Looking at shipping my wife’s car as it’s very low miles, (<10k), and in perfect condition, but shipping co says cost of shipping and import duties would be ~$25k USD, which seems a bit excessive. Their explanation is that because it’s a model that is not normally imported into the country it has to jump through additional expensive hoops to be approved.
The hoops must be damn expensive because they say buying a more expensive vehicle, (BMW, Benz etc), would actually be lower cost because those are imported frequently and are known quantities.
But this is not some exotic supercar or something, it’s a model that actually is imported frequently, just under a different badge.
So I’m just wondering if anyone’s run into this recently and if there’s work-around, e.g.:
get a statement from the manufacturer as to the equivalence of the models?
change ownership to the business (registered as a branch office of the US company) and bring it in as a business vehicle? (can a regular SUV be a “blue truck”?)
swap with somebody considering export from there to the USA?
Discussed on here many times, and on Facebook and Reddit etc etc, unless something has changed it makes no sense for the ordinary Joe soap to import a vehicle for road use.
Sell it and buy another one here, even if you import it (expensive) you’re bound to have issues with it not being to “Taiwan standard“ if you need service later.
That’s ridculous. Most of the country is practically off limits if you don’t drive. You can get around but it’s so slow and cumbersome you’ll be very limited and dependent on others. I went to Xitou area took me 2 plus hours yesterday. By public transport I guess it would be 4 to 5 hours with all the waiting and connections (both ways) and also risk that there’s no seats during a very busy period.
If you just want to stay in the cities I agree a car is definitely not a necessity. Even for other people it’s not a necessity but for us it makes our life in Taiwan better.
