +50 post. In the add it says there may be duties on it that I may have to pay. For those of you who have bought from overseas what is your experience. It is a marine part and is for my personal use.

[Trump]

I buy parts for my BMW from Pelican Parts and RockAuto. I've never had to pay duties or anything and the parts are on my doorstep six days later.

[NTF6]

Pretty sure if it's under $1k then there aren't any duties.

[Bossxr8]

Only applies for over $1000.

[commodorenutt]

Make sure they ship it direct to your personal address, and it's only your order.

There's a dark side to cheap freight or these "free shipping" incentives some of them offer - even to global customers. To save money on freight, or to cover themselves when the offer "free global freight" some places combine orders & send via a forwarder, to be broken down & distributed once in Australia. If this happens, and yours + others parcels exceed $1K, you'll all pay duty, even though the individual parcels are <$1k.

[danthefordman]

I contacted customs a few years ago and my understanding is all items imported in to the country may attract duties and taxes depending on what they are. I think you might find that the 1000 limit is a myth. It just happens that customs focuses on larger or more lucrative tax opportunities as it costs money to chase these duties and items have to be stored whilst awaiting duties etc. For car parts I was quoted 10% import duty & 10% gst but it depends on whether or not your item gets pulled up. I have ordered parts from Jeggs and Summit but have not been pulled up so far. I have mates who get chewing tobacco from the US regularly. Sometimes it gets through sometimes not but tobacco products get hammered as they are taxed by weight so even an order valued at a couple hundred will get pulled up.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by danthefordman

I contacted customs a few years ago and my understanding is all items imported in to the country may attract duties and taxes depending on what they are. I think you might find that the 1000 limit is a myth. It just happens that customs focuses on larger or more lucrative tax opportunities as it costs money to chase these duties and items have to be stored whilst awaiting duties etc. For car parts I was quoted 10% import duty & 10% gst but it depends on whether or not your item gets pulled up. I have ordered parts from Jeggs and Summit but have not been pulled up so far. I have mates who get chewing tobacco from the US regularly. Sometimes it gets through sometimes not but tobacco products get hammered as they are taxed by weight so even an order valued at a couple hundred will get pulled up.

The $1000 limit is not a myth, that's what the rules are. If you got lucky and didn't get charged duty on top of that consider yourself lucky. But there are things which are exempt.

I got hit with the customs charges on my trickflow heads.

[aussiblue]

Make sure the vender's leave the stated value in US$; one vender thought he was helpful converting to AU$ so after custom converted I was invalidly dutied.

[ebxr8240]

Freight is added to cost . Not sure if second hand is taxed ? My Powerglide was $3k all up . No tax . Paid a heap on “Kelford” cams (1500 NZ purchase price) for 1UZ Lexus .Oh what us rev heads pay !! Lol

[wodahs]

its the cost of the part + freight @ the AU$ when landed @ $1000
so if you pay $999 AUD but its worth $718USD on the day for both part and freight and the $ stay same , no prob but if it changes by time landed and equates to $1001 you pay the duty and on all $1001 not $1
I got sprung with this little clause but still at $1000 duty isn't much but better in my pocket than not
and we are talking new parts not used arnt we other wise it changes again

[Big_Daz]

A few things to consider:

- If the Customs Value of the goods in your package is AUD1000 or over then you will be assessed for Duty and GST. Things like Tobacco and alcohol are taxed regardless... Keep that in mind...

- Customs Value does NOT include the Freight to get it to Australia. It would include any Foreign Inland Freight (ie - Goods are worth AUD950 and you are charged another AUD100 for delivery to the Freight Company for sending then the Customs Value would be AUD1050 - most Express company's and individual buyers wont see this charge). THis is a very simplified explanation but anyway... Another thing to keep in mind is that the exchange rate Used by Customs may not be the one that you purchased the goods at. They use the Exchange rate on the Date of Export (ie - when the goods where sent). If your goods are well under you should be sweet, its when you are up over AUD950 it can hurt you and take you over the threshold



- New V Second hand makes Zero difference in relation to Duty and Tax's and how its applied. Quarantine are the ones who deal with that. Certain Used items will require Quarantine Action

- Customs will not put a whole lot of different peoples Packages together to make the Customs Value and then charge you... By the law, there can only be 1 Supplier and 1 importer per Cargo Report/Customs Declaration. if you have multiple shipments from the same seller on the one Master/Flight/Console to try to get under the Threshold, Customs will see when the Cargo Report is made and will put a hold on the packages and have them combined together...

I could go on (I do this for a living) but I wont...lol...

[Maysik]

I have been buying parts for two vehicles I have been doing up.
54 Chev truck and a 1959 Oldsmobile. Both were complete and just needed a few things replaced and a few things I just wanted to replace to make them look better.

I have been dealing with suppliers of parts for these vehicles for many years and some packages were small some large, some to my address by courier, some to my post office box and some I had to collect from a depot.

At no time did I incur extra taxes or charges although most suppliers stipulate in their adds that this MAY occur when it lands in Australia.

Most times my parts arrive BTW 9-14 days, a few 21 days-ish. by my post office box. Courier generally quicker again.

Other than my 394ci engine, the largest package I got was a ready made O.E.M exhaust system in a box about 8 foot long.

My evilbay postal experiences have been great over the years, no delay in postage from the U.S just the transit can take a bit, hence the 9-14 days. But you get that.

If a seller on evilbay uses that Global post thingy, USE IT, it is great and whenever I used it I always got my presents super quick even quicker than the big companies I buy off.

U.S.P.S and U.S Post both have tracking numbers where you can follow your present through the states and you can see the sites your present visits on its way to you. Occasionally it will drop off line into the ether for a few days, this happens and will re appear so don't stress and plague the sender with 'where is it?' emails as the U.S sometimes use a 'Pre-emptive' arrival date and that is usually very wrong off the mark, like 5 days plus.

Hope this helps.