My Import Story, Part 1
If you follow this blog regularly, you'll know I recently imported a car from Japan. This is my story. I'll talk about how to import in general, then tell you how I went about it.
In the beginning...
I had owned my first right hand drive for about two years, and I wanted something a little more. My Hijet was cool and all, but I have family out-of-town that I should visit, and I just couldn't get myself to drive my itsy bitsy truck out that far. The Hijet could do highway, but it's like whipping a puppy to do it.
I had previously thought about importing something from Japan, but didn't have the nerve to do it. I even said to my wife, "I'd never import a car from Japan myself... that's way too much risk for me." Yeah. And that was my true feelings at the time.
Over time, my feelings changed about importing myself. People I've met (largely through this website) who have imported their own cars encouraged me, and helped me understand the risks, benefits and joy to be had when importing your own car.
So, with my little support group, a small pile of money and dreams of owning a 'new' car, I started the process.
Off to the races
Step 1... do your research.
Yes, hypothetically you could go to ebay.jp, buy a car and ship it. But you'd be stupid to do that. Know what you're getting into, and where to find the good cars.
Selection? You've got it!
In short, almost all the cars shipped to Canada from Japan come from the Japanese car auctions. It's Monday morning as I write this... and there's 64000 cars up for auction right now. Check out my previous posts How Auctions work, and Right hand drive auctions - a walkthrough for more details, but in short... the auctions last less than a minute each. It's nuts. In that minute, any car could sell, whether it's a $100000 Ferrari or a $100 minitruck... heck, I've seen rascal scooters on there (seriously... look under "Other", subgroup... "other").
Step 2... Know what you want
I'm guilty of not doing this. I was looking for a "AWD Turbo"... so.... Lancer EVOs, Imprezas, Hilux Surfs, Pajeroes, Legacies.... the list goes on. Not such a great idea.
So, know what vehicle you want, what body style, what colour (if you care), what 'grade' you want (we'll talk about that later), how many kms... and how much you want to pay. The last one is the hardest... again, later.
The way the cars are layed out in an auction.
This is probably one of the hardest steps. The auctions are layed out in terms of Auto Maker->Car name->Chassis code... which is pretty confusing. Probably spend some time perusing the site before you start bidding... Really understand what you're looking at.
Next week... finding an auction agent and more!
Rob
Leave a comment