Some of you will be aware that earlier this year I bought a Red 6R Polo GTI on finance from my local dealer, I bought the car as my new job gave me a car allowance which (eventually) covered all but £10 of the monthly repayments on the car (£367pcm), initial payment was £1000 and the car was stock so £18,500. The fella also gave me Gap Insruance gratis which was just a nicety because I was local I think. All in all, a deal I was happy with.
Last week I was offered another job, for over triple what I was earning at my current job, and in a line of work that I had wanted to enter since I graduated from uni last year (note: I currently work in ground improvement, making the move into Exploration Geology). The catch was that it required me to move to Brisbane, Australia. Actually that wasn't a catch, it was a massive bonus; but from the viewpoint of having just bought a £21,000 finance agreement, it made things somewhat difficult.
I check my contract and it appears that in order to get rid of the car now I have to settle the terms of my agreement which at this stage would cost me around £10,000. Money which I won't have for a few months yet and that I dont really want to spend on effectively nothing - as VWFS would take the car also.
So the other option is to try to find someone to take over the agreement, or to sell the car and pay the difference in the agreement, or finally; to take the car with me.
So that looks like the option I'm going to take. I've done a fair amount of research and roughly priced it up and its looking like it should cost less than £4k which is a vast expense but even if I manged to sell the car I'd still only get £17,000 for it at a push, leaving me with £4k left to pay back and STILL NO CAR! At least if I import the car the expense leaves me with something that I can sell at a later date and drive for a bit! Not to mention the fact that I'd then need to go out and buy a car in Brisbane to get around.
SO, this post is a mixture of two things - initially, for those of you thinking to buy a car on finance (particularly young idiots like myself), seriously weigh up your options before doing this - I learnt the hard way; it looks like the best deal in the world at first, but all that glitters isn't gold and there may be issues at a later date.
Secondly, I am going to keep updating this thread with my progress in exporting my car to Australia (a slightly more boring thread than a stage 2 map - but that may come later
). All of the threads I've seen on the net are at least a couple of years out of date, so I'm sure someone will find it useful at some point . And if not at least it will keep my head straight and I can use it as a checklist for s**t I've done or missed out.Incidentally, if anybody has any ideas on how to get around this in an easier or cheaper way then let me know (short of getting the car nicked or crashing it to claim the gap insurance!! haha!)
Cheers,
Ad.
