Importing Japan Cars

[adamrb25gts]

hey i was wondering if you able to import a car yourself and how much it will cost extra for compliance etc etc

they have s15's for like 7 grand over there so if thats correct how much extra will i be payin to get it here and everything else.

[Beer Baron]

buying an S15 for about $7K will cost around $18K landed complied and rego'd. just remember you can only import 1999 model Spec Rs, and early 2000 models (most people just play it safe and stick to 1999 models).

if you are after a really clean S15 I have one at the moment. I imported it around 18 months ago. I bought it at auction in Kyushu japan and bought it to aus for my flat mate. He's now moving overseas and didn't have time to do anything about it so being the nice guy I am I bought it off him. It's white and completely stock apart from an Apexi pod filter (still have stock airbox).

[adamrb25gts]

extra 11 on top? really shippin fee was like 2 grand on this site and complied i rang up said 3 grand and rego 1 g....

[Blitz_boy]

$7000? thats around 540,000yen at the current exchange rate. Thats a little too cheap.

I think you need to pay double that for a half decent car. The brokers can correct me if I'm wrong.

Don't forget you also need to pay import duty and gst.

It would be best to talk to one of the friendly importers that frequent this thread, they'll give you a realistic price.

[Iron Chef]

I think someone might be lusting after a Spec S

[Beer Baron]

extra 11 on top? really shippin fee was like 2 grand on this site and complied i rang up said 3 grand and rego 1 g....

ok, so $7K for the car (which will be pretty poor at that price, good ones are closer to 1M than they are to 500K)

90,000-150,000yen FOB

$2K in freight

$300 in clearance, customs entry, AQIS attendance etc

$200 in cleaning

5% duty

10% GST (includes car cost, FOB, freight, the whole shebang)

$200 in towing

$3K in compliance

$1K in rego

ok, well that's about $9500 so call it $10K to be safe. which is about right. Basically if you bought a car at auction in japan for $10 it would still cost you nearly $10K by the time it's complied, registered and on the road in aus. yeah that estimate is a bit conservative but most guys doing a one off import will encounter some un-expected costs somewhere along the line. maybe a new set of tyres adds $1,000, or it needs a small guard repair due to damage in transit. shit like that.

plus the fact is a Spec R S15 for 500,000JPY is going to be fairly average.

anyway, it's entirely up to you.