Importing A Car

[don.]

I just might consider importing a car from the great country of Japan, and have a few questions about it as im kind of new to it all

Im going off the j-spec imports site and they give a rough prediction of the price for every car for everything, excluding compliance.

Are there any other sites as comprehensive as j-spec?

How much is compliance, on average?

How long does the entire process take? from me choosing a car to it being in aus and me driving it

Cant think of any more right now but i'll probably come into some more

[GTS-t VSPEC]

Imports 101 & AutoWorx do a similar thing to J-spec, but I've personally never used either.

Best to give them a call, and get them to walk you through the entire process, rather than getting it 2nd-hand from us

[Alkatraz]

Prestige Motorsport do the same as well. I can vouch for Geoff over here, imported my 370GT with his help earlier this year and couldn't be happier. He answered all 500 of my qustions without blinking and his guy in Japan found me an immaculate car. Keep in mind that depending on what you buy, it may be cheaper to have the car complianced over east and pay for extra shipping, thats what I ended up doing.

One piece of advice, get something that is completely stock. Any mods will need to be removed for compliance and replaced with stock parts which could obviously cost a fortune. Also Geoff recommends a Forex Trader to transfer the money to Japan, which ensures that you dont get raped by any banks.

Google Prestige Motorsport, he has ballpark prices for all the major models (using actual sales prices) as we as other information and spreadsheets which will explain the whole process in detail.

Good luck to you, if you have the cash and the patience, importing is the way to go. I ended up with a $45-50,000 car for under $40,000, on the road. :-)

P.S

You will find answers to both of your questions on his website. Compliance costs will vary wildly based on the model of car and who does it. As an example, there are guys on here that paid over $5,000 for their 370GT compliance in NSW/Vic, I was quoted $5-6 by some places here in Perth but ended up having it done in Brisvegas for just over $3,000. $1,000 extra shipping to Perth, but the money saved paid for the brand new $1350 tyres and Geoffs fee.

Time to get the car in your garage will depend completely on when the car can get on a boat from Japan and how long the workshop and Government take for compliance. Mine waited only a few days in Japan but a guy here in Perth that bought one 2 weeks earlier had his car on the same boat as mine. At the VERY best, it will take a month, but expect it to take 2 or more. Gives you time to start thinking about all of the mods that you are going to set your money on fire with once it arrives.

Edited November 25, 2011 by Alkatraz

[Alkatraz]

Double post, Damn Phone!!!

Edited November 25, 2011 by Alkatraz

[don.]

Wow thanks for all that i might just keep looking around for a while. Im in no hurry to do anything just yet and i'll probably only really start to act sometime next year.

Sounds like you had a really good experience with them too so i wont just stick to looking in one place.

And whats the deal with compliancing over east? Have they got less strict regulations or something?

I dont think time and waiting will be a problem for me i dont mind waiting a while for something