Importing Through "import Factory"

[Grey]

Hi, today I went to check out The Import Factory showroom's cars, I liked what I saw there, being the first time I've ever been to one of these import car yards, it got me thinking, are there better importers out there? I mean, has anyone heard of the import factory based in nunawading, victoria? I would love to get some feedback, and also, what are the top importers / importing sites that are most trustworthy and good value currently? I've heard of J-spec imports and Iron chef imports, what are the best ones to use?

[numleg]

Hey Mate welcome to a very dodgy mine field

I'm not sure about Victoria but here in Sydney I recon it would be safe to say about 60% of imports are in some way non-genuine, be it clocked here in Australia or back in Japan. Brought in as a wreck and fixed up or brought as a repaired car and cleaned up enough to sell as a non accident car. My personal favourite is the rust buckets I know some importers buy, clean up reseal/respray. Another good one is going to look is buying a highly modified car cheap (and presumably thrashed) and then taking off all the visible mods to make it look like a stock babied car.

This is not to say everyone who brings in imports is a thief out to get your money.

Mutipul cars of mine + family members have come from JapLink Motors in Sydney, I've seen enough of the way these guys operate to know they are genuine guys who don’t do any of the above.

I know Iron Chef doesn’t approve of dodgy stuff and I’ve a few of his cars go through compliance in Sydney, They looked like clean cars and I would trust his word on the condition of his cars.

I can’t comment on Import factory or J-spec as I’ve never had anything to do with them.

My best advice would be to compare the condition of the car with the KMs showing on the dash, worn seats and steering wheel on a 60 000km car? Hmm, Car on snow tyres? have a look underneath.

Search a few different forums for feedback and horror stories on any prospective dealers and ask for auction sheets and import documents which may help prove condition of the car when it was sold in Japan. Compare the condition of the car with the KMs showing on the dash, worn seats and steering wheel on a 60 000km car? Hmm, Car on snow tyres? have a look underneath.

Hope this helps you avoid getting burnt.

[Grey]

Okay thanks heaps! Does anybody else have an opinion on J-Specs which I will most likely be doing an import through them?

[Grey]

Ah okay, so lucky I didn't, thank you for your great help guys! It's down to Iron chef or J-spec imports, which guys do you believe is better?

[TUFF_350]

I can vouch for Iron Chef as many others.

He sourced and imported me a nice 2005 V35 Coupe last year, process was painless, efficient and exciting to say the least

[Grey]

Yep okay, iron chef isn't replying to me, he replied the first email, then he didn't for the second email, so I texted him but still no reply and this has been 1 and half days so far, is this normal? And J-spec told me hat I'll need at least 14000 dollars to get a decent Nissan Skyline R34 25Gt manual coupe, when I see exact same cars on carsales just imported for 13000, so I guesss I'll have to figure which one would be more worth it...

[Hank Scorpio]

In todays market I would have thought you would be struggling to find a clean manual GT-T for $13k!

If you have the time I would suggest import, you can get pretty much the exact car you are chasing (be it kms, colour, auction grade, sunroof etc.) for a reasonable amount.

Kristian aka Iron Chef is great (he is a busy guy though and gets tonnes of emails every day, he can't always reply straight away), I can vouch for him having imported my Legnum through him, would have been a horrible, painful experience without an import broker. Ben over at J-Spec has some great feedback also so you will be in safe hands with him also.

If I was you (and I have previsouly bought an R34 already imported from a dealer) I would set my budget a little higher ($16k - $18k maybe?) and import the Skyline of your dreams.

[maclarenf1]

I have used J-Spec twice now

once in 2009 to import V35 Premium Coupe and in 2010 to bring in daddy of all imports R34 GTR V-Spec

I was very happy both times and J-Spec has being very helpful

of cause importing means it's lot of time waiting regardless of who your importing with

[Iron Chef]

Yep okay, iron chef isn't replying to me, he replied the first email, then he didn't for the second email, so I texted him but still no reply and this has been 1 and half days so far, is this normal? And J-spec told me hat I'll need at least 14000 dollars to get a decent Nissan Skyline R34 25Gt manual coupe, when I see exact same cars on carsales just imported for 13000, so I guesss I'll have to figure which one would be more worth it...

Iron Chef isn't replying because he ran a car show that was held today and was up to his eyeballs in work for the entire week

Will send you a reply through tomorrow, although if you're worried about waiting a day and a half for a reply, you may want to consider looking locally - importing takes patience, and lots of it!

Edited February 27, 2011 by Iron Chef

[Grey]

Oh okay, sorry for bugging you =[

Yeah just message me back when you have the chance, I'm definitely in!

[Iron Chef]

Haha no worries, I'm plowing my way back through a couple of hundred emails tonight

[Grey]

Why is J-spec bad all of a sudden? I only know of one recent issue with them that has gone bad, is this the cause? Throughout the forums J-spec have been getting positive feedback have they really crossed the line? At the moment I'm trusting Iron chef the most, as soon as I get some more information via emails I'll probably pay the broker fee and off we go! =D

[Mr Eps]

welllllll... this IS just a rumour..

but - word on the street is..

The basic causes of World War II were nationalistic tensions, unresolved issues, and Ben Lippa from Jspec, plus the effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s. The culmination of events that led to the outbreak of war are generally understood to be the 1939 invasion of Poland by Ben Lippa and the 1937 invasion of the Republic of China by the Empire of Japan.

These military aggressions were the decisions made by authoritarian ruling Ben Lippa and by the leadership of J-Spec in the case of Importing.

World War II started after these aggressive actions were met with an official declaration of war and/or armed resistance.

...and Ben Lippa.

in short - Ben Lippa started World War 2. no it was not the invasion of poland by an aggressive german force - it was BEN.

seriously - ALL brokers - like ALL businesses, will have their good and bad days, their good clients and bad clients...

they'll have their happy customers, and their angry customers...

ALL brokers... and ALL businesses will have the one bad experience in the absolute SEA of incredibly happy customers, there would be HUNDREDS of happy J-spec customers, one bad apple should NOT ruin the batch.

Iron Chef, Import Monster, J-spec, and all businesses that operate and use this site do a great job.

hell, i would even go as far as saying import factory do a decent job?

[Mr Eps]

i wasnt even talking about my soarers? Thats old news now

paragraph two however, made zero sense..

[Chris Rogers]

it did to me.

[hamiltonau]

can you explain it (2nd paragraph) to us then? i dont geddit

im thinking he means dont be flippant when dissing small business owners who rely on forums like this for good word of mouth?

but it was a bit convoluted..

yes i know random blow in..but my 2 cents.

anyway do the import brokers provide finance or connect you to finance brokers? want..no need a skyline GTR34 after going on an SAU cruise recently and falling in love multiple times.

problem is owe 60k in credit cards, heard some of the car yard people will still help me out with as long as i have lots of payslips and its secured against the car?

dont want to wait, know the interest will be high but bringing in 80k annually so it should be do-able..theoretically..?

Edited March 2, 2011 by hamiltonau

[Chris Rogers]

in a nutshell yes.

personnally I think you need to get your life in order first.. why add a 30k debt to an already out of control budget.

[Mr Eps]

can you explain it (2nd paragraph) to us then? i dont geddit

im thinking he means dont be flippant when dissing small business owners who rely on forums like this for good word of mouth?

but it was a bit convoluted..

yes i know random blow in..but my 2 cents.

anyway do the import brokers provide finance or connect you to finance brokers? want..no need a skyline GTR34 after going on an SAU cruise recently and falling in love multiple times.

problem is owe 60k in credit cards, heard some of the car yard people will still help me out with as long as i have lots of payslips and its secured against the car?

dont want to wait, know the interest will be high but bringing in 80k annually so it should be do-able..theoretically..?

for those in this thread who are bad mouthing the companies - the point i was making in my post... is if these guys that we're talking about here had a sheckle for every time that someone bad mouthed them on an internet forum - they'd probably have about three sheckles in total.

in short - they're doing a good job - many of us here will agree...

to answer part two of your confessions, the import brokers themselves do not offer a financial loan service, yes they would "know" brokers that can help you..

but realistically - in your situation, there is no "car" that the bank can lend money against... that is..

if you get a CAR loan - you're borrowing AGAINST the car as security, ie: you don't make payments, they take your car.. or your house. or whatever.

GENERALLY what people do with imports, is an unsecured short term flexi-loan on personal terms.. basically - you pay about 16%-18% interest rate because you're borrowing moeny for a thing that's not THERE. hence why the interest rate is high enough to rival that of a life ender credit card.

in short - 15K personal loan if paid "on time" will cost you about $20K once it's all said and done. and for what? a depreciating asset?

a bank would be HAPPY to give you a 60K personal loan for a GTR...

banks LOVE people like you.. you're 60K in credit debt and are giving them 60K worth of credit card interest rate, AND you want to get a loan to import a car on a personal loan?

they LOVE people like you!

so yes.. long story short - if you're on 80K as you say you are, PAY OFF YOUR CREDIT DEBT.

best part of importing - is you pay cash, YOUR cash. also - you pay for your brokerage fee / membership. THEN pay for the car, THEN the shipping, THEN the compliance etc etc..

so you get a breather between it all.

sorry to go off topic, but things like your post worry me!

[Mr Eps]

Mister dickhead...

Care to explain how the abovementioned cars are XXXXX fault???

Can you please explain what is stopping those two scenarios from happening to any other australian import broker?

The brokers operate from australia, Barr Phil from directimported...

They use auction runners who check out many many cars every day. Their job is to report what general condition they think the car is in...

Rotaries are f**kbuckets in any condition... It's normal protocol to see a rotary blow smoke for ages on start up.. So how would the auction runner know if engine is cactus???

Same goes for "shaved back" km on v35???

Auction runner sees:

Car starts. Interior is nice.paint is good... Relay it to customer...

The end. They don't take it for a drive thru countryside...

Stop being a sour sally man... You bought the car, you said "I want to bid on that car"

Things like that aren't XXXXXX fault dude...

[hamiltonau]

re

"get your life in order first."

and similar comments about my worrying situation, your absolutely right and in your shoes I would shake my head just as resoundingly.

however i never claimed it to be a smart or economically viable decision, it is purely one of the heart and completely impulse though i have always loved GTRs..just not sure i can wait the ten or so years it would take me to save up the cash.

I know if i saved 'properly' i could probably do it sooner but i am one of those people who if the money is in the bank it gets spent so the only way i will end up with nice things is through credit.

Thankfully big ticket electronic items can usually be bought on interest free terms through buyers edge/harvey norman and spread out over time, my own skyline only cost 10k and about 6 more k on cards in mods the rest of the card debt is through constant holidaying, sales at westfield, girlfriends and a startling inability to cook.

Tried the bank option last year and they werent too keen, at least at ANZ, might try another such as a flexi loan, i do like how you can..

"you pay for your brokerage fee / membership. THEN pay for the car, THEN the shipping, THEN the compliance etc etc..

so you get a breather between it all."

say for a cleanish GTR34, doesnt have to be v spec or nur, what would each expenditure be (aprox)? obviously the car would be the largest amount but if its 30k ish as someone mentioned that seems very reasonable as they are still 50 plus in the lots over here.

ok just thinking out loud really with all these, thanks very much for all the advice and appreciate all the info

Edited March 3, 2011 by hamiltonau