I have noticed that at least 1 manufacturer is offering for free, $2,500 worth of accessories, and an extra 2 years on the warranty, for cars purchased prior to 30 June 2011.
To me, this smells like a new set of "cheaper" car prices for the new financial year, with the new higher status of the $AUD....
Remind me again why a Subaru Forester (entry level) is under USD$22,000 and roughly AUD$34,000..... something smells fishy....
Cars and other stuff is cheaper in America because the American consumer is not prepared to pay the price we do for stuff. An Aussie is prepared to pay $30 for a CD. An American is prepared to pay $15. Companies charge what people are prepared to pay. If Subaru or any other car company tried to sell cars in America at the prices they charge here, they would not sell any. We are prepared to pay it though.
This is best evidenced when GMH sold a Commodore over there as a Pontiac. It was significantly cheaper in America.
The illusion is that the AUD is strong. It is doing well obviously but people seem to forget that the USD has actually crashed on its own. Even in Asia the USD is worth less. What has happened and we will see in time that most Asian producers have increased pricing in USD to maintain earnings in their local currency. While the AUD is strong against it we have not noticed the increases. If the AUD falls import costs will rise sharply.
Personally the AUD at $1.06 or whatever is terrible for our economy in so many ways. I hope we don't find out how bad at any time soon.
spot on. we need to be about 60cents for us to be strong. i got smashed because of it
Not just cars!
Looking at touchscreen monitors and found a 42" by HP 
US$1999 = AU$1908.71 (www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1999&From=USD&To=AUD)
h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/382087-382087-64283-72270-3915216-4032279.html
AU$3999
h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Product.aspx?hpproduct=EM893AA
Since when does it cost double for exact same bit of kit!?! 
I was just on a US website and there was an ad for a new Dodge Ram with a 390hp Hemi for under $22000 w. To purchase something like that here you would be looking closer to $100000. I assume that it doesnt cost $80000 to import a car. We are getting ripped off hard.
I would strongly recommend researching
Import duty
Luxury car tax
Stamp duty
GST
Imported car legislation's (very important)
Imported car caveats
LH drive permit costs
Rules about selling the car
Conversion of car to meet Australian design regulations
Just to name a few
Hi Just reading the above and doing a little research, check these out.http://www.carsales.com.au/all-cars/private/details.aspx?Cr=4&R=10796898&keywords=&trecs=26&__sid=12C8DEE28850&__Ns=pCar_RankSort_Int32|1||pCar_PriceSort_Decimal|1||pCar_Make_String|0||pCar_Model_String|0&__Qpb=1&tsrc=allcarhome&__Nne=15&seot=1&__N=1216%201246%201247%201252%201282%204294963846%204294776694%20903&silo=1011
Aud $63,500 = ?41,818.73 GBP
Same age and milage
www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201124391694020/sort/priceasc/usedcars/model/370_z/make/nissan/postcode/hp236bu/page/2/radius/1501?logcode=p
?24,850 = $37,748.84 AUD
you guys are definitely being bent over.
and that has nothing to do with import duties esp seeing as you are closer to Japan than us pomes.
recently i bought an ion riot wetsuit, from back home including Post was ?200 here the same wetsuit was Near $600, thats ?395 almost twice the price.
only way i see here is to buy abroad and force not the local shops but the distributors and government to lower their levies, the shops aren't getting rich but someone is????
If the Australian dollar remains high, then it is a defacto (addition to a) high interest rate. The RBA is not going to be prone to want to rise interest rates as agressively if the currency is doing the work for them.
Australia didn't fall into recession unlike its trading partners and prices in Australia generally remained high as there was nothing forcing them down. If Australia went into recession, general price levels would have fallen including consumer goods, labour and credit.
Domestic prices in Australia are too high and maybe having a recession would have been the cause for deflation in the economy. A bit like Keatings recession we had to have in the early 90's.
We are currently victims of our own sucess.
Transport is 2 fifths of stuff all. You can move about 10 cars from Sydney to Brisbane for about $3,000 in raw costs. Or $300 per car. The shipping from Japan to Aus should be less than Japan to USA. Or at least the same. But I have no actual cost info on that.
I still think we are being ripped off on some of those items. Profits being kept by the importers. I understand there is a certain amount of longer term currency hedging with the car industry though....
OK - Take USA / USD out of the equation...
Here is Subaru Japan Link.
www.subaru.jp/forester/forester/grade.html
They seem too have a lot of 2 litre Foresters, but ours are 2.5 litres. However, the S-Edition seems to the same. Priced as Y 3,129,000, appears to be drive away. Same car here is AUD $54,500.
3,129,000 divided by 84.7 = $36,950. A difference of $17,550.
The S-Edition for Japan would be identical to the one that comes here.... Steering wheel is even on the correct side for us ! Sure our emission standards would (or should) be very similar/identical to Japan's....
Based on $37,000 in Japan, I think we should be paying around $42,000 to $44,000, not $54,000.
And this has NOTHING to do with the USD, USA, Luxury Car Tax, Left Hand Drive, and is shouldn't have anything to do with emission standards either.....
(I'm still wondering if the prices will adjust a tiny bit in the next few months... but I would expect they will only adjust by about $1,000 per $20,000... ball park...)
Australian distributors hike the price up and up and up until people stop buying the product then they complain that we're a small market to justify the OUTRAGEOUS price.
If the A$ went to US$0.60 we'd be looking at a real 10% inflation.
Australian produce is cheaper in South America than it is in Australia... go figure that one out.
Australian Banks rip their customers off more than any other, WHY? Because you seem to like it (since 1999, I've used an English bank).
www.finder.com.au/australias-personal-debt-reported-as-highest-in-the-world
Australians Lead The World With Personal Debt
Recent numbers have come out that are showing that Australians have more personal debt than any other citizens of any other country in the world. They even have more than the United States of America. The US is usually the first country one would think of when the words "largest credit card debt"? is mentioned. The Reserve Bank of Australia or the RBA has determined that most of the debt Australians carry is for mortgages, loans and credit cards. These debts are over $1 trillion AUD. This equals to $56,000 US dollars for every Australian adult. The average American adult has about $45,000 US dollars worth of debt.
Just did a comparison on A Porsche Cayman S:
UK: 49 000 pounds
Aus: $149 000
you do the math. Why is there such a discrepancy?
Ok dinsd but what about locally manufactured goods?
small example: 550ml bottle of coke 0 (made here by Amatil) OZ from $3-50 Switzerland (locally made as well) from $ 1-75 and remember that the salaries are higher there as well! We are getting ripped off! Bought a carton of Alsatian beer there for $ 8-00 (smaller bottles 250ml).
WTF?
If Australian prices are more expensive due to the small market or because of the length of time it takes a ship from Rotterdam or wherever to get here, would that not result in that be a market where there are few brands and limited range available in the market? We would be limited to some crap offerings from Holden and Ford along with rubbish from some other countries.
So brands could not be bothered to send 100 cars here because its not worth their while. Why put up with the Australian design rules. Why put up with the steering wheel on the wrong side. Why deal with the boat that takes six months to arrive?
Why do they? Why can Australian car buyers buy cars from almost every car manufacturer in the world? Its because all the manufacturers know they can make good money in Australia.
Why sell a BMW in America for $50K when you can sell the same vehicle in Australia for $120K? Why sell a Ferrari in the UK for 120,000 pounds when you can sell it in Australia for over $400K?
The Australian car market is quite important, though car companies never want to say why.
On the subject of Beer, I remember buying a 30 Can Block of Budweiser in Monterey CA. It was about $12.99 !!
I saw the other day that a cases of Euro Pilsners are about USD$15-$20, but here, the same beers range from AUD$45-$60. Broadly, one third the price.
Just bought a new TV Sam 55" D8000.
Came home checked out the price on Amazon.com with shipping to Oregon: US$2,108.49
I paid A$3700, that's US$3930
