Japanese imports

japanpaul

My girlfriend brought her late 1999 year old 40000km Toyota Yaris Auto over from Japan when she came here and I brought it to the NCT centre yesterday.
I could see them testing it from the waiting area. The guy called over 2 other people and the looked under the car, then at the reg plate, they spun the wheels(don't know why) and again looked at the reg plate.
They couldn't believe it was 7 years old. After they were asking how much it cost, etc.
To sell it in Japan she would have only got E2500 because her Japanese NCT was up and this costs a MINIMUM of E2000 to pass.
The NCT guy said if you sold a car in that condition here you could easily get E6000, the only miuns about it is it was an automatic.
He said we'd be mad not to bring in cars and sell them as we could source good quality cars, better than the ones sold in import forecourts here.

I did a bit of research last night and here are just 2 examples of cheap Yaris that I found. You can see the pics but probably wont be able to read the writing.

http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e53425113
Toyota Yaris 1.5 RS Manual Trans, Year 2000, 32,000 miles, 2300 euro
AirCon, elec window, twin airbag, lowered suspension, ABS, CD casette, alloys, Power steering, full body kit

http://page5.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/e53637621
Toyota Yaris 1.3 Auto Trans, Year 2001, 39,000 miles, 3200 euro
AirCon, elec window, twin airbag, ABS, CD, Power steering

Of course the VRT comes to about E1200 and the shipping is about another E1200 and registering and NCT another E100 but I reckon either of these cars could fetch E7000-8000 if I got them NCTed up to January 2008.

The girlfriends car is also an auto, had never driven one before but I think there is just a stigma in Ireland. It's great for Dublin traffic and she doesn't understand why people drive manuals when the congestion is so poor.

Anyway, I'm posting here to see what type of demand you think there would be for good quality imports like these(just used a yaris as an example)

Thanks

Most japanese imports tend not to be protected from the grit used to salt the roads. As I believe they do not grit their roads in winter.

I think this can cause them to become corroded and rust quicker in this country.
On the flip side older imports tend to be in better nick.
Something you might want to check out.
Some cars do have this protection.

japanpaul

I'll have a look into that. All roads in Japan have undergroung pipes in the middle of the road in Japan sprays an anti freeze solution when it snows / gets icy. I'm sure there is some kind of anticurosive(spell?) coating to protect against this spray.
I really only started looking into this yesterday. The Japanese company that sent my girlfriends car were asking her before Christmas would she be interested in bringing in some cars also but we didn't think anything of it at the time. But 2 people (strangers) have asked me about her car since Christmas and now the mechanic asked me yesterday. The importers that bring in cars here are relying on Japanese dealers to source good quality cars. But these Japanese dealers also send cars to the UK, Australia and places like Thailand and Malaysia so you can't be sure what you are getting.

Blitzkrieger

There's a fortune of people bringing in cars already but there's no reason you can't see a crowded market place and shout : ME TOO! One lemon could wipe you out though.

japanpaul

What would you think the going rate would be for the 2 cars that I showed above if the were NCTed up to 2008? Any advice would be great.
I'm thinking of bringing in one and seeing how it goes. I don't think I'd lose any money, probably just time.

One of the shops on carzone.ie had one very similar to the standard Yaris that I showed above but were looking for E9500.
Only difference is the mileage, 3,500 miles on a 5 year old car. Surely that's a misprint and should be 35,000 miles.
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=322800

Also selling an RS, one year newer than the one I showed. Looking for E12950. Maybe the VRT is more on these because they are modified. But couldn't be more than E2000.
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=332467

Eoin

japanpaul wrote:

Only difference is the mileage, 3,500 miles on a 5 year old car. Surely that's a misprint and should be 35,000 miles.
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=322800

You'd be surprised. My girlfriend's mothers car had 12K on the clock after 12 years.

You could probably try it once or twice and sell the cars privately, but if you wanted to do it on a larger scale presumably you would need a proper setup, and give warranties etc. There already seems to be a lot of Jap importers in the market as it is.

I don't know if it would be a factor, but insurance companies don't seem to like Jap imports, but that may not extend to non-performance cars? Also, you may want to check out if non-imported cars sell for more than their imported counterparts.

Ratchet

eoin_s wrote:

.......

I don't know if it would be a factor, but insurance companies don't seem to like Jap imports, but that may not extend to non-performance cars? Also, you may want to check out if non-imported cars sell for more than their imported counterparts.

some insurance companies charge more for jap imports even when looking at just standard car. and you are right eoin , jap car never fetch the same as the some euro version. Still saving could be made on some cars

japanpaul

Ratchet wrote:

jap car never fetch the same as the some euro version. Still saving could be made on some cars

That's what I'm looking at now. Trying to find which car has the most mark up. The Toyota Harrier (Lexus jeep) is pretty cheap in Japan but customs charge 30% VRT on that because it's a luxury car. A Yaris or Micra is "Only" 22.5% VRT.
I worked out that My girlfriend would make about E1500 on her car if she sold it now.
If I brought in four cars a year it would be a nice little hobby. We go to Japan
once a year on holiday so it would pay for the holiday. I'm not really looking at going into business, I wouldn't make a good car salesman:D

Also, somebody said there are already a lot of car shops doing it. But their prices seem to be very high, probably because of the overheads of running the business, etc. If I made E1000-1500 on each car I'd be happy. I think that's fair given all the paperwork at the docks, VRT office, NCT, etc.
The carshops mark up looks to be E3000 - 5000 on a small hatchback, which to me is a lot.
The girlfriend is here 9 months now, and I lived over there for 3 years so we are just trying to find a niche in the Irish market where we can use our Japanese links to our advantage

colm_mcm

Jap imports have had their day, there are masses of importers that brought in large volumes of family cars in the 90's now experiencing a fall in theit business, partly due to standard equipment being better on cars now than it was 8 years ago, And partly because second hand prices for cars 4 years old and more are quite low now.

Most importers are now bring in high performance and niche cars, Levin's Silvias, etc

Eoin

japanpaul wrote:

That's what I'm looking at now. Trying to find which car has the most mark up. The Toyota Harrier (Lexus jeep) is pretty cheap in Japan but customs charge 30% VRT on that because it's a luxury car. A Yaris or Micra is "Only" 22.5% VRT.
I worked out that My girlfriend would make about E1500 on her car if she sold it now.
If I brought in four cars a year it would be a nice little hobby. We go to Japan
once a year on holiday so it would pay for the holiday. I'm not really looking at going into business, I wouldn't make a good car salesman:D

Also, somebody said there are already a lot of car shops doing it. But their prices seem to be very high, probably because of the overheads of running the business, etc. If I made E1000-1500 on each car I'd be happy. I think that's fair given all the paperwork at the docks, VRT office, NCT, etc.
The carshops mark up looks to be E3000 - 5000 on a small hatchback, which to me is a lot.
The girlfriend is here 9 months now, and I lived over there for 3 years so we are just trying to find a niche in the Irish market where we can use our Japanese links to our advantage

If you are selling privately, then you can't use dealer prices for comparison as those cars will come with a warranty, and possibly a trade in.

This is a pure guess, but registering and selling on four cars every year could grab the attention of the authorities pretty quickly. You will also have to arrange private insurance for the cars, so this is another overhead you will have to take into account. The insurance company will also be suspicious if you are constantly insuring different cars.

japanpaul

eoin_s wrote:

This is a pure guess, but registering and selling on four cars every year could grab the attention of the authorities pretty quickly. You will also have to arrange private insurance for the cars, so this is another overhead you will have to take into account. The insurance company will also be suspicious if you are constantly insuring different cars.

Do you mean that this bringing in cars and selling them would be illegal? The only place I looked was on the oasis.gov website and it didn't say anything about this. I would be paying the VRT on the cars so I thought no problem.
I thing I will have to phone the Revenue to find out what rules they have. It might be easier for me to work on comission for the Japanese company that sent my girlfriends car.
They only charged E1200 for shipping and were really efficient and translated all the registration documents for us. Our neighbours were charged nearly E2500 and got no translated documents.
The company we used, used to ship to Dublin to Japanese living in Ireland but pulled out because of dodgy dealings at the port, ie they had already paid the Irish company their handling fee, but the Irish company took another large fee from the customer to release the car. The customers were only new in the country and wanted their cars so paid(parking in the port is very expensive after the fifth day)
This option (acting as an intermediary) could be the best option. Less hassle:cool:

bazz26

japanpaul wrote:

That's what I'm looking at now. Trying to find which car has the most mark up. The Toyota Harrier (Lexus jeep) is pretty cheap in Japan but customs charge 30% VRT on that because it's a luxury car. A Yaris or Micra is "Only" 22.5% VRT.

That is because any vehicle with an engine which is 2.0 litre or greater has a VRT rate of 30%.

japanpaul wrote:

One of the shops on carzone.ie had one very similar to the standard Yaris that I showed above but were looking for E9500.
Only difference is the mileage, 3,500 miles on a 5 year old car. Surely that's a misprint and should be 35,000 miles.
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index...r&carID=322800

Also selling an RS, one year newer than the one I showed. Looking for E12950. Maybe the VRT is more on these because they are modified. But couldn't be more than E2000.
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index...r&carID=332467

A few things with the above 2 examples:

• These look look like they are being sold by a dealer so the asking price is bound to be inflated.
• A dealer will have to provide a certain level of warranty with these cars. Unless you are going to provide a warranty with the cars you bring in then you need to really compare prices with cars that are being advertised by private sellers. I'm sure they are alot cheaper than dealer prices and these are probably who you will be competing with.
• A dealer will probably service the car as part of the sale.
• The price the car is sold for may not be anywhere near the price that is being asked.
• What about the NCT? I'm not sure about this but does the imported car have to be put through the NCT straight away when it is first registered here? Would you get as much for a car which has no NCT cert. The buyer would be taking the risk here if it fails for something serious.

May I am being over cautious here and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put you off but these things could eat into your profit very quickly. You really need to explore every avenue and do your homework on this so that there are no surprises.

Chopper

You and your girlfriend could just act as agents for people who already WANT to buy a direct Japanese import and would perhaps not know how best to go about it.

If you ran your own site listing the cars available for import and then arranged the paperwork for a fee... almost like you would be working for the Japanese car company as an export agent !

That way the car is sold and registered to the new owner upon import.
- No insurance nor NCT requirements on your part !

There are a lot of people out there now who ARE looking for automatics and the only place it seems to get them second hand here is from car rental companies so they already have massive milage.

I know someone who bought an ex-rental automatic last week because they had so little choice in automatics. And I know someone who is currently looking for an automatic and is having to go to the UK auctions for a better selection.!

Anan1

Hi all,

I just had a browse through this thread, and nobody seems to have mentioned VAT. (apologies if I missed it!) As far as I know, cars being imported from outside the EU (ie Japan) are liable for both VRT and 21% VAT on the sum of the purchase price and the VRT liable. For example, if you buy a car for E4,000 and the VRT is E1,000, you pay a total of E5,000 Plus 21% VAT on the E5,000 = E6,050 total.

japanpaul

bazz26 wrote:

[*]What about the NCT? I'm not sure about this but does the imported car have to be put through the NCT straight away when it is first registered here? Would you get as much for a car which has no NCT cert. The buyer would be taking the risk here if it fails for something serious.

The NCT comes after you register the car. You go to the NCT centre with the Registration documents, they enter the details, and then you can arrange a date.
If you seen how strict the Japanese NCT is (it's like a full service costing at least E2000 every 2 years) you wouldn't worry too much about the Irish NCT. Roads in Japan are so smooth and no speed bumps, loose chippings or muc everywhere that there should be no problem with the NCT.

Anan1 wrote:

I just had a browse through this thread, and nobody seems to have mentioned VAT. (apologies if I missed it!)

Eh... Now that would put a big dent in any profits!! I got the following from oasis website:
"If you are moving to Ireland or are already living here and you are importing a car or other vehicle, you will need to do three things before you can drive your vehicle in Ireland:

* Pay Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) (unless you are exempt)
* Have Motor Insurance
* Pay Motor Tax
"
But now that you said that I remember an Eddie Hobbs program about him buying a car in Northern Ireland and talking about VAT aswell as VRT.
Before I go any further I think I will have to get onto the Revenue.
The agent thing is looking like the best option as I am getting PM's already about people looking for help.

Chopper

There seems to be people providing this service for sports cars already
http://www.hotmetal.ie/

but could you do something similar for the mid-market folks who want a good low-milage automatic ?

Mailman

The revenue commissioners will try to put you out of business by tooling around with VRT valuations if you go in to large scale importation of Japanese pre-owned cars.
If you keep a low profile and sell specialist vehicles then you might be able to eek out an existence as a car importer.

Ratchet

nct is due after one year from the first registration. MOT in japan is pricey but many of these imported cars failed MOT back in Japan or it wasn't just renewed due to the cost. Cars are generally in good condition but i know few people with cars that failed NCT including mine. So wouldn't take this for granted not mentioning if you want charge top money , you have to offer warranty.

also there is Vat to be paid

and they are companies that ship cars for 700euro .

you want to check everything before your start and second hand marked is as hard as ever at the moment

blastman

Just to clear up the VAT thing:

You do not add the VRT to the price of the car and then pay VAT on the whole lot. When the car is imported, it sits on the docks until the import duty is paid. This amount is generally taken at 20% of the cost of the car (although some have said it was 10%), but beware as it also includes additional costs associated with buying the car e.g. transport and storage within Japan. It does not include actual shipping costs. When the Revenue Commissioners decide on this figure, they then add this amount ot the cost of the car and charge you VAT on the final figure as well. Once this is paid (and you should pay it quickly as you are being charged for every day the car sits on the docks), you can then remove the car from the docks and bring it to the Vehicle Registration Office to pay VRT, which is an amount based on the open book value of the car.

zuutroy

Hey, hands off my idea!! Only kidding, I've been doing this for a while now and it works well as long as you know which cars to get, and who to use in Japan. In general, you're talking minimum of €1000 for agency fees and shipping. So assuming you are bringing in a car that costs €2K.
You will then pay duty @10% on the total, and then 21% of the sum in VAT. Total~€4K. Then you pay VRT which varies wildly (this comes back to using the right car ). There is quite a lot of paperwork, headaches, and to-ing and fro-ing involved, and you HAVE to get the car NCT'd to have any hope of selling it. Basically you can make about €2K on the numbers listed above.
What I do is get it in, drive it as my own for a month or so (I initially did it purely so I could have a new toy every month) and then stick it in the buy and sell.

G Luxel

I noticed on my visits to Japan that cars over 3 years old are non existent. In Tokyo the streets are crammed with foreign imports, which are usually left hand drive, and thousands of Crown Taxis and Toyota Centurys, the 60s looking car that every businessman is driven around in. There may be the odd car like a old Nissan Laurel. The scrapyards are gigantic, such as the ones on the way to Narita airport and a lot of the cars look very new. On looking closely, some of the ordinary cars on the street had quite a few dents. The parking spaces are tiny so people are driving cars like Daihaitsu and Honda mini cars that we dont see here. The only thing I notice here is that you dont see garage forecourts full of Crowns and Presidents, its more Evos and Levins of late. I also heard it was illegal to sell a car privately over there. But if you had a classic car, and the country was full of them, you could find pages and pages of classifieds in magazines.

breffo

Great info on all these posts. What I have gathered so far--
I believe the best guys in Japan to use is www.idirect.co.jp
They seem to have the best rep I have seen and look like the service they provide is top of the pile.
It seems very straight forward to buy your car and get it on the ship using these guys, but wouldnt you know it, its what happens when the ship hits the dock in Dublin is where things get very complicated.
Can any body tell me --Can you actually go down onto the dock as your car is being unloaded to keep an eye on it and inspect it? Do you need an agent for this? Do you need to take your car away on a trailer as Im sure you cant drive it off? Can you do all the VAT and duty stuff on the day, down on the docks?
Is it possible to arrange any of this, including VRT while the car in in transit ie if you got all the documents couriered to you?
HELP!!

blastman

Based on my experience:
It's possible that you can go down and see your car unloaded, talk to the shipping company. However, you generally can't just wander round the docks, and a lot of places are restricted access. You would definitely need the shipping/clearing company's co-operation. To be honest, I don't know what this would achieve, for a personal import like this, who are you going to complain to there if you aren't happy?
Generally, by the time all the VAT and duty stuff is done (can't be done on the docks AFAIK, as you are basically dealing with the Revenue and you're better off getting the customs clearing company to do it), you arrange to meet someone from the clearing company near the docks, they show you where your car is and you take it away. If it's insured (it is possible to insure the car from the chassis number), you can drive it away yourself (bring a spare battery and a compressor!).
I don't think you can do the VAT and duty while the car is in transit, but it can be done very quickly once it arrives anyway so that shouldn't be an issue. You have to physically bring the car to VRO for VRT assessment, although they may not look at it.

japanpaul

Hi
Just an update. My method would be slightly different than others because I would be buying my car direct in Japan and not using the export dealers and them adding their 10% into the car price before the send the car (I would be doing that when I sell the car here). The process is pretty much the same for anyway bringing in a car.
I am using a 2002 Toyota Yaris as an example with 44000km on the clock that I can get in Japan for E2400
http://page2.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/b64852737

Below is all the costs that you have to pay. Sorry about the indentations I couldn't write it any better


2400 Car price
600 shipping

---

3000 total
300 Dublin port charges @ 10%

---

3300
693 VAT @ 21%

---

3993
1440 VRT (22.5% of E6400*)

---

E5443 Total

*E6400 is the on the road price for a 2001 Yaris taken from the revenue website.

I researched the prices of 2001 Yaris (Jap imports and Irish) with low mileage in the papers over the last few weeks and the going rate is E7000 (E7900 from dealer).
I know you can get cars cheap from places like www.idirect.co.jp but I know the cars that I could source would be of better quality as my girlfriend is Japanese and has friends in the auto trade over there and we have a Japanese shipping company who will give us discounts if we help Japanese people moving to Ireland.
Still, there doesn't seem to be as much moeny to be made as I thought at first but still thinking of bringing in one car to see how it goes.
The main thing I learnt from all this is that the Irish government are making a mint on cars in Ireland