Why are Jap imports cheaper?

brendanmch

Why are Jap imports cheaper?

Are they harder to service? Is it hard to get parts?

Im looking at getting a Subaru impreza wrx that would be about 10 years old as a cheap performance car, and ive noticed that the cars that are advertised as imports from japan tend to be cheaper. Is this something i should be weary about? I know that i would have to use higher octane fuel or remap the enigne because of the difference in fuel but is there anything else i should keep in mind?

Thanks

Litcagral

brendanmch wrote:

Why are Jap imports cheaper?

Are they harder to service? Is it hard to get parts?

Im looking at getting a Subaru impreza wrx that would be about 10 years old as a cheap performance car, and ive noticed that the cars that are advertised as imports from japan tend to be cheaper. Is this something i should be weary about? I know that i would have to use higher octane fuel or remap the enigne because of the difference in fuel but is there anything else i should keep in mind?

Thanks

The car will more than likely have been clocked and most service histories will have been removed. Even if it's there it will be in Japanese anyway. :rolleyes:

zuutroy

brendanmch wrote:

Why are Jap imports cheaper?

Are they harder to service? Is it hard to get parts?

Im looking at getting a Subaru impreza wrx that would be about 10 years old as a cheap performance car, and ive noticed that the cars that are advertised as imports from japan tend to be cheaper. Is this something i should be weary about? I know that i would have to use higher octane fuel or remap the enigne because of the difference in fuel but is there anything else i should keep in mind?

Thanks

Jap cars are cheaper because they depreciate very rapidly over there, and their NCT is extremely strict, and most Japanese folks go for a new car rather than the expense of readying theirs for the test. As for the fuel, Jap cars are built for 100 octane, but work perfectly well on 95 with no modification required. I've found they tend to like v-power. It's also unlikely they are clocked as they are monitored in Japan and checked at de-registration, though they may be clocked on entry into Ireland.
The vast majority are very easy to get parts for. I currently have a Sera, which shares parts with the Starlet, as well as the Paseo and Cynos. Even model-specific parts are available from Toyota, though they are expensive.

Joeface

Ah jap cars are not cheaper there some of the most over priced cars on the market , Look at any of the imported Integra's , Toyota's and Nissians they may all have big engines but most of them are 10 years old with ppl looking for 6-8k for them...tis insane i tells ya insane

zuutroy

zuutroy wrote:

As for the fuel, Jap cars are built for 100 octane, but work perfectly well on 95 with no modification required.

I don't think that totally correct.
What about all those WRXs that blow their head gaskets on the lower octane stuff?

zuutroy

ronoc wrote:

I don't think that totally correct.
What about all those WRXs that blow their head gaskets on the lower octane stuff?

Really? Didn't know that. I've never had any problems running Japs cars on 95. Maybe the WRX doesn't respond well to knocking?

zuutroy

zuutroy wrote:

Really? Didn't know that. I've never had any problems running Japs cars on 95. Maybe the WRX doesn't respond well to knocking?

Yeah I heard this was a problem on the older WRXs, put me off the imports.

Apparently after around 20k on the normal octane bye bye head gasket

brendanmch

thanks lads,

Yeah, most have very low mileage, about 50k for a ten year old, ive even seen 20k on this car on ebay again a ten year old,

http://cgi.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4616472766&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

still its a nice car!!!

Henry Ford III

Sellers feedback rating sucks though.

lomb

most have done monsterous miles and the clocks rewound to average miles. very dodgy business.
no history, some have been stolen in japan and have been ringed, with the irish customs not understanding false jap paperwork. apparantly 1/4 of all imports are stolen.

roughan

I spoke to a jap guy and he said they are ALL clocked on the boat on the way over
he was saying that even though small mileage may be on them they could be sitting in traffic for Hours every day
water pump spinning ,fan belt,timing belt all getting worn out !!

lomb

lomb wrote:

apparantly 1/4 of all imports are stolen.

95% of statistics are made up on the spot. 53% of people know that. :rolleyes:

If you are buying a scooby from Japan be aware it is designed for 100 octane fuel.

You will need to get the ECU remapped to run on the 95 octane stuff here. The jury is still out if that prevents problems entirely..

zuutroy

roughan wrote:

I spoke to a jap guy and he said they are ALL clocked on the boat on the way over
he was saying that even though small mileage may be on them they could be sitting in traffic for Hours every day
water pump spinning ,fan belt,timing belt all getting worn out !!

Any cars I've bought had the same mileage to the digit as when they went on the boat. Japanese cars are checked regularly, and again when they are being de-registered, making it very difficult to knock more than a few hundred here and there off. If you're wary you can quite accurately judge mileage from the condition of the seats, wheel, pedals and interior panels.
Aside from this, even if some of mine have been clocked, I've never had a single problem that I haven't known about when buying the car.

nxbyveromdwjpg

If they are clocked they are clocked when they get here, not over there. They are worth feck all over there, the difference in auction price of a couple of hundred quid (at best) would not be worth clocking 60/70kms off the odo. You are as likely to get a clocked car imported from anywhere in the world as you are from Japan.

And as for...

lomb wrote:

1/4 of all imports are stolen

Cmon eh.. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

lomb

lomb wrote:

apparantly 1/4 of all imports are stolen.

saw it on some undercover program, ireland was the hub of the whole thing. basically the yakusa, japenese mafia figured out along time ago they could make money from exporting stolen motors. all they do is doctor the paperwork its all in japenese, so when the cars come here they are reregistered no questions asked. they did a survery and found 1/4 of all cars to be stolen. most were clocked.
at the end of the day u get nothing for nothing, if u think about it how could it pay to send a used car half way around the world unless its either stolen or clocked or theres something else wrong. the expensive nct they have in japan doesnt explain it at all. i know people in the trade and they have confirmed the above to me. all jap cars have some story make no mistake.

zuutroy

lomb wrote:

at the end of the day u get nothing for nothing, if u think about it how could it pay to send a used car half way around the world unless its either stolen or clocked or theres something else wrong. the expensive nct they have in japan doesnt explain it at all.

Combined with the rapid depreciation and inflated Irish prices, it's perfectly reasonable that everything could be above board. 10 year old Japanese cars are almost invariably better than their Irish counterparts, irrespective of the odometer. I've got 'nothing for nothing' using the system plenty of times.

lomb

zuutroy wrote:

. I've got 'nothing for nothing' using the system plenty of times.

if its stolen im sure u have:D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1454384.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1456337.stm
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=1029215#post1029215

zuutroy

lomb wrote:

if its stolen im sure u have:D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1454384.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1456337.stm
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=1029215#post1029215

Well, I use a reliable source. The place where I get them have all the de-reg documents etc. But then again, they could easily be forged, but I doubt it. Ah well, see no evil etc!

lomb

lomb wrote:

if its stolen im sure u have:D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1454384.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1456337.stm
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=1029215#post1029215

The first two are about the same case and the third is some punter.

I'm still waiting for that 1/4 of imports stolen statement to be backed up?

lomb

there is no link, i looked, i saw it on a program a few years ago, im just quoting what i saw. i can well imagine there are many stolen cars amonst the import load.
people in the trade i asked confirm this. at the end of the day it doesnt really matter, if it was stolen, u wont know about it.

Blitzkrieger

zuutroy wrote:

The vast majority are very easy to get parts for.

I'd be very carefull about that. For most you can get parts easily by going directly to the main dealer, but they can be prohibitively expensive.

blastman

lomb wrote:

saw it on some undercover program, ireland was the hub of the whole thing. basically the yakusa, japenese mafia figured out along time ago they could make money from exporting stolen motors. all they do is doctor the paperwork its all in japenese, so when the cars come here they are reregistered no questions asked.

That's also cr@p. When I imported my car from Japan, I had to provide a translation of the Japanese de-registration document, which in turn had to be authorised and stamped as an accurate translation by the Japanese embassy in Dublin (and they were VERY pernickity about it). And the mileage matched exactly what was on the auction sheet in Japan, so there was no clocking on the boat either.

Not saying it doesn't happen, but you should give up pulling figures out of your @ss for Lent..

roughan

http://www.japaneseimports.co.uk/faq.htm

it seems most of the stolen ones come from Dubai

roughan

AN independent commission found that possibly 85000 stolen cars from Japan are on UK roads

http://www.car-crime.com/import_circular.htm

Wanted Man

Well remember there is no inflation in Japan so prices remain stable and probably cars depreciate fairly rapidly...also their strict NCT like test which is supposed to be worse than ours...so would cost more to fix a car than worth doing...also full employment and fairly good wages in Japan so probably new car the norm...also new car a status symbol I'm guessing....also, most of the cars are produced in Japan and whereas they might be a rare commoditiy over here, over there they are probably a dime a dozen....And I think a car produced in Japan probably doesn't have VRT on it...I think all in all the price can be explained away without mentioning such things as stolen, clocked, etc.

Johnny Storm

My (limited) understanding is that Japanese culture frowns on anything second-hand. Apparently everything second-hand is dirt cheap in Japan. Make of that what you will....

japanpaul

I wouldn't believe a lot of the stories you see here about stolen and clocked cars. I lived there for 3 years and there is very little car crime. Nobody has car alarms or steering locks or immobilisers(maybe found on new cars because it has become standard worldwide).
I was amazed at the amount of people going into shops leaving their engines running. The ports over there are really strict and the amount of paper work you need to deregister the car at city hall is crazy.
I lived in a company dormitory and anyone with souped up cars used to spend all their time washing the cars and very little time driving. Most companies pay for monthly train tickets and have parking spaces only for the execs so the cars are only driven on weekends. Highways are nearly as expensive as trains and with the cost of parking in big cities people usually travel by train or plane.
My girlfriends 1999 Yaris only has 30000 miles on the clock which is probably higher than average.

japanpaul

Johnny Storm wrote:

My (limited) understanding is that Japanese culture frowns on anything second-hand. Apparently everything second-hand is dirt cheap in Japan. Make of that what you will....

A girl living in our dormitory was getting married and you can't bring second hand stuff into a new house so I inherited her sony tv, cd player and microwave. She was embarrassed to even ask if I would take them!

The simple reason for the cars being cheap is that the NCT is so expensive. At least E2000 every 2 years. People time it with a full service though

Ratchet

lomb wrote:

there is no link, i looked, i saw it on a program a few years ago, im just quoting what i saw. i can well imagine there are many stolen cars amonst the import load.
people in the trade i asked confirm this. at the end of the day it doesnt really matter, if it was stolen, u wont know about it.

you are watching too much TV dude. you are just blowing everything out of proportion as SKYNEWS does

this tv program was few years ago and cars were shipped somewhere else what you could call storage hub

There is less risk on cars directly purchased from Japan.

cars will be more likely clocked in Ireland by Irish import companies after being shipped here but this wouldn't be mine main concern as you could buy car directly from auction. however, what worries me that i seen many cars which were high grade but were damaged and professionally repaired.

finish and work was good but auction grade sheet didn't have any reference of the fact

Kersh

The reason some jap cqrs, esp Skyline Gtst, Ae86, 200sx etc are going for big (ish) money is that there is a market for them, simple as that.
Thats why lcd tvs are expensive...
Its just simple supply, demand.

oiche99

the sti import is the one that has problems with 95 octane. have a 95 jap wrx for last three years. no probs with 95 octane. simple procedure to reset ecu, anywho.
ed.