Importing Tyres
 

Hi all – even though I now have a set of five new 900x16 NDT tyres, I thought I would go through the exercise of locating and importing more as they are a rare sought after tyre. My initial research revealed that there are two boundries, namely value of under $1000 and over $1000. Importing tyres of over $1000 value attracts lots of Customs duty etc whereas under $1000 does not attract duty. HOWEVER, research with a Customs Broker revealed the following costs.

• $25 - Entry Charge
• $25 - Customs Charge
• $150 – Customs Broker Fee
• 45c/kilo Airport handling charge – 900x16 = 48kg = $21.60/tyre
• $35 – Airways Bill Charge
• $45 – Deconsolidation Charge
• $140 – Quarantine Inspection Charge
• $25 – another Quarantine Charge

This equates to $531.14 if you could obtain four tyres for under $1000. I obtained a price out of the US of $218.28. Couple that with the charges, each tyre would have a landed cost of $351.

When available I have bought Indian MRF tyres from a local supplier for $220 including GST. However they are hard to obtain as the Indian Government has some sort of embargo on these types of tyres. A distributor in Victoria has some but he wants $440 each.

I know some MLU members have imported tyres, possibly in a container with other stuff and it would be interesting to see what their costs were.

Bob

I'm Tired!
 

Hi Bob.

I told my sad tale of tyre costs on a thread some time back. I bought six 9.00-16 NDs from Wallace Wade in Texas for less than $200 each and had them air freighted to Melbourne for a little over $700. I didn't think that I was going to bad until I went to pick them up and ran slap bang into 'The System'. Net result:- it cost me 2 days and another $500 and I consider myself lucky, it could have got a lot worse.

Total cost per tyre approx $425

Next attempt was when a friend of a friend was going on his annual shopping holiday to LA as part of which he was shipping back a '47 Ford pick-up. He purchased six 9.00-16 NDs from Summit Racing for a bit over $200 ea and shipped them back with the truck. Total cost for delivery to Oz $470.

Total cost per tyre approx $300 but may not be repeatable.

On a slightly different tack. The MRF 9.00-16 NDs that were available here were boldly marked 'For Flat Base Wheels Only' or words to that effect, which makes them the right tyre for a British/CMP wheels. I inadvertently purchased some without realising and they are sloppy on American wheels so I subsequently imported what I needed. I took the MRFs to Corowa last year but nobody showed much interest.

David

I was interested but I had spent all my money on a body, tool box and spare tyre carrier so the wife said no :bang: