Import = Dangerous Street Racer

[spranga]

http://smh.drive.com.au/motor-news/c...skin=text-only

Car lovers look to foreign shores to find their perfect sets of wheels

Date: May 08 2010

Stephen Ottley CAMERON FOSTER could not find a car he liked locally, so he imported one from Japan.

The seemingly extreme solution to finding the perfect set of wheels is not uncommon. More people are making use of a law that allows buyers to import cars that are not sold through domestic dealerships.

The so-called grey imports represent a small percentage of cars on Australian roads but are becoming a big business and an irritation to car companies.

Buyers have been warned that there are risks involved in buying the vehicles at apparently heavily discounted prices.

Mr Foster, 23, an electrician, wanted an all-wheel drive, turbocharged station wagon but could not find one in Australia for the right price. He opted to buy a 2001 model Toyota Caldina from a Japanese auction house and have it shipped to him.

"If you look at the Australian market there's not a lot that's competitive with this," Mr Foster said. "Nothing appealed to me in the $15,000 budget I had. The only other car I could have looked at was a Subaru WRX station wagon. But I didn't really like the look of the car."

The Japanese car cost him $4300 at auction and he spent $2500 on shipping, customs charges and import duties. Modifying the car to comply with local road rules added another $2800. With new tyres, registration and insurance his outlay was $11,500 - well below his budget and much cheaper than buying a second hand car in Australia.

Mr Foster is happy with his vehicle, but there are traps. Some manufacturers refuse to service grey imports at authorised dealerships, and owners can be forced to buy parts from overseas because mechanics may not stock them.

Andrew McKellar, the chief executive of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, said there were questions about the safety of some older grey imports permitted by the law.

"Everyone else has to comply with a higher standard of safety than they do,'' he said.

The situation has improved compared with a few years ago, when sometimes questionable operators were importing more vehicles that were ending up as street-racing vehicles.

Changes to the law had forced many of those operators out of business, Mr McKellar said.

"What we were seeing prior to that was a surge in numbers," McKellar said.

[start rant]

These idiots are at it again.

I hate the way new car retailers spread fear to protect their profits. AUstralian has missed out on so many great cars, and optimum variations of good cars, because of the sloppy practises of new car importers. Australia always used to (and probably still does) get the crappy models with the worst specs. To protect this practise they resort to statments like "imports are dangerous" and "imported for street racing". Where is the data to back up such crap? Especially that last comment. This guy is the head of his industry and he gets away with unfounded statements like in an effort to limit the import industry...

[End rant]

Edited May 9, 2010 by spranga

[Ericjayrol]

Thats junk, imported cars are just like Australian cars, as far as I know, the compliance makes them just as "up to high standard" as the Australian delivered models, or am I incorrect and compliancing is just junk?

I cant wait to hear from the importers on the forum about this, especially the chef =P

[Johnny]

complaining about imports, i have two words......holden viva; or is that daewoo viva rebadged. What a piece of shiiiit car, want to make a panic stop, you put on the air con

[Big Fella]

this is a F##kin joke. i just sold my 2009 Holden ss sportwagon and bought a 2000 C34 stagea. the stagea drives better, feels safer at speed and is a lot cooler.

the SS retailed at $51,000 on the road and i sold it a year later for $36,000. i bought my stagea for $15,000 and it's been valued at $19,500. work that out

[Nic_A31]

ROFLOLMAO

That is all.

[Big Fella]

complaining about imports, i have two words......holden viva; or is that daewoo viva rebadged. What a piece of shiiiit car, want to make a panic stop, you put on the air con

they are peices of crap aren't they. i'm a mechanic at a holden dealer and i feel so bad when i see an old couple drive one. they've had their corona or early commo since brand new, it's in mint condition and some retard has advised them to upgrade to a VIVA, or a daewoo barina.

[kila32]

this is one of the dummest things ive read about how imports are bad.... srsly imports just as streetracers, what about all the hoons with HSVs or FPVs???? come on.

[LKC]

this is a total joke. never mind that imports are safer than most mid 90s aussie / non grey- import and run better. any decent early 2000's jap import has better features an is more reliable than most brand new cars in aust. just look at the fuga or late model glorias.

[jrm]

It's typical media sensationalism - all to try and stand behind the views that hoons in cars are bad and that imports are part of that - and we should all support local vehicles... ugh.

[Mayuri Krab]

LOL @

Some manufacturers refuse to service grey imports at authorized dealerships, and owners can be forced to buy parts from overseas because mechanics may not stock them.

I never get my car serviced at local dealerships even if they were locally made ones.

The so-called grey imports represent a small percentage of cars on Australian roads but are becoming a big business and an irritation to car companies.

Maybe they (the car companies) should make some cars I like to buy instead of winging. IE Toyota go & bring some of your turbo sedans & wagon here instead of just making grandpa spec Camrys.

[Swiper the Fox]

Australia always used to (and probably still does) get the crappy models with the worst specs.

Toyota Australia were looking to release the Mark V Chaser here. but the boffins at HQ decided the Avalon was a better option.

retards!!

[Mr Eps]

personally - @ swiper the fox...

i'd rather that toyota didn't bring in their "import" cars. i would RATHER have to import to drive a chaser.

toyota is bringing in the "ruckus" (toyota bB) in 4 weeks time for sale. and i can bet you it will be priced well out of reach for it's target market...

toyota will be pissed that the likes of iron chef or phil or aaron or cubecars etc can import and comply and register the iconic nissan cube for about 15 grand happily making a healthy coin for themselves as profit when the toyota bB van (ruckus) is going to be priced at about 10 grand more for a base model.

either way. there's no way that SEVS can get any worse. so nothing will come of this!

[Kujotk]

I think most people have jumped the gun, the comment about the "street racer" thing is stupid, but they didn't say that imports are dangerous, all they said was "there were questions about the safety of some older grey imports" which is true. There are a lot more death traps like 20 year old r32's comming over with many problems, rust, unsafe repair jobs ect that have made it to our shores than most of us realise.... They didn't say that an australian delivered car is any better, all they said is there used to be allot of unsafe cars comming over. And it is implied that they were trying to say that the new SEVS sceme is much better (from a safety point of view) than the old sceme a few years ago when most cars could pass compliance with not much trouble. Really do we need any more unsafe cars comming over when almost all aussie built cars are unsafe anyway??? lol.

For the record I love my import, best decision ever!!!!

And the line about aussie built cars is a joke so heros please don't get offended

[funkymonkey]

I think they were referring to the old "15 year rule" which put the keys to many a GTR and supra in the hands of 17 year olds and people with less sense than money.

[FrangaR33]

Most street racers i've ever encountered have been in Commodores, Falcons or WRX's. All of which are Australian delivered or built cars. If you actually do the math import drivers dont make up such a large number of the cars impounded under the hoon laws, the vast majority are Commodores. I just find it amusing that my dad who is 1 year away from the old age pension has his car V8 Commodore with the loudest exhaust known to man (He's nearly completely deaf in one ear from a work related accident), but he never gets pulled over by the coppers even though he's always street racing "those young guys in their SS's and XR8's"

[mad082]

The situation has improved compared with a few years ago, when sometimes questionable operators were importing more vehicles that were ending up as street-racing vehicles.

Changes to the law had forced many of those operators out of business, Mr McKellar said.

now i am assuming that this is the line that most of you guys are getting upset about. now i think the most of you need to take a few deep breaths, stop over reacting and read the 10 words before that again (as well as the sentence that follows it) which put the whole thing in context. they are saying that under the old scheme there was dodgy stuff going on and now it is much better.

personally i didn't see anything bad in the article. they highlighted the fact that imports are cheap, they highlighted that the local manufacturers aren't all that happy about it because they are losing sales.

to those who did get fired up by the streetracing comment, i must say that i agree. a hell of a lot of import owners do, or have done stupid things in them, and a hell of a lot of people buy them purely to do stupid things in them. a good percentage of people buying silvias and skylines would be buying them because they are fast, turbo, rwd cars that you can drift in and beat commodores or falcons off from the lights. if they weren't buying them for this reason then there would be a hell of a lot more NA versions getting around and not as many turbo versions, and the aftermarket parts sales would be much lower.

[Iron Chef]

Thats junk, imported cars are just like Australian cars, as far as I know, the compliance makes them just as "up to high standard" as the Australian delivered models, or am I incorrect and compliancing is just junk?

I cant wait to hear from the importers on the forum about this, especially the chef =P

Well the FCAI are the body that represent local car manufacturers, so it's fairly obvious that they're gonna take that position.

The comment was a backhander aimed at 15 year imports which came in in plague proportions before they shut it down, but seriously that changed 5 years ago now....move on...the street racing comment is just a cheap attempt to cash in on the hoon hysteria that the media loves at the moment. Given he got a quote out of it, it obviously worked.

The irony is that, in terms of emissions at least, import cars are subjected to stricter treatment than local cars, because they are expected to meet the emissions regs applicable when they were first produced when they are imported - my wife drives a Ford Territory, and given that it has only done 90,000kms and is already chewing oil and getting smoky, I'd love to see how it would go passing a similar test....

Edited May 12, 2010 by Iron Chef

[89CAL]

The media will never abuse holdens or fords for 2 main reasons

1. There Australian and if they abused them to much, the Australian public would be outraged cause as you know 90% of people in Australia think the best cars in the world are Holdens and Fords (Not dissing Fords and Holdens, think they have both made some great steps forward of late but still) end of the day - Keep the customer happy when the majority of customers love Fords or Holdens

2. Most of the sportier Holdens and Fords are out of the price range of people that want to hoon etc. Yes yes i know you still get fools in new clubsports, F6's etc etc, but theres alot of older people that buy sports cars and drive around like grannys. Also the 2,000,000 holdens with lets say 20,000 hoons/bad drivers whatever to the 100,000 imports with say 10,000 hoons whatever doesnt help purely because any old mate who thinks he is a drift king can easily go buy a silvia or whatever... Those are made up numbers to prove a point, not calling everyone/anyone here a bad driver

The media is biased, but what can you do? I changed from holden to Skyline, Never ever looked back, love how well it drives after 16 odd years of use