Waiting For A Car? - The State Of Importing Cars From Japan ATM

[madmurf]

Merlin

How Much extra did you pay?

Whos your agent??

Cheers

Madmurf

[OBaYBe]

I had to pay a bit extra for shipping coz the car ended up on a container ship as deck cargo, rather than a dedicated RORO vessel.

Was that the containers that carry frozen food from aus->japan? One of jspecs other means of getting cars to thier new homes.

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

I posted a few pages back, going over my costs to date:

here they are:

$4000 Cost of Car (315000 yen)

$ 200 Port Transfer Within Japan

$1018 Shipping Japan->Brizzy

$1186 Customs Duty & GST

$ 308 Transport to Melbourne

$ 660 Customs Fees, Quarantine charges, Other random fees etc.

---------

$7372

=====

dunno the deal with shipping, but yeah, j-spec organised it. The only delay i had was it was stuck in brisbane for a while over x-mas.

seaway was the shipping company, j-spec organised everything else.

[blacky]

Thats cheap Merlos, even with compliance and rego on top. You'd probably be having it on road for about $9000 yeah?

btw, you guys get seriously cheap shipping being closish to J

[pentae]

I am holding my breath until I found out whether or not my car makes it onto the Kiwi carrier leaving this Wednesday the 19th from Kawasaki port.. as seen in sig...

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

budgeted for having it on the road for $10k, and it's gonna be about that, coz gotta make a few changes to car to get it rego'd., usual deal (btw, if anyone in melb can lend me a stock exhaust for rego...pm me).

i'm curious to see what everyone else is paying for shipping & customs etc.etc.

[midnight]

finally got word on my car it leaves on the 20th yay!

^_^

[blacky]

My last car on RoRo was between $1600 and $1700, not sure. But yeah, bout $500 more than yourself.

[Blipman]

Hi guys,

wow 7 pages worth of discussion so far. I'm Ben from J-Spec, I've seen my name mentioned in this thread a few times now (people who knew me before I was famous, I haven't changed ) so I thought I'd just fill anyone who's reading this thread in on what's going on in the industry. As an overview, as I think this thread illustrates, shipping in the last few months has not been a fun process, it hasn't been subject to any particular import broker or their knowledge/contacts, everyone has suffered. This has not been the norm by any stretch of the imagination and if you combine all the indicators and subtle clues we are seeing at the moment it looks like it should return to being a little more normal and predictable soon.

As for the wild discrepancies in timing (some people experiencing long delays, others not) of course I don't know the situation for each person who's posted here but I would imagine it comes down largely to where in Japan their car is. Some ports are relatively trouble free, for example in Nagoya we have had practically no issues with at all, while some (in particular Kyushu) have been really bad. Cars in Kyushu (or more specifically the port of Kanda) have been experiencing very long delays, I wake up at night in a cold sweat with a map of Kyushu in my head I've come to loathe it so. Most of the really long term stories people have been telling are most likely those with cars in Kyushu, the reasons for this are largely that no dedicated second hand roll on/roll off ships service this port (ie not Kiwi Car Carriers), those lines which do have had little or no space for second hand cars (see the very first post by deorbit in this thread which is quoting my email for more info on this). If yours is a car in Kyushu I would personally recommend moving it to Osaka where the chances of getting it on a ship are far greater. Unfortunately this will cost around 30,000 yen or so to move it, however those who have experienced some of the really long delays may find this a better alternative (J-Spec guys we're working on cheaper transportation rates and I'll be emailing you in the next few days about this option so don't bombard me with emails just yet ).

Another option is container shipping, there are a number of options with this (20ft, 40ft, stacking of cars, NOR) and it's probably too complex to go into here, but again it's something you can maybe take up with your import broker as a possibility. It also is a more expensive option but there are many, many ships going back and forth between Australia and Japan with containers, so it is far more predictable and the wait should be less or non existant. Finally, although very unusual, there are also some non roll on/roll off ships which (if setup for the task) can take cars as well, the Hachinohe Bay as mentioned in this thread being a perfect example, but these are rare and I mention it mostly for information's sake.

The other group of people who may be experiencing longer than normal delays are people in WA, again there are only a limited number of roll on/roll off ships which go to Fremantle with limited space, so this is causing long waits.

The current situation at the moment is looking up. With the exception of cars in Kyushu or those going to Fremantle most of the backlog is now through, and if some of the recently announced schedules are anything to go by it looks like things are returning to normal with shipping frequency as well. To give people an idea, in J-Spec's case from most of the common ports we now have every car that was waiting moving, or will be in the next few weeks. With trepidation by some about the 15 year old rule and 1990 vehicles I would think purchasing of cars to come to Australia is down at the moment so this can only help as well.

To chase up just a few things people have said in this thread:

- DRIFTT: GTO's actually started in April 1990, although for the first few months they were produced in pretty low numbers and only really got going later on in the year.

- cowie164: spot on, for anyone with a bit of patience (and guts.... maybe ), later model 1990 GTR's are a lot cheaper.... prices are hugely inflated by Australian and Canadian 15 year old demand. An 89 GTR that sells for say 900,000 yen could be found in similar condition as a late 1990 for around 550,000 yen (!).

- Mr. R32 M-Spec: The Prince arrives tonight at 10:00pm, it was all over the place for a while I know An "Executive Decision" was made (Kiwi-Car-Carriers-Speak for whenever changes to shipping are made) that it would go to NZ first, then Brisbane. The ship then got held up while there were some issues at the NZ docks, and then bad weather also held the ship up, but it's mighty close now.

Please note that any prices or info I've mentioned here are estimates or simplifications only... there are always provisos, special cases or exceptions and we normally overestimate, it's frustrating for us when people (competitors) try and win brownie points by quoting something J-Spec has said and then discrediting it, saying that we're overcharging or whatever.... I'm simply trying to keep it accurate here for 99% of cases. Likewise, non J-Spec people reading this, don't go off at your import broker telling them I said something in this thread and expecting them to be able to do the same for you, your case might be some sort of exception or more complex. Be nice to your import brokers, I know what they go through

Ben Lippa

J-Spec Imports

www.j-spec.com.au

[RBN1]

Great post Ben. Informative as per usual.

Well guys since I first started this thread months ago it seems my car is finally going to be on a ship from Kyushu to Melbourne. Hopefully all goes well from this point on as its been about 6months of waiting. Gotta get insurance for it tho as its not coming through Kiwi C.C.

[Duncan]

Thanks for posting Ben , its always great to hear directly from businesses

[neil_se]

All my fingers and toes are crossed that i got on the ship today. I never did manage to find out which port my car was at though.

[Mr R32 M-Spec]

Great post ben

and I have to say you guys at jspec have been really good, considering for a while there I managed to come up with between 1-5 new questions everyday and were really patient

cheers

mark

[MerlinTheHapyPig]

i second that, has been a tough time to bring in cars at the moment, and dealing with j-spec has been great, no problems here.

[Mr R32 M-Spec]

I just got a call from seaway and the invoice. I'm paying it this arvo and hopefully should be released on monday

mark

[z3n2k]

has anyone had there car released from Brisbane Quarintine..

I have called my customs agent and they have advised me it has cleared customs but still awaiting clearning quarintine

[cowie165]

has anyone had there car released from Brisbane Quarintine..

I have called my customs agent and they have advised me it has cleared customs but still awaiting clearning quarintine

Just like Mark above, mine has also been cleared. There are undoubtedly a lot of vehicles to clear, and your car may have required a bit more love from AQIS. I wouldn't stress dude, all in good time. As Van Wilder says, "worrying is just like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but you don't get anywhere."

Cheers, I hope it gets sorted out quickly for you

Mark

[lwells]

I have heard by way of someone else waiting on a car that quarantine is overloaded and advising up to two weeks delay.

LW.

[Beer Baron]

my car cleared customs/quarantine last Friday. doesn't seem to be too much delay. at least not for me.

Richard

[lwells]

I got the news from a dealer with a couple of cars waiting to clear... As I said, they were advised by customs/AQIS that clearance/quarantine may take up to two weeks.

Edit: to be clear, these cars were on the Kiwi Prince No. 1, offloaded at Brisbane.

LW.