Are our cars different depending on the country they're supplied to?

[Russbmw]

Reason for asking, is I'm looking to emigrate to Australia from the UK, and I want to take my 640 with me.

Clearly the climate over there is quite different from the UK, so I was wondering, do they have different cooling system components or anything?

I know there's also the oil spec to consider - I saw something on here recently about the UK being LL04 and the US being LL01, for example, due to fuel differences.

Does anyone know? A guy I was talking to recently said he knew someone who had to get their radiator changed on their car (don't think it was a BMW).

[JBF650]

Originally Posted by Russbmw

Reason for asking, is I'm looking to emigrate to Australia from the UK, and I want to take my 640 with me.

Clearly the climate over there is quite different from the UK, so I was wondering, do they have different cooling system components or anything?

I know there's also the oil spec to consider - I saw something on here recently about the UK being LL04 and the US being LL01, for example, due to fuel differences.

Does anyone know? A guy I was talking to recently said he knew someone who had to get their radiator changed on their car (don't think it was a BMW).

Russbmw, bring some bloody rain from the ole dart when you come please..... these bloody bushfires are still going......

While not an expert, our cars were manufactured for a global market, so there in, hot and cold climate operation. Your car will be fine here from a basic operating perspective and of course you are on the RIGHT side, however the question of fuel be it petrol or diesel in your case you perhaps should do some research on.... again fuel is fuel ...

It begs the obvious question though, while rare in most places, there are 6ers here .... you could sell yours in the UK and when you are set-up here just buy one here with Aussie delivery? Of course you may have sentimental attachment to your car and I get that. Just saying that a private uk import into Australia you may find it a challenge to sell here down the track.

Cheers

[Simon6666]

BMW builds the cars different from country to country or region to region.
Some examples out of my brain:

-Bad road package for easter europ. countries with stronger suspension
-Heat Country Package for countries with excessive heat. with additional radiator
-High Speed Brakes for Germany with bigger brakes for the Autobahn
-Cold Country Package for cold countries with heating for the crankcase breather
-More Airbags (Knee) for the US

All this packages must not be ordered separately.

[Russbmw]

Originally Posted by JBF650

Russbmw, bring some bloody rain from the ole dart when you come please..... these bloody bushfires are still going......

While not an expert, our cars were manufactured for a global market, so there in, hot and cold climate operation. Your car will be fine here from a basic operating perspective and of course you are on the RIGHT side, however the question of fuel be it petrol or diesel in your case you perhaps should do some research on.... again fuel is fuel ...

It begs the obvious question though, while rare in most places, there are 6ers here .... you could sell yours in the UK and when you are set-up here just buy one here with Aussie delivery? Of course you may have sentimental attachment to your car and I get that. Just saying that a private uk import into Australia you may find it a challenge to sell here down the track.

Cheers

I was out just north of Brisbane from the 9th Dec to 10th Jan this year mate, it was a tad on the dry side for sure!

I did make some enquiries with Coastline BMW whilst I was put there on this matter, but noone seemed to know.

That's the thing, I've not actually seen a single F06 in the 8 or so times I've been over there, and I've been to adeleaide, Sydney and brisbane; and knowing mines a decent one in terms of condition and spec, I was thinking I'd take it with me. But I hear what you're saying, and sadly that may well have to be what I do, but I'd rather that be the last resort.

Whilst clearly BMW's are more attainable now than they were say 5 years ago (which I assume is down to holden packing up and off shoring, this opening the floodgates to alternatives) they are still more expensive than the UK. For example, my 435 when new had a list price of £54k, so circa $90k, yet a similar spec 440 (simply chosen as it's the obvious successor) I was told would be around $120k, so about £65-70k.

Hence if I had to spend a few grand on getting it imported, it wouldn't be the end of the world, as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get one for what I paid for mine.

[iamvanja]

Originally Posted by Simon6666

Bad road package for easter europ. countries with stronger suspension

I chuckled reading this one!
Which Eastern European countries? Driving in Croatia and Slovenia, I've seen one of the best roads on the planet.
If this is really true, how come we don't get off-road packages with every BMW here in the US, especially for the East Coast? 😂

[ezmaass]

Originally Posted by iamvanja

I chuckled reading this one!
Which Eastern European countries? Driving in Croatia and Slovenia, I've seen one of the best roads on the planet.
If this is really true, how come we don't get off-road packages with every BMW here in the US, especially for the East Coast? 😂

In the NY metro area we need the "hover" package so we can avoid direct contact with the roads altogether.

[JBF650]

Originally Posted by Russbmw

I was out just north of Brisbane from the 9th Dec to 10th Jan this year mate, it was a tad on the dry side for sure!

I did make some enquiries with Coastline BMW whilst I was put there on this matter, but noone seemed to know.

That's the thing, I've not actually seen a single F06 in the 8 or so times I've been over there, and I've been to adeleaide, Sydney and brisbane; and knowing mines a decent one in terms of condition and spec, I was thinking I'd take it with me. But I hear what you're saying, and sadly that may well have to be what I do, but I'd rather that be the last resort.

Whilst clearly BMW's are more attainable now than they were say 5 years ago (which I assume is down to holden packing up and off shoring, this opening the floodgates to alternatives) they are still more expensive than the UK. For example, my 435 when new had a list price of £54k, so circa $90k, yet a similar spec 440 (simply chosen as it's the obvious successor) I was told would be around $120k, so about £65-70k.

Hence if I had to spend a few grand on getting it imported, it wouldn't be the end of the world, as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get one for what I paid for mine.

It was the best thing for us Aussies when the federal govt here ceased subsidising the local car manufacturing operations of Holden, Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi..... our locally manufactured Holdens and ford cars were so terrible in terms of build quality, design and function it was embarrassing. However they served a purpose as rough ugly taxi like forms of transport. It was indeed good riddance to both these awful and poorly designed series of cars in Australia. This has made European imports a lot more ‘affordable’... however like most other western countries the Japanese tend to have the lion share of basic economy cars per head.
Try googling the National car online ads ‘Carsales.com.au’ and have a look for cars you like. I can assure you there are plenty of nice cars to choose from and indeed I just did a quick search for 6 series 2012 and beyond and there are 50 + of the Fo6,f13,F12 models. Australians took a while to come around to diesels in luxury cars.... sure the big luxo Rangies and 4WD et Al have diesels but unlike Europe, we were a bit slow at accepting diesel powered luxury sports cars. However the 640ds are here, in fact there are a number for sale currently.
The New 8 series isn’t exactly whizzing out of showrooms here so much like what many of the members on here are saying.... current 6series owners seem to be hanging onto their cars.
Importing your car from the uk to Australia isn’t a ‘couple of grand’ mate. I’m not in the trade but I do know some mates that have brought in cars from OS and it’s more like 10k per vehicle shipping charges then there is a stamp duty tax on top of this. STP is a 3 %portion of the assumed market value of the car. I think there is also customs cleaning charges etcetc. As you can quickly see it’s not a couple of grand....
I certainly get why you would look at this as you love your car, absolutely, we all love our 6ers. They are very unique, beautiful and great cars. However they are here in good supply, depending on what you like in fit, colour combo and model choice. Prices for well cared for 6ers here in Aus in the model’s you like start from around $50k and go upwards from there.
The other issue I mentioned before was if you ever wanted to trade or sell a UK import here you may encounter issues and trouble. Fairly certain the BMW dealers would be wary of anything not imported to this market new. private buyers maybe a little less worried.
IMHO I’d Look what’s on offer here and make some enquires about locally delivered cars after you have made your decision to emmigrate.
Good luck Ross!
Cheers

[hugo_nz]

My 650i is an ex-UK car and it all works just fine :-)

Besides the heat and road packages some other hardware differences are to be found with iDrive since US, Japan and Rest Of World each have different hardware packages.

[brad850csi]

I’d contact Kristian at Iron Chef imports, tell him you know Brad from Auckland with an M6 he has been importing cars into AU for years and will be able to give you actual info.

NZ laws are relaxed by comparison and we have a huge amount of ex Jap, UK, even Hong Kong and Singapore cars here. They all work fine

[murph914]

Sop sorry to hear about your fires down there. We're thinking about you guys here in Massachusetts. I'd love to give you guys all our snow if we could.

[Jeffro75]

Originally Posted by Russbmw

I was out just north of Brisbane from the 9th Dec to 10th Jan this year mate, it was a tad on the dry side for sure!

I did make some enquiries with Coastline BMW whilst I was put there on this matter, but noone seemed to know.

That's the thing, I've not actually seen a single F06 in the 8 or so times I've been over there, and I've been to adeleaide, Sydney and brisbane; and knowing mines a decent one in terms of condition and spec, I was thinking I'd take it with me. But I hear what you're saying, and sadly that may well have to be what I do, but I'd rather that be the last resort.

Whilst clearly BMW's are more attainable now than they were say 5 years ago (which I assume is down to holden packing up and off shoring, this opening the floodgates to alternatives) they are still more expensive than the UK. For example, my 435 when new had a list price of £54k, so circa $90k, yet a similar spec 440 (simply chosen as it's the obvious successor) I was told would be around $120k, so about £65-70k.

Hence if I had to spend a few grand on getting it imported, it wouldn't be the end of the world, as I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get one for what I paid for mine.

As a fellow Aussie, I have to agree with the advice of picking up a 6er here locally. An import is almost worthless here as people have a great fear of not being able to get country specific parts. Local dealers also won't touch them. I think you'll also find that most of the F06, F12, F13's here are very highly spec'd. Not sure about your car but I have noticed a lot of the UK F06 6er's don't have the 4 zone climate control which was standard here, as was the extended leather on the dash, soft close doors, comfort access and side and rear sunshades. Comfort seats, nappa leather and ceramic controls are also commonly optioned. You are right to say that there are not many of them here. It is both a good and a bad thing in that there is a high level of exclusivity and also a lack of choice when looking to buy. Finding the right one might take some time. The fact is no one knows what these things are here, I still get asked what mine is from other BMW owners. The upside is, they are an unbelievable 2nd hand bargain right now with many low km examples in the 3-4 year old range trading at about 25%-30% of their new value. MY14.5 and above are the pick in my opinion as they got the digital instrument cluster as standard, even better if your budget can extend to an LCI. Another cost to consider when importing is that your car will need to be complied to Australian standards, which can run to about $10k. You may find items such as seat belts, brake lines and other critical items need to be changed to meet our much harsher U.V. exposure levels and specific requirements. The car also has to be fully drained and shipped dry which can cause havoc with the auto transmission and seals.

[Russbmw]

Originally Posted by Jeffro75

As a fellow Aussie, I have to agree with the advice of picking up a 6er here locally. An import is almost worthless here as people have a great fear of not being able to get country specific parts. Local dealers also won't touch them. I think you'll also find that most of the F06, F12, F13's here are very highly spec'd. Not sure about your car but I have noticed a lot of the UK F06 6er's don't have the 4 zone climate control which was standard here, as was the extended leather on the dash, soft close doors, comfort access and side and rear sunshades. Comfort seats, nappa leather and ceramic controls are also commonly optioned. You are right to say that there are not many of them here. It is both a good and a bad thing in that there is a high level of exclusivity and also a lack of choice when looking to buy. Finding the right one might take some time. The fact is no one knows what these things are here, I still get asked what mine is from other BMW owners. The upside is, they are an unbelievable 2nd hand bargain right now with many low km examples in the 3-4 year old range trading at about 25%-30% of their new value. MY14.5 and above are the pick in my opinion as they got the digital instrument cluster as standard, even better if your budget can extend to an LCI. Another cost to consider when importing is that your car will need to be complied to Australian standards, which can run to about $10k. You may find items such as seat belts, brake lines and other critical items need to be changed to meet our much harsher U.V. exposure levels and specific requirements. The car also has to be fully drained and shipped dry which can cause havoc with the auto transmission and seals.

Appreciate your input mate, I think i've resigned myself to the fact I'll have to sell it over here before I go.

Mine has the extended leather (which I think is standard here too), comfort access (read: comfort theft over here), digital dash (one less thing to worry about I thought if shipping it) amongst a lot of other things.

On the upside, I'm now thinking if that is the case, right now is the time for me to get an M car of some description for a year or so before I go!

[Jeffro75]

Best of luck mate! We look forward to welcoming you to Australia!

[Taheemr]

Practical note and may not be applicable, don't forget to clear finance

[Russbmw]

Originally Posted by Taheemr

Practical note and may not be applicable, don't forget to clear finance

It's not on finance, thankfullly