Kiwi Cruise Control > Legal questions about cars

Legal questions about cars

WOF, Licence (Rego) and RUC

For any car to be road legal, it must have a Warrant of Fitness (WOF) - a government quality-assured safety test that must be passed every six months. In addition all vehicles must be licensed for legal road usage. All our vehicles are delivered with a current WOF and Rego.
Vehicles that run on diesel also have to pay Road User Charge (RUC) in advance for any driven kilometre. This is also known as diesel tax.

Insurance and roadside assistance

In New Zealand vehicle insurance is optional but highly recommended! Third party insurance basically pays compensation for damage to someone else’s property but not for your own car. However third party fire and theft insurance also covers you for an agreed value of your vehicle in case it gets stolen or catches fire.
Most insurance companies in New Zealand - State, Tower, Westpac Bank, NZI, to name a few – have branches throughout the country and can be contacted online or by calling a toll free 0800 number.

This is also the case for the AA service which offers countrywide 24/7 roadside assistance.

Paperwork

The paperwork involved with buying a car in New Zealand is not a big deal at all. Change of ownership papers, Road user charges for diesel vehicles, forms to license a vehicle, etc can all be done in a post office or a VTNZ branch and we are more than happy to offer our assistance if required.

New Zealand Road Code

Besides the fact that in New Zealand vehicles drive on the left-hand side of the road, the most important difference to driving in e.g. Germany is this:
If you are turning left off the road you have been travelling on or at an intersection, give way to vehicles coming towards you that are turning right!!

Legal check

We do a legal check on every vehicle to ensure that there are no legal or financial issues involved. If you buy a car anywhere, always check it prior to purchase as in New Zealand vehicles with outstanding finance debts can be repossessed by the finance company!
For all the cars that we offer, we’ve done the legal check already.

Phone +64 9 291 9091
Mobile +64 21 744 444