About Me

Sunday, April 14, 2019

10 weeks Update: Car Troubles

Buon Giorno familia e' amici!

It has been 10 weeks already since I got here to Italy my my my has time flown by. I am constantly surprised how quickly things move along even when adapting to a brand new job, culture, place, and people. Creating a whole new normal essentially. I'm loving every minute of it, well almost every minute. Before I explain the minutes I do not like let me hit on a few items on a more positive note.

Later this month I am going to be taking my first major road trip across Italian boarders into Slovenia. I am staying next to the picturesque Lake Bled for hiking and outdoors and also driving to the country capital Ljubljana 35 minutes away for site seeing, a massive open-air market, dining, and museums. I am so damn stoked for this!

The past 2 weekends I have hit up 2 local food festivals over in a town called Udine, it's about the size of my hometown Madison, WI. It's even called the unofficial capital of the Pordenone province by many loIt'ss. Its a 50 minute drive from Aviano to Udine but well worth it if you have a day to spend over there. Massive (and I mean massive) malls, tons of parks, museums, the U of Udine is there (which I got to see the exercise physiology lab and meet the staff) and the major sports stadium is also there for soccer mostly and some basketball events.

The festival I went to last Saturday was Udine Meets the World, and international festival of food, music, dance, culture, history and folklore all divided up into sections on a large fair grounds. This Saturday I just hit up a festival called The Finger Food Festival. Much smaller in scale but more food focused. 12 specialty food vendors and 3 beer/wine vendors filled a corner of Parco del Cormor only about 2 miles from where the other festival had been the week before....with food and drink local to the Udine region. I even got to meet the event director and talk to him about bringing a festival just like this to Aviano this summer. I was all in for that! At both events, I ate tons of great food, beer and wine and had a blast just hanging out and people watching. Weather was good for both events so that always helps.

So overall things are going very well obviously. The one and only thing thats been a HUGE pain in my ass these past weeks and now pretty well pushed my last button of patients is getting my car here once and for all. My car left my house Jan 26th to be shipped over here to Italy. It left the US east coast March 10th. It was to arrive April 3 in port of Genova. That got pushed back to April 10 and then April 12. I was told 5-7 business days after that at most, it would be arriving to me in Aviano as planned. April 10th I am told not only its coming in 2 days later but that it wont be ready to even offload for ground trasnport until April 17th! And....that another 7-10 days is needed for it to be loaded on a large transport semi with other cars to get to me! Are you kidding? My plans for Slovenia were now looking pretty well tanked as I had planned that around my cars arrival to then use for the drive. I even factored in 4 days buffer time to be safe. Now it looked like my car was not coming until the very end of the month which also meant another 10 days of car rental fees. Not to mention waiting geven longer to get all the items packed in the car I very much want to have!

After several attempts to call the company to get hold of my agent I was getting no where. They would not call me back. Just short little emails stating it was out of their hands and nothing could be done but to wait and all their dates given were only estimates, not garuantees of anything. OK sure I get that. But then why are you saying April 3rd when in fact the day I see the car is not actually April 27th or later? That is not an estimate! Thats a stab in the dark and wishful thinking! Now here is the real kicker of it all and this is what really does chap my ass about it all. I am a frugal spender and only spend my money on things worth spending it on. Let me show you the costs this ordeal has racked up so far...


  • Initial shipping cost from Madison, WI to the port of Genova Italy. $2250 (not bad at all)
  • Added cost to truck it from Genova to Aviano (saves me 5 hours train and risk of ticket driving it back (4.5 hours) without valid registration and needing to take a day off work to go get it) $800
  • The additional cost to have my car shipped separately the very first day it's off the container to get to me the same day (April 17th as it stands) $114. 
  • Now add on the import fee they charge (and did not mention until 8 weeks into the shipping) of $511 as well.


So simple math shows the direct cost to ship my car is $3675. BUT....thats not all.

Now factor in the rental car cost for the past 10 weeks since getting here. That has totaled $1200 of indirect cost by not having my car here. Talley that up and I have spent $4875 on my car shipping! It will have been 11 weeks to get that damn thing here as well and the wait is killing me at this point!

It is in my opinion alone that Schumacher Cargo is NOT a wise pick to ship you car overseas. Maybe domestic they do better but as far as overseas, this is an experience I do not want to experience ever again or let anyone else endure either.

Had I known the cost would be this high and take this long I would have sold my car (still financing it for 2 years or so) for the remaining balance owed on the car and bought a new car here in Italy almost as soon as I got here. For the same price of the shipping, I could have picked from either one of these used cars (BMW 320i) or (BMW 525d) at the same place I rent from now... and 100% tax free as well! Everythings 20/20 hindsight as they say and that proves true here. Lesson learned, the hard and pricy way.

So this fiasco almost to an end I am happy as ever to put behind me. I am then pretty well set up with all my major relocation related tasks completed. I can move forward with as many road trips as I please and finally get to all my goodies packed in the car to complete the house and my office. You can be pretty sure some pictures and content about the car arrival will make it into the next blog post for sure. And if not doing so yet, PLEASE go take a look at my other food blog I now run at AvianoFoodie.com for tons of food-centric content, pictures, and local reviews.

That's all for now folks. See you next time.

Ciao, Arrivaderci a presto!