Buying a car your first week.

If your anything like us you will want a car ASAP, you might hire one for your first week so you can get around, and during that week you will want to tour all the garages to pick your car.


The trickiest thing about buying a car is actually getting the loan, you have just arrived have no credit history in oz, no history of addresses or employment. But it seems its still possible (we managed it).


You will need a lot of stuff to get the loan, we had to supply.


1. Proof of rental address (my employer had to provide a letter as they were paying rent)

2. Proof of visa (just a photocopy of passport label)

3. Proof of employment (letter from company)

4. Three references (we had to supply names and addresses of 3 references, I used someone at work and long lost Australian relatives)

5. Three years worth of previous addresses.

6. Any random ID you may have, medicare cards, bank details etc.

The interest rates here are huge my car loan was 13.7% and that was deemed pretty good by the people I spoke to.

We also needed proof of no claims bonus to get insurance and needed a Queensland driving license to be able to drive the car away.

You can get a Queensland driving license with some ID (passport) and proof of address and your UK license (the picture card, they wont accepts the big green piece of paper as it has the word provincial on it somewhere which sends them a bit crazy).

The driving license only lasts for a few years(maximum of 5 years) and the longer it lasts the more you pay, (its up to you how long you want the license for).

Insurance.

Insurance is a bit odd they have this CPT insurance that is like insurance for running over a pedestrian (its a bit vague at the moment to me). But you get it with your car tax but have to choose an insurer. Seems to be a form of public liability.

Car tax is called rego (registration) and seems to cost a bit more than UK. You don't need an MOT certificate to get the car tax, all though they do require the car has a valid safety certificate whenever the car is sold.

Then you need normal insurance, except its for the car rather than the person (all though they still need to know the details of all the drivers)

Buying the car.

The number plates don't tell you how old the car is, you need to read the fine print in the window. The Australian's don't seem to care about car age only mileage is relevant (and they clock up a lot of miles here, no not miles kilometers). When I told one ozzy that in the UK the number plates show you the age of the car, he just stared blankly and asked "what would you want to know that for?".

90% of cars here are automatic (in Brisbane anyway), and if you can drive a manual the car salesman will get very excited that you might actually buy one of the few manual cars they have. (which are cheaper and more efficient but will be tricky to sell on).

The cars all have huge engines, a 2.0 litre engine is considered frugal here.

We ended up with a huge 4x4 offroader with a 3.6 litre engine, but it runs off lpg which is only 30 UK pence a litre.

So we got our car in the end, took about a week to sort out all the paperwork before we could drive it away.

If your shopping for cars in Brisbane you need to go up gympie road north out of Brisbane, its where all the car dealers congregate.