Blipman

I've had a quick dig through the NZ import regulations and I think if you are planning to import the car as just a regular import into NZ it might not be possible. If there is a special provision for bringing your own personal car with you when immigrating permanently (which I didn't look into) then that might be a different story, and such a rule might exist. It's a lot of legal and technical documents and not very clear so please research it yourself as I'm not 100% on this, but I think that a C34 Stagea can't come in for two reasons: First, it doesn't meet the necessary front impact standards for which it seems most cars need to be around 2000+ models (and 2000+ designed or earlier designed with that standard in mind, which for a car which first came out in 1996 is unlikely). Second, the emissions standard now needed for NZ since 2008 is Japan 00/02 or Euro 3 or ADR 79/01. Your car won't have been complied to 79/01 in Australia and Stageas having a GF emissions code (GF-WGNC34) which seems to corresespond to the Japan 98/xx standard is not good enough for Japan 00/02 which is what you need. Sorry.

2002 TX-7 Type RS Grade 4 with B interior Twin turbo Bilstein suspension Raised boost? Nardi LSD Nardi steering wheel Rear spoiler Front spoiler Aftermarket exhast Steering wheel Worn, scratched Drivers seat worn Door mirror scratched Something I can't quite make out, it's kinda small and I left my glasses at a friend's house, d'oh! I would recommend never buying a car based on the sheet alone as it doesn't tell the full story, make ure someone looks at it in person first.

I think I know a Coco Ichi in Nishi Shinjuku kind of across from Yodobashi Camera. That one?

Sigh. You will note I made these statements specifically in reference to the dealer sourced cars on your site. - compared with the listed sale price with the dealers themselves, the exact same cars on your site are typically listed at around 180,000 yen higher than the asking price, hence my comment. - so you're saying that you do pre purchase inspections on the dealer cars on your site? 2 customers who had been in contact with you in the past have previously told me that you did not - J-Spec Imports has never claimed to be a company based in Japan, we have been based in Australia for close to 10 years. - I live in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

I don't want this to get into an argument as this is simply a matter of opinion and I'm not having a go at you Beer Baron, but actually I disagree. We have customers who bring in cars to make some money and the vast majority make a decent profit on them. True you can't make the sort of cash you could half a dozen years ago, but we have plenty of customers who do it (often unintentionally... they want to upgrade their car a year after importing it and sell it for more than what they paid) so it's possible. I would say however that NOW is a tricky time since demand in Australia is low, so that's something you would want to take into consideration, especially if it's a car of which there are already many in Australia. And unless it's one hell of a bargain an expensive car like an EVO 8 MR with the current Australian economic climate could be hard. In terms of dealers prices vs. 'retail' prices, using a broker these days (yes I'm a broker so assume I'm as biased as you'd like) will cost you pretty much what a dealer would pay, plus a broker's service fee, so compared to a dealer you're usually not paying a whole lot more than $1,000 extra. As an example if I import a car for myself or a family member it pretty much costs $1,000 less (my service fee) than if they were a member of the general public, there are no further mates rates or special things I can do to make it any cheaper, and I certainly do a lot more cars than your average dealer (it's ALL I do). Comparing various prices along the way: - FOB cost: some dealers will pay $100 - $200 less, but often because they are getting less info about a car... they don't want 100 photos and detailed condition reports since this isn't going to be their one off pride and joy... it's just another car. - transport within Japan: no savings to be made there - ocean freight: everyone pays pretty much the same, you have to do HUGE numbers to get cheaper rates. - customs clearance and related: if you have a quarantine controlled area (rare) you can save a little bit, doing your own customs clearance saves a little bit of cash but not much - transport within Australia: if a dealer has their own truck obvoiusly that's a bonus - taxes: some dealers devalue their cars for tax reasons, some get caught doing it - compliance: we get trade prices where available and pass them on to customers so no saving there, if a dealer is a compliance workshop themselves then yes they can save money there. There is one area where dealers DO save a lot of money, and that's in the car they buy. Dealers tend to buy the poorer condition (ie cheaper) cars since they DO have good contacts at painting panels, fixing up little bits and pieces, and generally making so-so cars look better. Case in point: I was at Yokohama port the other week and the cars bound for Australia are all a little bit rougher than I'd normally buy, yet you go to a dealer lot in Austrlaia and they all look nice.... that's what dealers are good at There's other stuff invovled in that quickie breakdown above so I'm sure someone will jump down my throat and say I missed htis or that, but trying to keep this simple and relatively short Want further evidence? There are a couple of dealers who use us from time to time if we have the right car who run import only dealerships and bring in a large volume of cars each year themselves. They are usually happy for us to take care of everything since they know the cost is the same than if they were using their own contacts. Having been involved in the import/export well over 1,000 cars I know every trick in the book that people try and I talk to a lot of people and how they do things, and your average dealer is not paying much less if any to bring in a car compared to using an experienced broker. So, I'm not saying Beer Baron is wrong, but I am offering a different view as I see things a little differently. BB you're in Nishi Shinjuku? Don't suppose you saw the GTR that crashed into a taxi near Shinjuku eki nishi guchi (across from Bic Camera) at about 9 this morning? The poor guy was almost in tears...

Hi Dave, Which is the car you're interested in? Although undisclosed, Japanese Used Cars charge a 180,000 yen FOB for dealer vehicles (the going rate is around 90,000 - 100,000 yen) which is very high, and they also don't provide a pre purchase inspection, which in my opinion is absolutely essential for dealer sourced cars... otherwise you are just taking the dealer's word for it, and that's never a great idea.

I'd say the closest to a Cube but in manual would be a Mitsubishi RVR Hyper Sports Gear. The Cube is kind of unique and there arne't a lot of cars similar which can be imported so the RVR would be closest. As well as the bB actually sooner available might be the Daihatsu Coo.... basically Daihatsu bought all the rights of Toyota so it's the same as a bB, just different name and trim options. No manual though.

Yeah, I'd urge a bit of caution and I'd want to have a chat to a compliance workshop before to comitting eveyrthing, but it sounds like it might be alright. In regards to your original idea then I don't see anything wrong with it. Keep in mind as well as just swapping the engine and putting a nice kit on it you'll probably want to upgrade the brakes since non turbo R34's had gaybo sliding caliper jobbies, the diff might not be an LSD (which you could live with but if you're going for big power you might want to change) and you might find it's much cheaper to buy an auto GT-FOUR in which case you'd need the gearbox, master cylinder and pedal box from a manual for the conversion also. If you're happy with the work involved and the expected costs I say go for it, there's no shame in owning an uber fast 4WD R34 that just happens to not be a GTR if you ask me!

Yeah before I replied I double checked the SEVS list and they list it as being eligible and and the RB25DE as being 105kW/ton (so just ok), but when you do the actual math on the RB25DE in GT-FOUR guise then it's 100kW/ton and a no go. I think DOTARS own mistake in the paperwork must be letting it through... maybe we shouldn't be talking about it in case they see and decide to fix the problem

That's a good plan but unfortunately there is one problem, for the R34's the 25GT-FOUR is not eligible for import. IT has 100kW/ton whereas to be eligible it must have 105kW/ton ormore. The RWD 25GT non turbo just makes it in, but because of the extra weight of the 4WD system it pushes it below the limit required and the 25GT-FOUR can't be imported. There MIGHT be a handful of 25GT-FOURs in Australia that were imported many years ago under the old CPA import scheme, but I would doubt it.

R33 prices will vary quite a bit for different condition and mileage so it depends what you're after, but probably between $11,000 - $14,000 landed and complied... you can pay less than that, but often they'll be that cheap for a reason. Active LSD is rare so that could be difficult, BN6 blue is a sweet colour (there's a purple pearl in the sunlight) but it's also a little tricky to find, but not impossible.

Hi John, I did a quick search on this forum alone and came up with a few posts that might help you, actually there were WAY too many results so I got bored quickly There are many more out there http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Co...er-t130367.html http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Gt...amp;pid=3783458 http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Im...ey-t217533.html http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Pu....html&st=40 http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/Im...anu-t98555.html And that's just this forum. Also if you Google our name you'll get tons of info.

In regards tp which car is best for parts I'd say probably a V35, though I agree the 8 speeds can be a little expensive when things go wrong since no one knows how to really repair them. I've looked at probably hundreds of V35's and it's very unusual to see anything wrong with at all, they are quite reliable, and there are now enough in the country that people are starting to stock and keep parts. Enough Elgrands are coming in that soon this will also be the case, but it will take longer. Fuel economy: the Skyline will get marginally better economy than an Elgrand, but they are pretty close. You're looking at abour 8.7km/L for an 8 speed Skyline versus around 8.0 - 8.2km/L for the Elgrand various models. You might drive the Skyline a little harder though Inspections from a qualified mechanic might be tricky, a lot of people here in Japan are very competent at what they do yet only some will have actual professional qualifications. For example inspect vehicles and I'd consider myself to be good at what I do, but I have a nerdy computer science degree behind me, not an apprenticeship. In terms of an RACV style inspection that's pretty unusual but (plug time!) yes, we do that. We have a network of people around Japan (including mechanics) who will go and look at cars, take a couple of hundred photos and provide a written report. Just today I spent about 2 and a half hours going over a Skyline and took about 200 pics for a customer, depending on where the car is located will depend on who we get to do the inspection. I know exactly where you are coming from however I think ultimately you have to realize that there will be some uncertainty (however small) that you won't be able to know everything there is to know about a car, and that's true of wherever you buy it from. For example you have faith in the RACV, they once came and inspected a car which I was personally selling which had one painfully obvious issue (that I'd already told the prospective buyer about) and the RACV guy totally missed it.... the buyer actually asked me if I was sure about it since the RACV guy didn't pick it up. I remember my response even today: "Trust me I know it's broken, *I* broke it!" Which gets me onto chances of getting a dud car: very small I believe. Not only are you talking about relatively new and relatively reliable cars as a whole, but for any vehicle you import if you use someone good then relatively speaking it is a safe process... no more dangerous than buying a car yourself locally in terms of the chances of a car being good or bad.

Odometer tampering is far, far less common than it used to be. Recently in Japan new laws were institured that meant every 2 years when a car is registered (and undergoes a roadworthiness inspection) the mileage is now recorded along with the official registration paperwork. This means that if a car has 60,000km and the registration paperwork says 2 years ago it had done 90,000km then you know there's a problem. As such, theoretically the worsed someone could do was windback 2 years worth of driving without anybody knowing. There are also all sorts of other ways to know if mileage is sus' and anyone who is honest and knows what they are doing will pick them up straight away, the somple and most obvious being if the condition of the car doesn't match the mileage. What use is a car with 50,000km on the clock when it doesn't look like a 50,000km car? Service books in Japan are not as common as in Australia, Japanese people simpy tend not to hang on to the paperwork since they don't think it's important. In regards to stop-start driving this can be bad because this kind of driving puts higher wear on a vehicle than just cruising at a steady pace at say 100kph, which is relatively unstressful for an engine and many components. Do Japanese cars do a lot of stop start driving? Just like Australia it depends who owns them. Some people in Japan do practically nothing but highway driving, I certainly know from personal experience if I want to get someone within the city here in Tokyo public transport is heaps chepaer and easier, and a lot of people feel the same so they don't use their car for that kind of thing. When it comes to modern engines (maybe some people will disagree) I'd rather have one that's done 50,000km of start start driving versus 200,000km of 'normal' driviing, and as I described I actually don't think that's often the case anyway.

"Remarkable" prices aside, they're giving figures for non turbo GTO's, MR-2's, EVO 9's, CRX's and NSX's! All utterly unimportable! (that's a word, trust me ) .

I'm impressed you even tried. You did notice that it was listed on Trade Carview 7 months ago, right? Trade Carview is a joke, the ONE thing it's good at it seems is being known by everyone. It's useless for buying cars and every dealer I know who lists cars on their says it's not worth it. However you have to have a minimum one year contract... the only people who actually seem to do well out of it are Trade Carview themselves, certainly not the users.

Hmmm $12k landed and complied is doable, but I wouldn't set that as your goal. If that is your absolute max budget I would usually not say to a customer that that's workable, I'd suggest a budget of $13k or so (an extra thousand dollars will make a huge difference to the quality of car you can get) and then if we happened to get a car for around $12k then great. If you are actually aiming for that price then you will have a very limited selection of cars to choose from, and chances are they will be bottom of the barrel condition-wise. Since less than half the cost is on the car itself, if you can spend just a little bit more you'll get a much better car. At $12k only you're buying based on price and all other factors such as condition will be secondary. For example here are 2 cars with used car dealers, these cars would probably be slightly cheaper if sourced from auction, so as you can see for aroudn $13k landed and compied roughly you could be looking at a one owner car with 56,000km and records. http://www.j-spec.com.au/list/index.php?ID=14655 http://www.j-spec.com.au/list/index.php?ID=14656 To give you an idea the last 2.5L V35 we imported was a little over $14k and that was a minter with TV, leather and very low mileage.

Hi, In brief the FOB price is the price of the car itself, plus the various costs involved in getting the car out of the country, such as transportation to the port, Japan-sode customs costs and actually a whole lot of other stuff. With the FOB price essentially everything in Japan should be taken care of. The one year wait that you might be referring to is in regards to Personal Imports where you live overseas for a year and then want to bring your car home with you. In the case of a 350GT you don't have to wait to bring one in, you can do so straight away. There are some things you need to do first since it's a RAWS vehicle, but it's all pretty routine and nothing to worry about. If you buy a car at $15,000 FOB a very rough breakdown of costs would be: Shipping including customs clearance and a couple of other costs: $2,200 Import duty: $1,500 GST: $1,800 Compliance: $2,000 - $2,800 depending who Plus new tyres, registration, and an import broker fee if you use one, which I recommend (bias disclaimer: I am one! ). EDIT: actually I just saw your email you sent earlier, so I'll also reply to that with answers to those questions

Yes usually just unsecured personal loans, getting actual car finance is sometimes a little difficult since the car is not in Australia... the bank gets worried that their equity (ie the car) is not instantly available to them should you not make payments and they want to get their money back.

Yes I think if you're willing to go into the mid 20's then no problem. For example $25k landed and complied gives you a little under 1 million yen FOB to spend, I just did a quick search at auction and for tiptronic series 1's in grade 4 condition probably about 50% of them sell for under a million FOB. You want pearl white which will narrow down your options a little but you can see that as far as price goes it shouldn't be too difficult as long as you don't want a car with really desireable/rare options.

Yes Kushil it was your Skyline I was referring to (it's a nice car by the way), being a 70th Anniversary model it's a series 1. The series 2's started production in November 2004, so most 2004's are series 1. This is a series 1 interior: And this is a series 2: Note the different speedo cluster, colours for the audio/climate control buttons, shifter, and climate control display. Another minor thing I forgot, on series 2's the pop up screen is motorized.... big deal.

Sure do! I was almost hit by one yesterday! This was actually the newer one which looks way cooler, my first thought (after "Holy crap!") was "hey that looks pretty sweet for an SUV". However, in Japan they are all actually US spec (and therefore left hand drive) proper Infinitis, not right hand drive Nissans.

Some v35-o-phile will probably come in and tell I'm totally wrong, but just off the top of my head here are the differences. Overall they are pretty similar, it was just a minor cosmetic facelift mostly, not a huge jump: - series 2 headlights and tail lights are the same, series 3's (quite rare) only had different lights - speedo cluster is slightly different - climate control display is slightly different - climate control and radio buttons and surround slightly different look - I've heard some people say they find the throttle response of series 2's a little better - in tiptronic models the shifter is different - series 2's might have had a very minor increase in power (like 10hp or something) due to having a couple of extra hunred rpm available, bringing them up to US engine spec, but I'm not at all sure on that one - series 2's had 19" wheels added as an option - on manual series 2's the Brembos were optional, on manual series 1's they were standard While a series 2 is nicer, just sitting in one with the slightly different coloured buttons and the different looking speedo cluster is the biggest difference, personally I'd be quite happy with a series 1 still as they are pretty much the same car all up.

You can do most of that. - White yes, black no. In V35's for factory black you pay a big premium... they are several grand more usually - no rims is easy, however if a car does have wheels it doesn't make compliance that much more difficult - no aftermarket suspension easy - half leather doable, the full leather means a 70th Anniversary, usually they are a bit more, we just bought one with 67k and at around $27k landed and complied, and that was about as cheap as they get I felt. - under 70km no problem - series 2 is probably not possible at that budget. In all honesty as long as your budget is sufficient finding a good V35 is not that hard, probably more than any car I inspect at auction they are consistently good. There are bad ones, but they are rarer than most of the other models of cars which are imported into Australia. Many are one owner vehicles so the first owner paid good money for the car and therefore looked after it, they don't seem to have any common major faults, they are very rust resistant, and they don't seem to be the sort of car that gets thrashed. Anything more than minor imperfections on one and I just walk away since there are plenty out there, and you can expect better.

Hi Rowan, You're probably looking at low to mid 20's landed and complied for a V35 tiptronic with the current exchange rate, that's for a good condition car (a V35 is only a couple of years old so you shouldn't have to settle for anything that needs work). For a V35 anything over about 70,000km I'd consider to be high mileage, if you don't mind something with closer to 100k then you'll pay less but in fact finding V35's with over 100k is not that common. For that sort of money you'd most likely be looking at a good condition tiptronic with no need for any real work to the body or interior, series 1 (2003 or 2004), maybe silver or pearl (other colours cost more), and maybe with leather interior, though they are cheaper without. There ARE cheaper V35's out there but I'm talking about nice condition cars here (grade 4+), not the porrer ones.