Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

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

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/384058-importing-a-car/
Share on other sites

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 by Alkatraz
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/384058-importing-a-car/#findComment-6127299
Share on other sites

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

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/384058-importing-a-car/#findComment-6129148
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Very nice - I also have a 92 GTST and hardly see any others around these days
    • When I need something else to edit, I use Movavi. A friend who does video editing on a daily basis recommended me) it's an easy video cutter to use for beginners
    • I need to edit some videos for work but I'm not good at all this. Which video editor can you recommend?
    • I think you're really missing the point. The spec is just the minimum spec that the fuel has to meet. The additive packages can, and do, go above that minimum if the fuel brand feels they need/want to. And so you get BP Ultimate or Shell Ultra (or whatever they call it) making promises to clean your engine better than the standard stuff....simply because they do actually put better additive packages in there. They do not waste special sauce on the plebian fuel if they can avoid it. I didn't say "energy density". I just said "density". That's right, the specific gravity (if you want to use a really shit old imperial description for mass per unit volume). The density being higher indicates a number of things, from reduces oxygen content, to increased numbers of double bonds or cyclic components. That then just happens to flow on to the calorific value on a volume basis being correspondingly higher. The calorific value on a mass basis barely changes, because almost all hydrocarbon materials have a very similar CV per kg. But whatever - the end result is that you do get a bit more energy per litre, which helps to offset some of the sting of the massive price bump over 91. I can go you one better than "I used to work at a fuel station". I had uni lecturers who worked at the Pt Stanvac refinery (at the time they were lecturing, as industry specialist lecturers) who were quite candid about the business. And granted, that was 30+ years ago, and you might note that I have stated above that I think the industry has since collected together near the bottom (quite like ISPs, when you think about it). Oh, did I mention that I am quite literally a combustion engineer? I'm designing (well, actually, trying to avoid designing and trying to make the junior engineer do it) a heavy fuel oil firing system for a cement plant in fricking Iraq, this week. Last week it was natural gas fired this-that. The week before it was LPG fired anode furnaces for a copper smelter (well, the burners for them, not the actual furnaces, which are just big dumb steel). I'm kinda all over fuels.
    • Well my freshly rebuilt RB25DET Neo went bang 1000kms in, completely fried big end bearing in cylinder 1 so bad my engine seized. No knocking or oil pressure issue prior to this happening, all happened within less than a second. Had Nitto oil pump, 8L baffled sump, head drain, oil restrictors, the lot put in to prevent me spinning a bearing like i did to need the rebuild. Mechanic that looked after the works has no idea what caused it. Reckoned it may have been bearing clearance wrong in cylinder 1 we have no idea. Machinist who did the work reckoned it was something on the mechanic. Anyway thats between them, i had no part in it, just paid the money Curiosity question, does the oil system on RB’s go sump > oil pump > filter > around engine? If so, if you had a leak on an oil filter relocation plate, say sump > oil pump > filter > LEAK > around engine would this cause a low oil pressure reading if the sensors was before the filter?   TIA
×
×
  • Create New...