ips

was wondering if it is worth doing anything to your car in japan that could end up saving you dollars when it lands in australia with compliance of your vehicle. e.g degass of aircon, removal of HID lights, new car tyres A few questions with this issue. 1. Is their much saving if any to do it in japan cause their standard of living is so high (tokyo has the highest commercial property rents in the world) this is going to trickle down to service industries and the labour to do any mechanical servicinig is going to be higher then australia. But then again japan has the largest auto industry in the world so their is going to be large savings due to economies of scale when you purchase parts. Parts might be substantially cheaper then australia? e.g oil filter, timing belt etc. Has anyone purchased parts in japan and found it cheaper? 2. Do compliance workshop ignores any servicing done overseas? Are there any certificates you should specify when importing that is recognized by DOTARS or the compliance workshop. 3. Has anyone asked for work to be done on their vehicle to specifically save on compliancing in australia. If so was it worth it dollar wise and can you give me a list. I am importing very soon and will give list to broker if their is any saving to be made.

just buy a Kia Soul. It is a 98% copy of the Nissan Cube and it will be much cheaper.

Is mytrading.org/mark hocking still in business because his website has no contact information and it is just one large advertising bill board for crap. Given his reputation for honesty shouldn't this guy be still around? If so how can i contact him? I tried to dial 0011819015176677 (which was given by drift on this forum) about 20 times over the last 3 days but it just rings out and the last post about someone buying a car off him is about 6 months old. Much appreciated if someone can provide a reliable method for contacting him.

recently a guy on the forum called John Kucil or John K with 25 years experience importing said it costs 1million yen to deregister a car and other 3 rd party japan side charges to get a car ready for export. This is before any shipping costs. This works out to be about 13-14 grand australia dollars. Can anyone say this is true cause if it is i need to factor in more to land the car and it is going to stuff up alot of family finances. I have been told it is only about 30k yen approximately I am hoping somebody who has imported a car before from japan is going to say that John K's figure is bullshit and no where near a million yen.

Given the volume of cars that come into australia. I was thinking of putting some critical spare parts e.g timing belt, brake pads, oil filters in the boot and shipping it over at the same time as the car to save on the hassels and expense of airfreighting parts from japan ( i work in the freight industry so i know how expensive it is to airfreight stuff) ? Has anyone done this before and not got into trouble. I am not doing it constantly every month so the chances of getting into trouble are low and anyway if the customs did say something I would just blame it on the supplier in Japan and say i forgot. Is their a good chance they might x ray the car Can anyone advise the merits of doing the above

Has anyone imported their vehicle through j specs if so how would you rate them. I am looking to use them for a car but not sure if they will disappear with my money in japan or send a car different from the photos with carefully disguised problems. Thanks john

I have been told how many k's a car has done is a very poor judge of the condition of the car as it is common for odometres to be tampered with or replaced. It is illegal but if it was a professional job can anyone tell without taking the panel apart (you are not allowed to do this at the auctions). Are their any quick non intrusive tests you can do apart from having suspicions. Service books? Alot of cars are listed on auctions as having their service books missing where stamps from the dealer show the car has been regularly serviced. I was wondering if this is a big negative as it might be if it was in australia. Should we view this as a cynical attempt to conceal potential problems with the car. "Stop and Start Driving is bad for the car" I was told alot of japanese cars are driven in congested areas and as a result they have to stop and start frequently. This is a big negative for the engine. Can someone tell me why it is a negative? Given that Japan is very congested wouldn't this mean most cars suffer from this problem. Does this mean engines are likely to fail much earlier then Australian cars which have longer distances to travel. (My friend told me this and warned me against importing a japanese car) So really a engine which has done 50,000km in stop start driving conditions would be in worse condition then my friends Nissan Navara which has done 200,000km mostly doing country driving as he works on a farm. Thanks for your shedding any light on these issues

in melbourne victoria. I am tossing up importing a 2004 4door nissan skyline 350gt sedan (not coupe) with the QV35 engine with a 6 speed or 8 speed transmission or Nissan Elgrand E51 model 2003 with a 5speed tiptronic transmission or e50 with a turbo diesel. My budget is 18k to 22k fully landed and complied. I am looking to do this through a broker with a long pedigree of importing from japan and with a qualified mechanic on the ground who can definitely do a racv/nrma type prepurchase inspection on these cars. Can anyone assist in the decision of which model to go for taking into account the following below 1. Access to spare parts at a reasonable price in Australia. Which car would be harder or more expensive to source spare parts to do routine servicing eg. oil filter, timing belt, brakes etc.. 2. Fuel economy. With petrol predicted to go to $2/L i was wondering if anyone has experience driving these cars and could give a realistic fuel economy figure for them in city driving. Is the turbo diesel much more economical then the petrol elgrande? I know sports cars perform badly in this category but i wanted to know in comparision to the weight of the Elgrande does it do better. As the elgrande is carrying alot of weight 3.Overall chances of getting dudded on a car. I am taking huge risks to import the car directly from japan and I have sought different opinions from different people and have come to the conclusion that the skyline is likely to have been driven harder with street racing and might have been crashed and the crash cleverly concealed then the family oriented car of the elgrande. 4. Build and mechanical quality. Would appreciate if anyone has experienced major faults with their cars after directly importing. Finally can anyone recommend some major brokers /dealers eg. directimported, carizma who are honest and will not rip me off. I was thinking of using Iron Chef..but it has been 2 weeks and he has not responded to any of my emails. Thanks All and appreciate you assistance Regards John