RonaldoH

Hi all.

I am sure most of you saw that program, and the lad in the Skyline in Hants who had his car taken off of him at the roadside because it was stolen in Japan highlights that there is something serious being looked into.

But-Don't panic.

You can take your car to the Police station and speak to a traffic officer to get it checked out-to clear your mind.

There was some positive feedback from people getting money back from dealerships where the car was stolen in Japan, just make a note of who you bought your car from and keep it at hand.

The DCI who was on the program is a friend of my Dad who I met a year ago now-and he is either dealing with the Met area or overseeing part of the operation. As soon as I can contact him-I will get an offical statement, and advice on what to do for everyone with Imports. It might help a little bit, for those who are worried.

I will put up information as soon as I receive it.

Regards
and sleep well, the likelyhood that you have a "dodgy one" is still very slim.

Ronnie

sgould

The bloke with the NSX still came off well.
He gets an import for cheap and only has to pay £4000 to offically make it his after he finds it stolen

DavidBrown

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by RonaldoH:
<B>You can take your car to the Police station and speak to a traffic officer to get it checked out-to clear your mind.

[/quote]

hehe, yeah, and lose the car you just spent £30K+ on.

There are some things I'd rather find out later rather than sooner.

chiark

Definitely don't panic, especially as grey Imprezas are too "low end" compared to what these guys are normally dealing in.

It seems to me that BBC is guilty of a gross act of crass sensationalist journalism and panic-mongering.

At the start of the programme, it is stated that 100,000 cars have been stolen in Japan in the last 3 years.

At the end, we have Andrew, the "victim turned crusader" telling us that there could be 100,000 cars in the UK that are stolen from Japan.

That's every one in the last 3 years turning up as a ringer over here then?

His opinion is skewed - he's working for the Japanese insurance firms, so it's now his job to talk up the figures as he'll be taking a commission.

Or perhaps he's doing it because he's such a nice guy?

The BBC has found a bit of a story (there's no doubt about that) and made it into headlines by pumping it for days. No matter how much you hype something, if the facts don't add up fully then that's just damn annoying.

What really gets my goat is that <B>my license money</B> has paid for that greasy, slimy, "I told you so" smarmy turkey to live it up in Dubai and Japan, thinking he's a big shot by talking to someone who claims to be an "ex" big shot. "Yeah, I was with the Yakuza but I don't like to talk about it. Oh go on then, I'll talk..." It just wouldn't happen.

Quite a lot of it was pants, but there definitely appears to be a problem. I would have to side with the BIMTA as to how big the problem actually is...

Still, what's the value in this form of journalism?

MattN

I agree the numbers didn't add up.

Normally with this sort of thing they put up a graph to make it easier to digest not so in this case. Maybe because they couldn't actually find any figures to substantiate their figures. Most were based on personal opinon.

They couldn't even agree on the numbers of cars being imported/registered in the UK!!

It's mainly new expensive cars. i've said it before it's not worth nicking a 10k car and shipping half way across the globe.

Also, i like the fact they asked a Tokyo auction buyer bloke for his opinon. He looked really trustworthy eying up all the accident damaged cars. C'mon, what are they trying to prove????? You'd of thought you'd want to show your company in a good light looking at nice shinny cars!!

Easy advice, buy direct from Japan, get the shipping docs etc. de-registration and you'll have no problems.


Back to old, buy UK cars cos we don't have car crime in this country.


[This message has been edited by MattN (edited 25 July 2001).]

Octane Man

I was also in the Yakuza but left after a run in with Jackie Chan and the Japanese Origami Fundation.

BOB.T

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by RonaldoH:
<B>Hi all.
The DCI who was on the program is a friend of my Dad who I met a year ago now
Ronnie[/quote]


Is it your Dad or the DCI you met a year ago??

Bob

RonaldoH

lol

Sorry, I met the DCI a year ago.

boomer

RonaldoH,

thanks for the comforting words - the program was OTT in sensationalism!

Lets hope that all import owners don't end up writing their cars off in the next few days - just in case!

mb

TopCat

Yeah hope not, but is they do hey there are going to be a lot of parts for sale, I would break and sell if I knew I was going to loose my car and not get a bean back for it...I think there are going to be a lot of parts for sale in the private section

TC

InsBro

My mum brought an MGF as a Jap import £2500 cheaper + air con the car was supposed to be 18 months old. When the log book arrived it stated it was 3 years old (so it needed an MOT immediately). The most worrying thing was the chassis number was right but all the docs said the car was RED and the car we had was British racing green!!!

The more we looked at the docs the stranger things became.

The car had come from Japan to Ireland then to Northern Ireland then to the UK. It took 6 months to get the docs.

When we mentioned trading standards to the dealer (a huge dealer by the way on west coast) we got a full refund and the car was collected!!!

We still have copies of all the docs

InsBro

dba

copper: hello madam,can we look at the 4 land cruisers on your drive

missus: of course

5 mins later

copper: sorry madam,they are nicked,its not your fault though so dont worry.

missus: thanks officer,terah

uh? wtf?? was that for real?? Like its an everyday thing to have 4 landruisers and then have them towed away.£160,000,sure take em!!

Bit of literary license there I think.

navigator

yes i thought the land cruiser one was odd too.!!!!
also did i hear the bloke from the motor manufacturers or whatever say more like 10000 cars per year.
Then Karim(?) walks off scot free at the end....
excuse me.he needs a good kicking and someone will i'm sure.
A good BBc story, sickening if you have been stung,but i didn't get the feeling that plod were being very helpful comments like this "it has been going on for over three years..." yes well ..why didn't you tell anyone then thousands of people would not have been stung.
Also why only hampshire police i didn't hear any others mentioned or am i going deaf?
good news of sorts is that i didn't hear subaru mentioned.got close though with the Evo's

Charlie H

I liked the editing they did. Bloke in skyline gets pulled, copper asks to see under bonnet, then underbonnet shot shows a very familiar engine bay complete with top mounted intercooler and red manifold! It's a scoob engine! Then cuts back to the poor bloke with the skyline. What???? Nice to see they know what they were piecing together.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Navigator

Quentin met Karim (Neel?) in the Moore Place hotel in Apsley Guise just off the J13 M1. There can't be many places that look like or are as big as his house in the area, they did say he lived in bedfordshire and he probably met him close by........

I bet that autotrader will be stacked with 4x4's and any other grey import you can think of in the next edition. Watch the prices skydive for imports and the subaru dealers will be laughing (and smugly saying I told you so).

Could be a good time to buy a straight one soon though!

F

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

I saw at least 2 scoobs on the prog, a red one in Ireland and a silver one in the police lock up besides an EVO.

F

airhead

there was a blue one too, with the bonnet up, you could make out the offside bonnet vent.

Or was that the editing with the Skyline that got pulled at the beginning ?

Gary Foster

Ptholt

Last time I looked at the figures, the Scoob was in the 'green' band ie, the smallest number of cars nicked per thousand that there was. It was things like 10 year old Escorts etc with no security that were in the 'Red' - I don't know if anyone still has access to the ABI figures ?

I also think that the importing of cheaper Grey / Parallel cars has had a contributing factor to used car prices ... it's a simple argument and one all import owners have been touting (rightly) - you can buy the cars up to 6K cheaper.

Someone explain how that simple fact has not affected the second hand price of UK cars ?

Gary

Markus

Greys may have harmed the UK market, but not by much, mainly due to IM not allowing dealers to touch greys, thus independants get the sales/service side of things. I think that the euro imports would have been a bigger devauler (if that's a word ) than jap imports. Bot having a go at euro import owners.

Richard Askew

oooooh **** - worms , can and open spring to mind.....I make one tongue in cheek comment and all hell breaks loose
To set the record straight I AM NOT gloating at the Import guys all I am saying is instead of saving a fistful of wedge and having a quicker car I chose *sensible* and bought a UK one - now I am happy that I made that choice
I feel for anyone that loses a car - in whatever way...been there done that - and so there is no way I would rub their noses in it....

ptholt

**deleted** double post.

[This message has been edited by ptholt (edited 26 July 2001).]

ptholt

youve just highlighted the point i was making gary.

The imports are cheaper at the front and therefore cheaper at the end as well.

If you take an import (eu or otherwise) Alfa into one of my friends Alfa franchises they will put the imports 2-3k behind the uk price as this was the saving at the front end that is then lost when you try to sell the car on.

so the uk car is worth whatever cap/glasses guide says and the imports several k behind.
It doesnt matter what the import price is, it doesnt say in either of the two books to price the uk in line with the import. It says the opposite in fact.

Unfortunately Rich, what may have seemed tongue in cheek to you is not really a laughing matter to others who may face the possible loss of there cars/money etc.
The addidtion of others joining the argument with a holier than thou attitude against imports just kinda taints the whole community for me.
I suspect there are many UK owners who feel like those that have posted negatively, but at least they may the dignity not to post negatively and rub our noses in it.

[This message has been edited by ptholt (edited 26 July 2001).]

robski

Greys impacted UK prices.

Simple supply and demand. Prices were high as demand was high, and supply was low.

But, they would have started to go down anyway, as each year more cars were imported by IM. The greys just accelerated the position.

robski

Sideways

Being a genuine car enthuiast I sincerly hope that everybody on here is OK. I dont want to hear of anyone parting with their pride and joy. . I know how much that would pi55 me off. Lets all hope that this was exaggerated and the "ringers" are few and far between.
Its also a farce paying for the vehicle to be checked and then having it taken off you they want it all ways. Just for the record I drive a UK Turbo but who cares we are all Impreza owners and we should stick togeather.


Cheers and good luck to you all
Jason.

Sideways

Being a genuine car enthuiast I sincerly hope that everybody on here is OK. I dont want to hear of anyone parting with their pride and joy. . I know how much that would pi55 me off. Lets all hope that this was exaggerated and the "ringers" are few and far between.
Its also a farce paying for the vehicle to be checked and then having it taken off you they want it all ways. Just for the record I drive a UK Turbo but who cares we are all Impreza owners and we should stick togeather.


Cheers and good luck to you all
Jason.

ptholt

Cheers for your really useful comments rich, bout as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

and hey we all know that cars bought and registered in the uk don't get nicked/ringed/clocked/bodged so i'll go out tomorrow, flog my sti and get a nice uk one and become nice and smug and i too can take the mick out of those that are worried about this.

Sorry, but after witnessing that pants program i really wasnt in a mood to read something that felt akin to laughing at the import owners.

sasman

I WAS.

sasman

UK owners are always getting slagged off for being ripped off, but that's why people buy UK, If you get screwed the dealers just down the road waiting to see you right, or loose lots of sales and his reputation.

ptholt

Well can i just say sasman that i sincerely hope that oneday you get tucked up with something like this, then the rest of us can sit back and have an attitude like you.

sasman

Your up late, havin trouble sleeping? You can sincerely say what you like because it's a free world, well country anyway. The planet's full of people trying to "tuck you up" that's my point limit there opportunities because the law won't resolve the problem once it's there PS nothing wrong with that fire guard if you like chocolate. See I always look on the bright side