rjben

Hello,

I’m thinking about buying a grey scoob and have a few questions…..

When I see a MY94 import with 60000KM it just sounds dodgy! It seems that all the imports have really low mileage. Is this just the norm in the Jap market?

I guess that If the car was imported a couple of years after it was built then you would expect to see normal British mileage in line with other British scoobs wouldn’t you?

Finally, do you lot know if there is anyway you can tell if a car was stolen in Japan?

I hope some of you can help with these as I don’t want to get stung when I buy!

Cheers,

Rob

Alpine

As well as my scoob, I also have a Jap import CRX.. When I was looking ALL Jap imports had ultra low mileage.. Mine is 10 years old with 40k miles on... The info I received was that the Japanese change their cars very regularly and their average annual mileages are much less... May be they have a decent public transport system??

SCOTTSCOOBY

i got a import and yes they do do less mileage and change over very quick,

thats about average for here mine has done 72,000 km and ive had it over a year. i brought it at 49,000km 94m reg.

Piers Evershed

I went through this when getting my import WRX (1994) last November.

Cars do tend to have lower annual mileages in Japan. If the car has any service history from Japan, then this may help to confirm it, though it's difficult to put the mileages into context if you don't read Japanese (they don't use the same year numbering system). Plus service history from Jap is quite rare. Look for signs of wear and tear to see if it looks roughly genuine. If the seller can't prove the mileage then at least that's a bargaining point.

However, once it's over here you would expect typical UK annual mileage, depending on the owner!

The situation regarding proving it's not stolen is an interesting one. The only conclusion I can come to is that there is a conspiracy by the government/police to discourage grey imports.

FACT: the police have access to an international list of stolen VIN numbers.

FACT: through the appropriate channels, a police officer can request that a given VIN is checked against the list - this is done at DVLA in Swansea.

FACT: I was told by DVLA and the police that they deny this service to the public.

The official way to do it (publicised with the Watchdog report last year) is to take your proposed purchase to a UK Subaru dealership, where they charge you about £25 to confirm that the VIN hasn't been tampered and the car's colour is the same as it is recorded to be on the original registration. Only then will they pass the VIN to the police and ask them to run the check.

From the scoob dealers I spoke to in Surrey, most of them had not heard of this 'official scheme' (scam). Those that had said it would take up to 6 months. Completely inappropriate when buying a car.

Through a great deal of perseverance on the phone, I managed to work my way through the London police organisations to someone who put in the request for me (It turned out they had assumed I was a police officer). After refusing to chase this up (the fax had not gone through), I had to chase at DVLA end, and the whole thing blew up, at one point I was accused of impersonating a police officer!!! The outcome was that the check was done and came through negative, but the police would not confirm this in writing, all I got was a verbal confirmation from an officer (and his name).

It's wonderful what service we get considering all the fuel tax we pay.....

I'll try and dig out some more details.

Best of luck...........

rjben

Cheers Gents,

That puts my mind at rest, although it would be nice to discover a private service that will verify your car - like a JAP HPI etc.

Can any of you rec. a good jap import dealer? Have you heard of the following:

http://www.veilside.co.uk/
http://www.japncars.co.uk/

Cheers,

Rob

melon

Octane man,
Sorry, but I don't see why this should affect the mileage of a jap car, age yes, but why lower miles??
Anyway,
Must admit I always used to wonder about this as all the imports seem to have low miles.
A fair few "low" mileage ones I looked at were always very much more worn in appearance i.e steering wheel and seats etc so make sure you do a bit of looking around and don't just take the sellers word.
I also got told that sellers with 'proper' imported cars shouldn't really have trouble with producing servicing documentation, but then again they were always the more expensive places Remember 60k km's is only 37.5k miles but servicing should be done every 7.5k miles or 6 months!!!
hope the search goes well...melon

SCOTTSCOOBY

nice bit of info octane man, ill check me seat belts.

scottscooby

importsti

My advice is go on condition inside and out to verify mileage.
Also if possible try and buy STi. Numerous benefits including easier to resell.

I have owned my Sti V5 for 14months and can think of no better car I could have bought for 16K. Well worth it. But be perpared for insurance hassle.

Hope this helps.

FiveO

Any shipping company worth its name will also ask for a Japanese 'deregistration document' before taking any vehicle. As I understand it this will show that at the date of shipping the vechile was not reported as stolen.

Piers Evershed

Yes I've got one of those (Jap dereg doc), but to be honest, it looks like you could knock it up in Word in a few minutes - I wasn't prepared to rely on that.

Octane Man

Rob,

That sounds fine on the mileage, I got my 95 WRX with 60,000km on the clock. had it converted to MPH...

The reason for low mileage on the Japanese imports is their version of our MOT.

The mandatory maintenance check(Shaken) on vehicles that are 3 years old, this is repeated every other year. The costs vary according to the size of the car, it costs around £650 -£850 or so for a smaller car, and more for a larger. Also, when the car is very old, it has an official value of zero and the owner may actually have to pay someone to take it off their hands!

One way to check on the year of the vehicle is to print off the list of japanese Production Runs found here http://www.sidc.co.uk/faq.htm#1.2

Also another good way of checking the age is the seatbelts, at the bottom of the seatbelt normally is a light coloured fabric label. This has the year printed on it of the year the seatbelt was manufactured/installed.

O.M.

[Edited by Octane Man - 4/10/2002 12:49:37 PM]

Ian Cook

Have you actually seen the traffic in Japan ? that explains why they dont do very high mileage !

[Edited by Ian Cook - 4/10/2002 1:14:50 PM]