Sidepipe ban?

[Mike Read]

Jason,

IVA in the UK certainly has made it a little more difficult with new regs about sharps contactable in a forwards direction ... practically everything has to have a 2.5mm radius on it ... my momo steering wheel failed because the spokes have a 2mm radius!, the Cobra indicators on the nose fail as they are too low, so we have to fit motorcycle indicators to the upper front bumper supports, and the allowed exhaust noise level has been reduced from 101db to 99db, which has been difficult to achieve on my engine as the test requires the engine to be revved at 70% of max power, which means 4,500 rpm on my LS7, which is mighty high and loud on a 7 litre engine!

I'm actually getting the noise from the engine overtaking the noise from the exhausts, so I'm currently putting sound deadening material under the bonnet and over the firewall and also blocking off the side vents, to try to lose the errant 2db! The car goes in for retest on 15th and it sounds a lot quieter, so hopefully it will pass this time!

Hi Boxhead,

Thanks for the SA gov. site ... I'm actually thinking of importing my VW Touareg and have been on the site already trying to work out what all the duties, including LCT will be. It's not simple, and it looks like customs use the original paid value for the car rather than the depreciated value, unless the car is 25 years old! My V10 is 8 years old and in the UK would sell for less than GBP8k, but it was 58k new ... no wonder 2nd hand cars are so expensive in Aus ... here they practically lose all value once they are 3 years old and out of warranty!

The import rules say there are allowances for returning Australians bringing in their personal car, but don't say what the allowances are .... just one of the many things I will have to sort out before making the move down under ... but selling the house in the current market here is proving the biggest hurdle!

Regards, Mike