Vinnie Rego Woes

One of my biggest surprises on this trip to Australia has been discovering the wide variation in practices, rules, regulations, etc. between each of the states of Australia. As an example, the state of NSW requires vehicles to pass an annual safety inspection in order to renew their car rego (registration) for any car more than five years old. No other state in Australia requires this to renew your rego; they have different requirements state-by-state but typically a safety inspection is only required when selling / purchasing a vehicle.

I knew when I bought Vinnie I would need to renew his rego by October 31, 2025 but had no idea just how challenging this was going to be trying to get this done outside of NSW.

I was in Esperance, Western Australia at the beginning of October 2025 when I was notified that my rego was due on October 31, 2025. I contacted Service NSW to find out how to do this while in another state of Australia and was told to go to an authorized inspection station. Now that you know only NSW requires annual safety inspections, you can guess that every other state in Australia has far fewer inspection stations. AND, you have to book in for any and every service in Australia. You cannot just rock up for an oil change, inspection, etc. like you often can in the USA. I was headed into South Australia and would be in Adelaide within 10 days so I started looking into booking an inspection in Adelaide.

After a few hours of research, phone calls, and frustration, I finally discovered that every inspection station in South Australia was fully booked through December 31, 2025. So I called Service NSW and asked them what they wanted me to do. The individual I spoke with gave me what he called an “alternative” process which basically boiled down to going to a licensed mechanic and having them complete the safety check of like 40+ things on the vehicle such as brakes, lights, engine, etc. and then sending that paperwork back to them. I spent the next two weeks chasing down appointments, repairs, and cobbling together safety inspection paperwork in a state that doesn’t really require this so I had to keep explaining what I was trying to do, etc.

After several full days of having Vinnie in repair stations, spending more than $2,000 AUD to fix suspension issues, buying four more tyres (that’s NINE new tyres I’ve bought for Vinnie in less than 10 months of owning him!), climbing through junk yards looking for replacement parts, ordering replacement parts by mail and paying for fast shipping to receive them before the end of October, etc., etc. I thought I had what Service NSW wanted. With one week to the deadline, I contacted Service NSW submitted the paperwork, and they cheerfully declined to accept any of it because I hadn’t gone to an authorized inspection station and they didn’t care that every inspection station in South Australia was booked through the end of the year. I was literally in tears at the end of this phone call and feeling really desperate as the vehicle could not be driven after Oct 31 if I couldn’t get the rego renewed.

I started calling inspection stations in the state of Victoria where I was headed next and quickly discovered that trying to pass rego in Victoria wouldn’t work either because after looking up Vinnie on their computer, they could see I was driving a campervan which they would classify as a motorhome and I would be missing things that the state of Victoria would require of a motorhome. When I asked the mechanic why they would classify it as a motorhome even though NSW didn’t, he basically said, “Welcome to Victoria” and reconfirmed just how separate and different each state in Australia is…

With less than 7 days to the deadline, I made the only decision I felt I could make which was to make a run for the NSW border and get the vehicle inspected at a NSW inspection station. I was able to get an appointment on Oct 28 and started heading to the border to NSW near Echuca & Moama. By this time, I was confident that I had addressed all but one of Vinnie’s issues – the suspension was finally corrected, rear tail light replaced, etc. The one issue that’s not fixable (or worth fixing in the opinion of several mechanics who have worked on Vinnie since I purchased him) is the “oily engine.” Before I purchased Vinnie, I paid a mechanic to assess Vinnie and share the details with me to help me decide whether or not to buy him. What I learned was that Vinnie was sound but did have an “oily engine” meaning he has a very slight ooze but doesn’t drip oil. When I asked about fixing this the mechanic told me I could spend $5K ripping apart the engine and still not find the reason for the small ooze and that he himself wouldn’t try fixing it if he owned it as it wasn’t worth fixing. He advised me to be vigilant of oil usage and wished me the best.

The good news is that I carry extra oil in Vinnie and have never had to use it. I’ve had the oil replaced three times and each time the oil is replaced, the correct amount of oil is drained out of Vinnie. So Vinnie isn’t dripping or burning oil excessively. Still, I was worried about what would happen at the safety inspection.

I get to the safety inspection and am seated in an area where I can see the mechanic reviewing Vinnie. At one point when he had Vinnie up on a lift, he started spraying what looked like water on the metal pan underneath the engine. A few minutes later he walks up to me and tells me he’s going to have to fail me if we can’t sort out the oil stuff and I can see a black watery drip coming out of the engine pan. I asked him what the spray was and he didn’t answer but looked at me and told me he was going to take Vinnie to the other side of the garage and wash down the engine, then drive Vinnie around for about 15 minutes, then come back to the garage and idle Vinnie for 10 minutes. He said if Vinnie dripped oil after that he would fail me but if he didn’t drip oil he would pass me.

So he takes off and does all of these things and comes back 20-25 minutes later and looks genuinely surprised as he tells me Vinnie isn’t dripping any oil. I then tell him my story about carrying spare oil in the van but never using it and having the oil changed three times and the correct amount of oil coming out each time. He then tells me he reckons that it’s a very slow ooze that accumulates in the engine oil pan as a residue and only comes out when water gets into the pan and runs down picking up some of the oily residue with it. So he gives me a pass and writes a cautionary note to keep my eye on Vinnie’s oil levels.

I paid the $51 AUD for the safety inspection and literally drove next door to the petrol station, pulled out my laptop and put through the paperwork and payment for my rego which was then confirmed the following day. So I got Vinnie’s rego through with 48 hours to spare! And the rego is now good through October 2026 even when I sell the car in early February – no need for the new owner to go through the rego process again thankfully! Whew! Felt like I got Vinnie renewed by the skin of my teeth!