The decision to send a car to Gambia was made when the Diesel Xantia I have run in the UK failed its MOT because it needed serious work to the ABS system costing over £1000 in the UK. Although the brakes work perfectly in conventional mode - because the car has ABS - it must be working to pass its MOT and spending £1000 to make it work on a car of that age seemed pointless.

The cost to send the car has been.

Shipping costs - £400 in total, this included all charges this side of Banjul, but not the drive to Tilbury or the train fare back home.

Port costs in Banjul - for GTS the fact that our charity registration had come through definitely helped. the total cost of all port charges, import tax, vehicle registration with number plate of GTS 1, annual Insurance etc was £400.

The car was a Right Hand drive and under new Gambian regulations must be converted to Left Hand drive, the cost of this depends on the make and model of car, there are few Xantia's in Gambia so the essential dashboard is the most expensive component at around £40. Other parts cost £65 and labour brought the total cost of conversion to £150.

Although the costs on the Gambia side for GTS were £550 - it is probably sensible to allow a budget of £600 to £800, but it really is impossible to give a fixed price as circumstances, contacts and negotiating skills are the important issue here.

So the total cost to GTS was £950, to have a similar car, in a similar condition here in Gambia would cost over £2000, and 'GTS 1' will provide perfect transport for picking up members from the airport and carry out charity trips for school sponsorship visits.

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There are advantages and disadvantages of sending cars to Gambia, in the end it will provide GTS with a car at around the half the cost of buying one here in Gambia - we were lucky the car and its contents arrived safely - but the radio cassette was stolen during the trip, I should have removed it and put it in the secured boot.

The process of conversion from RHD to LHD was not without problems and in truth the car will never be quite the same as the 100% reliable car it was in the UK. I would love to report that using a Gambian garage and mechanic was trouble free - it wasn't !! In reality I should have used one of the Lebanese garages, the cost would have doubled, but the job would have been done quicker and to a much higher standard.

. . . . . . . . . Or better still get a LHD car in the UK, they are cheaper because they are LHD and it will save you all the problems at the Gambia end.

If you decide to send a car from UK to Gambia - GTS now has the first hand experience to advise GTS members on how to do this, and we now have contacts for carrying out RHD to LHD conversions, this will make the process easier for you.