having owned several versions of impreza and bought from dealers as well as private i'm tempted to import direct from japan and save some cash.anyone done this and what were there findings and how did they go about it?

 

yes, im 22 living in southern ireland and i import my own cars, ive imported 2 starlet turbo's, a celica SS3 and my own STi Type R, some cars u would save a few quid alright but on my scooby i seemed to have paid full wack for it, it was loaded tho and was absolutely mint, dunno if its worth it man, the company i use u have to 500 pounds to join before u can bid on a vehicle, u have to bid and if u get the car u have to pay 50% of the full price within 7 days, then the other 50% before the car arrives, usually 4-7wks later, when it arrives then u organise paying all the tax crap

 

hi ive import and source many different vehicles direct from japan, including imprezas and evos, i seemed to have saved about a few thousand on each of them. eg. sti 3 ra cost £5500 on the road, and the evo cost bout £3.5-4k, all registered, best place to buy from if you get a good dealer to buy from or a reliable agent. sometimes you do hear the horror stories of some cars coming over only to blow up after a few months, but as long as your careful in what you choose and who you deal with is reputable theres no problem. when you import you always pay for the car upfront and then the custom (10% duty and then 17.5% tax) on arrival of the vehicle, and shipping (on an impreza about £450-£500). pending on age of the vehicle you may have to SVA or ESVA which has additional costs. if your interested i can source any vehicle of your choice at cost price, all vehicles are JAAI inspected and come with a genuine auction grade.
bottom line is more than likely you'll save a couple £k....

 

After loosing 10k on each of my last 3 cars i DECIDED to import them myself,will be importing the new my06 sti spec c type ra hopefully soon or i mite wait for the s204.

 

both gona be awesome cars!!... but it might be a bit difficult to register them straight away, gonna have to wait for someone to make a model report first.....

 

I have a cuz who works for GM he can sort that out for me,he did it with the sti 9 and only two firms had the model report litchfield and dh cars.

 

Id advise against it; when you look carefully at the domestic auction values youll see that a decent Impreza sells, in many cases, for a similar amount to what it does here. This doesnt apply across the board of course, but for every opportunity that you have to save a decent amount of money you have ten opportunities to take a bath.


Simon

 

im in the process of doing this my self, but i picked my car wisely, as GC8 says there is plenty of cars available for similar money without any of the risks!!!!

 

man i just said i import cars and i said i pay 50% within 7 days off successful bid and the other 50% before the car arrives. then u come along and say "when u import you always pay for the car upfront", ud wanna get ur facts right lad

 

It depends how you buy; the term 'agent' covers all manner of things. I select the cars on which I bid myself from the auction listings (up to 30,000 on a number of days); my agent bids on my behalf and transports/de-registers and ships the cars that I buy. I pay for the car in full, along with my agents commission and associated costs, by TT within a couple of days. All that remains to pay when the car lands is the shipping fee and Duty & VAT.

Personally, I would be wary of 50/50 payments, principally because of the impression that I have of companies (always skanky internet firms like these cowboys: www.ridhaa.com) that Ive seen offering this. A proper agent will require payment before the vehicle is loaded, if they didnt theyd have 50% of the value of hundreds of vehicles outstanding (for 6 - 8 weeks) at any time.


Simon

 

i had to pay for my vehicle plus the shipping up front by TT as well

 

well i use ibc japan which are a very reputable company man, and whats wary about paying 50-50?? i dont see it at all, never had any troubles with the cars i got

 

Personally flat4ire; Id sooner deal with 'Ridhaa' than IBC; they had a site in the UK but they closed a couple of years ago. There was quite a scandal; the cars were nasty, low grade ****e clocked and spammed up. IBC Japan claimed that it was IBC in England that was responsible for the clocking, but they were shipping the crap over irrespective of who clocked it.....

The reason that Id be wary of a 50/50 deal is because of the perception I have of firms that do it; 50/50 its self isnt the issue.


Simon

 

oh theres plenty of **** over there but u can view them all ,talk to them live on the net and they will tell u everything thats wrong with the car from every little scratch to paint etc etc, i found them great each time man, never had any trouble and each car i brought in was exactly how it seemed, apart from one glanza which the clutch was slipping, i find it very hard to swallow that someone bought a grade 2 and thought it was a grade 4! u get what u pay for

 

listen fella, all the REPUTABLE companies i have dealt with have always asked for payment up front, it seems your buying your cars through an agent and getting them to source cars from an auction-risky business. i was talking about buying a car from a reliable dealership who don't buy from an auction but use the trade in system. and wat u on about get ur facts rite?!! my buisness is importing cars i think i should know what im talking about.........

 

i cudnt care less man, what ive said is my experience which is not pay up front!like i said 50% within 7 days and the other 50% whenever,but u can obviously pay 100% straight away if u wish.. is that ok with you u knobend???? and all the cars arrived exactly as was said, OK??? i have had NO problems with the company end of story really

 

listen you stupid narrow-minded ***** you need to seriously sort out your attitude! no one was saying that your buying **** cars, but maybe you can't understand that different people operate in different ways! i just said my way, and you had to start going into one.... if you aint had a problem then whoopee doo for you, no need to get so defensive.

 

are u stupid or what?? i know it works in diff ways, ur the one who said "when u buy an import u have to pay all upfront" and i pointed out that this is wrong cos i do it a diff way, thats all, and dont call me a ***** u stupid c u n t

 

I've never seen an import go through a domestic auction here - are there special sales arouns the country?

 

The auctions to which I have referred are domestic auctions in Japan. You can buy imports at docks auctions here. Theyre very cheap because they are ****e.


Simon

 

u know wat ain got time for little boys like you. just keep on acting the keyboard hero yeh?!?

 

Yeah stuff arguing will you!
Can anyone give some info on costs, companies to use and not to use, im looking to import a 1998/9 sti type r. any help would be appreciated.

 

well if u must now lad im 6ft3 and 17st so i aint a little boy being a keybord hero

 

try www.japanusedcar.net this will give you a basic guide to the prices, its an auction based company, but gives you the history of cars sold... a decent one grade 4 and less than 60k on the clock would be in the region of 800-1mil jap yen so bout 5k before tax and shipping and all the other stuff...

example: https://www.japanusedcar.net/auction...?id=5B12416002

 

A guide price for that model and year would be approximately ¥1,300,000 (1999 STI V Gd.4). Without wishing to undermine R4LLY's advice Id advise against using any internet companies, either 'retailers' or firms like this who run their own 'auctions' and then charge you to make the the highest bid; which usually isnt competitive and as such it has no chance of sucess.

The problem of course, is that a good agent is like gold dust and youll have more chance of having a go on an importers wife than you will getting his agent's phone number......


Simon

 

i thought you couldnt import that year car due to lack of model reports ???

 

You can import whatever you like; its registering it thats the problem.

 

pmsl so thats when the model report comes in, or can they just get an emission etc test and be road legal

 

No; the Model Report is used as a reference during the Enhanced-SVA test, without it the car cant be tested and without the approval slip the vehicle cant be registered. All bets are off when the vehicle is ten years old though, all it needs then is an MOT. The only 'loophole', for want of a better description, is if the car is a personal import (then youll only need to pass a simple SVA which doesnt require a MR), virtually every car is a commercial import as far as HM C&E are concerned though (its only a PI if you lived in Japan for one year+ and you brought your car -owned and used for six months+- when you returned home).


Simon

 

Ive just bought my first one direct from Japan from TAU, been buying them from dockside auctions (UK) but mostly 4wd and people carriers, so i understand all sva registration procedures

ive heard good things and bad things about TAU, it seems to be going well(touch wood) up to now and they have been more than helpful, just paid for the car and the japanese transportation yesterday, just the shipping and vat stuff to do later, ive started with a cheap one to start off with - A 95wrx =total price 322,000 yen (about £1600) delivered to liverpool

this car has slight damage but is totally standard, i have all bits to repair, so potentially im budgetting £2200 on the road registered if not it will get broke for parts

GC8- maybe you could help me on this one, ive used Ro-Ro as the shipping method to liverpool, would it have been cheaper to get two cars in a container? Also have you used or heard any bad things re.TAU

any advise would be much appreciated

Andy