Shipping Bmw Bike & Toyota Land Cruiser From Usa

[lazar]

Wondering if it is feasible and worth it and of course legal to ship a California registered 1986 toyota Land Cruiser (mint) and a 91 BMW K100RS with only 29k miles, to Thailand for my use. I plan on staying forever, or at least coming back and forth for many, many years! Is it legal? What is the registration process and fees like? Yada yada, etc. All of your answers will be greatly appreciated, truly! Thanks!

[Crossy]

Hi Lazar and welcome

There are a few threads running currently regarding vehicle import, a quick search should reveal them.

To put it in a nutshell, FORGET IT!! Duties are variable and punitive, you are better off selling in the US and buying here.

This also means you won't be driving around in a left-hand-drive vehicle (which could prove lethal to the crazy motorcyclists who expect YOU to get out of THEIR way).

The same goes for your US audio-visual kit (TV etc), they are almost certainly 110V NTSC only, won't work here.

When we moved from the UK I wanted to bring my 5 Series BMW (my baby), just wasn't going to be worth the hassle. In the end I just brought notebook PC, camera and clothes, the wife brought 250kg, mainly clothes.

[corkscrew]

Crossy is 100% right.

I moved here 6 years ago and the only things I brought with me were a laptop, clothes, books, CDs, DVDs and cameras.

Everything else I bought here...cars, TVs, furniture.

Importing cars is a bureaucratic nightmare. The custom duties are confiscatory. Most important...as Crossy pointed out...driving in Bangkok with a left hand drive car would be both near suicide and near murder rolled into one.

Unless you plan to buy an inexpensive locally produced car be prepared to pay a whopping tax. On imported cars over 2000cc the tax ranges from 150% to 300%.

Make sure you bring an International Driving Permit issued in the same jurisdiction which issued your US driver's license. That way you can get a Thai driver's license.

[Tywais]

If you are really set on getting them here then go to this site Thai Customs Dept.

As others said the left hand drive would be a major difficulty and converting to right hand drive (can be done) would probably be prohibitively expensive.

The example on that page shows that for a car valued at 1M baht and under 2400cc you will be paying a total tax of, you ready for this, 2,131,707.20 baht

Edited December 26, 2005 by tywais

[corkscrew]

In short...get on the airplane to BKK with your carry-on loaded with cash. Park the California stuff with a Stateside friend.

[Carmine6]

Make sure you bring an International Driving Permit issued in the same jurisdiction which issued your US driver's license. That way you can get a Thai driver's license.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

AAA (and the AATA (?)) are the only authorized US suppliers of these according the US State Dept., but you can just walk in and get one right there. I think it was $10 for the permit and then maybe $8 for the 2 passport spec photos if you are a member. Not much more if you aren't a member. Mine says "Issued at Heathrow, Florida..." even though I walked into a California office. I think they all will say that since that is where you send the application if you do it by mail.

Don't pay other places to have it done as they are much more expensive and they'd have to send it to AAA anyway, or forge them. They look pretty easy to forge, but no sense in paying extra.