MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I am passively looking at a new 8-seater, as my current Vito is a POS, and will likely need massive amounts of work for the next MOT. And now, rather than sticking with VW or Mercedes, I am quite interested in some of the Toyota offerings.
Indeed, some of them look lovely in the ads. But most of them seem to be imported.
First of all, where do these imported cars come from? There aren't that many LHD countries in the world, and I can't imagine it's all that economically advantageous to import from them.
Why would people import? Is this done on an industrial scale? I mean, it's not like we don't have a fairly wide selection of vehicles available to choose from within the UK already.
How are imported vehicles checked? Couldn't they have been used as fleet vehicles by some Japanese drug cartel, then dumped? Is there any way of actually knowing their histories?
Can imported vehicles be trusted? What are they like to insure?
Basically, I am kind of intrigued. Tell me what you know or even just suspect.
AAAAGH! I tried a clever let me google that for you snark, but it didn't work. But why not just google it - there's loads of sites out there which are probably much better than advice here.
Japan - they have an mot system that is so expensive it makes newish vehicles impractical to keep on the road and effectively worthless. So they get exported to other rhd countries. And their isn’t a lot of those countries as you spotted.
Pretty sure there was a recent thread about importing Japanese vans. Have a search.
Yep, mostly Japan. They don't keep cars very long. As for economics, don't forget most cars are imported at some point, and often from the far east. We don't build many.
We've got an imported Mitsubishi, it's a model not available here. No issues. Insurance is fine, pretty good spares available, either at the dealer, motor factors, or second hand.
TL;DR
Well now Father Dougal, they're born far, far away. When their Mummy thinks their old enough, she lets them take a long boat trip to come to see us here.
😉
Japan. Imports are graded when they leave (I think).
Usuaully imports are JDM things that you can't get over here or ones that you could get over here have rusted into the ground. They don't salt the roads in winter in Japan so the cars tend to have less corrosion (see mk1 UK MX5s vs mk1 Jap Eunos).
Apart from paperwork, the only odd things I've ever found is that the radios sometimes don't pickup UK stations. Spares are ok depending on what you get as theres generally loads of aftermarket parts and/or they'll share parts with UKDM models.
There are places that specialise in imports. Don't buy from Motorhub in Keighley.
Japan is a kind of perfect storm for imports to the UK. Their testing/licencing system makes keeping older cars on the road way harder than it is here, some of the cities have very strict rules on car ownership which means households are more likely to be single-car (also why they love their big mad van-cars so much), and they're rhd of course. But they also have a really detailed auction grading system which makes them a safer buy than, say, pulling something out of a scrapyard in Alabama. Basically, Japan be regulating. There's a lot of companies offering professional imports of both cars and parts- you can do it yourself but they take the stress and uncertainty away. Lastly, a lot (but not all) of the country is salt-free, so my 2004 car which was imported in 2016, is in pretty much teh condition you'd expect from a 2014 or so UK car.
Obviously there can be issues- if you import something that was never sold here, that's likely to make parts more challenging frinstance. Mine (a Subaru Legacy) is a nice balance of something where there was a UK equivalent but my model was never sold here. And also, it's a popular import. So many parts are interchangable with teh UK car, and the parts that aren't are generally not hard to find. It'd be very brave to buy a scarce car or one that lacked a good UK scene. (things like Stageas seem to start to cross that line)
Other advantages are that because it was never UK homologated, it's lower tax than it would be otherwise, as rather than being taxed on emissions it's taxed purely on capacity- regardless of output, turbo, etc. Woop! Though disadvantage is it's not got a towbar approval, for the same reason.
You'll need to get things like underseal, as japan doesn't salt their roads and the cars don't get underseal, so a Jap import will very quickly rust in the UK weather roads. Then there's model specific stuff like KPH speedos, cruise control being limited to something stupid like 85mph, etc.
Places like https://www.torque-gt.co.uk/ can take the stress out, not sure if I'd attempt to import one myself.
There was a time when you could import a new RHD car from the EU for less than you pay in the UK. They were registered as new too!
The main difference is each territory will have specs suitable for that country.
So, typically, far eastern cars have better electronics but their emissions criteria is different.
For registration, DVLA either use 'Type approval' eg a Toyota Corolla which conforms to a given standard can be registered in the UK, regardless of origin
OR
There is something called a Single Vehicle Approval (for kit cars) which they use to 'check' a car is suitable. It's like a 120 point check.
https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-registration
cruise control being limited to something stupid like 85mph, etc.
You're right. You'd have to be a moron to leave your cruise control on 85.
Certainly back in the day when I bought secondhand Japanese imports were the main one, I thought the under seal thing was no longer an issue. Definitely the cruise control being limited to 85mph is not an issue.
I imported a Honda Stepwagon last year. Wrote up my thinking and the process on http://stepwgn.uk/
No regrets, would import again and it’s a good route if you have some time - it was about 5 months start to finish. There are good importers over here, they generally charge strong money. Even if you’re importing yourself the better cars get plenty of bids in the auctions so rarely go super cheap. There are dodgier ones who import any old rubbish and flog it as high grade, sometimes with a big mileage reduction when they do the mph odometer conversion. Of course all the paperwork will be lost or elsewhere if you go to view.
Yes it is “industrial scale”, there are thousands of cars through the auctions every day, it’s all computerised and each is done in seconds. Then huge car carrying ships go around the world, mostly full of new cars but with plenty of older ones too.
There’s good communities for these JDM vans in the UK with people keeping common parts in stock. For mine, Honda dealers can order parts in (with a bit of a wait) or the internet has made sourcing things easy - I got a pair of good secondhand tail lights shipped from Japan in a week for about £240 after all the taxes etc, and got roof bar feet and brackets (I can get the bars here) from Amazon JP.
No issues insuring it, certainly no more hassle than I’ve heard with insuring a van for leisure use.
There was a time when you could import a new RHD car from the EU for less than you pay in the UK. They were registered as new too!
You still can. The list price of a new VW golf in Germany is less than in the UK.
They are not allowed to charge extra for RHD, its EU law not to charge extra for stuff like that.
However, you just try and get a German dealer to get you one.....
In Cyprus they drive on the left too, the list price of a new VW Golf is also less than here, you could go buy one easily.
However, it's a long drive back.
be cautious of clocking. Generally the cars come in with zero history, and a brand new dashboard (on miles, rather than KM), magically most of the vans seem to average under 5k per year, but have wear that looks more than double that..
Average in Japan is about 9000km a year (5500ish miles), it's pretty low - and of course with averages there will be some way under. But yes, easily clocked and as many UK importers convert speedo to miles they do the odometer too (else it would have some in km then ongoing in miles) and I'm sure some will put a smaller number in.
The export certificate (and auction sheet) have odo readings in km, a good importer will have copies and be happy to let you see them.