BigWillieStyles

Hey guys, im in the market for an FD, and i found a FD is 34,000km, looks really tidy and is dirt cheap. The thing they worries me is that the car has had a respray from red to silver. It has imitation rims on it, so in my opinion the owner probably wasnt wealthy enough to buy a set of legit rims, so why would he fork the cash out on a respray?

My concern is that it has been in an accident. Even if it is legit i will stay away from cars like this as i would like to export back to Australia and it would be extra hard to sell something like this as it looks really dodgey with th respray.

What do you think of it?







Are there many dodgey car dealers in Japan? Does Japan have stolen cars for sale?

Circuit Theory

iTrader: (52)

stolen cars do get sold quite often here but the issue with the paint I dont think is to big of an issue. I would say close to 50% of cars that get painted here get resprayed and they leave the engine bay alone. Lots of people seem to like the contrast in color. If the car is for salein Japan for everyday use, and not for export only I would not be worried a bit about it being stolen. The rims issue could be that the car came in with really ugly rims or just really rough damaged rims and so they threw on some imitations just to make it look better and sell quicker.

eric e

i certainly wouldn't worry about the rims

from the japanese point of view you would be crazy to spend money on a respray and NOT change your rims

you can usually pick up a set of stock FD rims with tyres for under a man on yahoo

and if you couldn't i'd swap you a set for the wheels on that car

as to why he would spray that mazda red was very pink to start with and faded even pinker from there....

the 1st FD i bought had been mazda vintage red before it had been resprayed a slightly deeper nissan red

i think a re-spray counts against a car but if it had been done well, the price was right and all else was good with the car i'd still buy it

eric e

BigWillieStyles

I just dont like the idea of why he reprayed a different colour, i would imagine postential buyers back in oz would be quite worried about the colour change at such low Km, the combination just makes it look dodgey, not to mention the loads of people who think JDM cars are always tampered with.

I was very close to buying it.

Although how much should i expect to pay on purchase price, they reckoned i needed to pay an extra 300,000, now that sounds a little steep. The car already just had its shakken renewed too and i did not have to pay for shakken, is that normal to add an extra 300,000.

How much should i factor in ontop of th price?

I live in Okayama, and the car is in Osaka, the guy there quoted me 100,000 to send back to Okayama, whereas other car dealerships have quoted a little over 10, 000, so i started to get a little worried they were trying to take advantage of me.

eric e

random thoughts, ran out of time

typical situation, least work for you means most work for them = most expensive

welcome to the world of 2nd hand cars in japan

sticker price is just for the physical car, not the car's paperwork/legal entity
1st question should always be "what is the final price to drive away?"

but you are never going to get anything for free, esp. from a dealer

if it cost him 200,000en for 24months shaken taxes/insurance and another 100,000en for parts and labor guess what amount he is going to tack on for 20months remaining shaken?

add to that out of ken rego charges like a professional parking permit man to come visit your house etc and things add up quickly. some dealers also tack on a 3 month warranty and then there is the newish recycle tax

but if it's a genuine 34,000km and it's dirt cheap.........

stick you fingers through the wheel spokes and feel for a wear lip on the outer edge of the brake discs. with only 34,000kms there should be almost no lip at all on all 4 discs. if 1 disc has considerably more lip than the other 3 there's a good chance that that whole wing/wheel/suspension has been replaced due to an accident

but even then even if you jack it up and it all looks good and drives well, who cares? when i've been told by a dealer that a 7 has been accident repaired and looked very closely i haven't seen anything out of the ordinary

they are pretty good at repairing their own cars here, as they should be with access to all parts, trained techs etc.

you can get much better value a car from yahoo auctions IF you are prepared to check out several cars, taken on much more risk, do the paperwork yourself etc.

basically impossible for a newbie so you just have bite the bullet for your 1st car

eric e

BigWillieStyles

thanks for the good advice.

It really is dirt cheap, under Y500,000 cost. It is a bargain if all is genuine but having that change of colour would make it a difficult car to sell in Oz.

Ive had a look on Yahoo auctions but like you said it is a bit troublesome, plus i cant seem to find decent priced and quality FDs in my own prefecture so im trying to look in the bigger cities.

I think im just going to go with the Kobe Auction option, ive found a car agent who i pay a fee and he does all the searching around and paper work for a set fee.

DaiOni

The mixed colors will make it harder to sell in oz.

Perhaps a moot point with cars at this end of the price spectrum, but auction cars tend to be at auction for one key reason - they haven't sold in the domestic market. Just like in oz, if you can't sell your car anywhere else (perhaps because it's a POS) - you bite the bullet and send it to auction. There's been quite a few people on ausrotary recebtly who have bought auction s8s - only to find the engine has low compression, or self-implodes soon after purchase (little surprise that rotary engines are usually on exclusion lists in warranties).

I personally believe that there's no such thing as a cheap FD. You need to budget around 1mill for a cheap but good one. Anything less is quite likely to cost you that amount, or more, anyway, over a year or so of ownership. If I only had ~500k to play with, I'd look for something with a nissan or subaru badge. Of course, these cars don't = profit in the personal import game. Another option is looking for something good that has been drastically discounted due to kms. I was flicking through car sensor recently and there was an evo IV with ~150k km, and it was well under 1mill. It's a classic, rare car (not many IVs were made) - will still reach a good price in OZ - and it will be easy and relatively cheap to maintain.

Eric has, unsurprisingly, gone after one of the other bargain buys - GTO - another that, while risky (lots that can go wrong on those things), has good resale in oz - due to exclusivity and the high price of locally-delivered examples. The GTO probably represents a slightly more reliable venture.

DaiOni

BTW - the best bit of advice is: stay away from version I FDs - late 91 to mid 93. Exponential headaches with the early ones.

BigWillieStyles

Well ive got a bit higher budget than 500 now, my budget keeps going up, i am looking around for Evo 3s and STIs. Its just that im RX7 crazy now! If i go to an Auction and see a nice Evo/suby i would probably buy it. ]

But for me the Auction thing is the easiest way to get a car for me. Its not that the Auctions are cheaper, but i would have someone who can help me search who knows the ropes in Japan.

Ive had a look on Yahoo auctions and there are some great cars on there, but all the ******* around for rego and transport to and from the place where the car is would be a really annoying.

user 9348703

Yeah auctions are great just think almost 100% of the time you cant even drive it before you buy it. (great idea)

Damn man, buying a car in Japan is simple, car shops every corner. Search engines, ask the shops..

BigWillieStyles

Well there are lots of car shops but there is a great lack of anything that i would want to buy, the only sports cars of the 90s are shitty silvias and guttered MX5s.

Yes there are a few specilist vehicle shops but i would have to plan a weekend to get to them, and find that they dont really have anything i want.

Goo sale yards which represents a good 70 percent of the caryards only have 200 RX7s selling at the moment and the chances of one of those being in the vincinity is pretty low.

At an Auction, as legally required, everything is listed about the cars performance, you can even have a chance to speak to the previous owner in many situations.

At the Nagoya auction alone, 60,000 cars are selling daily, do you think that individuals buy these? Noway, most cars that people are selling at car yards are usually bought at Auction, and the price is marked up many times.

eric e

intestesting auction vs. dealer comparo

here's the email i sent a mate

"at the dealer for 1,150,000en

http://www.kurumaerabi.com/kuruma/syousai/5320_31.html

but available at yahoo auction for buy now of 840,000en

http://page11.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/n55929078

went for 702,000en, quite a saving"

eric e

BigWillieStyles

But doesnt this then pose the question, how much do you reckon they bought it for? To make a profit and worth their time they would have to be at least selling it for double the price they bought it. So this may of been a 350,000Y car bought from an auction in the first place!

eric e

this is for you willie but i'll put it here in case find it useful

i think this is the car transporter company i last used

and i think this is there quote page, again i think if you put in the phone numbers you'll get a quote

https://www.zero-nichiriku.co.jp/trans_status/

BigWillieStyles

Wow, 25,000 from Osaka to Okayama, bargain!

Now in advertisments, how do i identify the shaken requirements?

What does this mean? 2年付き - two year attachment? Does this mean i have to pay or it comes with 2 years of shaken.

DaiOni

comes with two year's shaken

eric e

i find that generally if they say comes with 2 years shaken that it does not actually have shaken.....but they are willing it get it for you, for a price...

just the weight tax and insurance alone are over 10man, then you have the 2hours? of paperwork and actually test that someone will have to do for you on your behalf, plus extra charges if the rego is going to be done in a different ken

and if you haven't already applied for and gotten a parking cert for an rx7 from your local police station, (parking space must be within 2km of the address on your city hall registration) you will need 1 of those. doing it yourself will require 3 bits of paperwork, including hanko of registered land owner and takes about 2 weeks to process.........or you can tack on another 2-3man for a parking professional to somehow get it all done for you in 3 days, (ther's got to be something corrupt in THAT process....)

honesty the only way you go into this mess is fully cashed up or with no knowledge of the problems ahead and just blindly plug away at every obstacle until suddenly they are all gone and the car is all legit and ready to drive

at which point to swear to never never do it all again....

eric e

if the car actually does have shaken the date it expires is usually given
eg H21, 23, 10

BigWillieStyles

dam this process is nuts, i cant believe Japan has the second largest domestic market of cars. Japanese love to make everything a mass of paperwork and effort.

Thanks for this guys, im heading down to the police station tonight. If i apply for the park in the next few days, is the month in which i have to buy a car from the time the proof arrives or from when i go to the police station.

eric e

while you are there ask them

what ever the time limit is it is from the day you pick up the permission

ie you get the paperwork tonight
you submit paperwork with handrawn map of your apartment, dimensions of the car and landowners permission etc . on the 12th of this month
you get a call on the 22nd of this month to come pick up the proof of parking
they tell you when you pick it up that you have to use it to register a car before the 22nd of NEXT month, (that's if it's a month)

whatever, remember that 95% of japanese people never do this stuff, they leave it to the car dealer as it's such a giant headf%&k
so if you are asking friends to do it for you they will need to be taken to dinner etc afterwards as pay back

eric e

"Eric has, unsurprisingly, gone after one of the other bargain buys"

that's me oni, last of the big time savers, self employed and with 2 kids i can't afford to blow a million yen on car i use for 2o0minutes a month

BigWillieStyles

Yeah my girlfriend is already going mad with me asking her to ring up all these car dealers lately...hehe!

So how much do you spend on a FD, seeing that you have bought 3 or so?

Where do i get the dimensions of the car? How do the police know im telling the truth if i supply them

eric e

my experience has been that

if you have a large garage and carport, tools, time and some spanner and electrical skills, you don't have to buy top dollar, fully prepped cars

if you buy the car for yourself and not some mythical average FD buyer down the line it is much simpler

if you have other cars/bikes you don't need to risk your fragile "hobby" car by actually using it. if it makes an odd sound or drives strangely on it's rare outings you can put it on jack stands etc and get to the bottom of it before something more serious happens

but if you don't have the above luxuries....

maybe you should limit yourself to more practical sports cars or younger, immaculately presented cars with guaranteed histories and a 3 month warranty from a dealer etc....................... but be prepared to pay double for them

i've known 5 FD's pretty closely in japan

2 version 1's
a version 2
a version 3
and a version 4

2 of them caused grief when drivers other than the owners flooded them badly
1 of them almost cooked it's engine when the AST split at idle in a carpark
but the only lemon was a "cheap" version 4

condition is everything with these cars

look at the below page, about the same number of version 1 cars were made as versions 2,3 and 4 added together

http://www.rx7.net.nz/rx7netindex.html

dollar for dollar it's always going to be easier/faster to find a good version 1 than any other version

the cars i look for on yahoo auctions are the ones that are sold by private sellers who have been offered only 20-35man by dealers and figure they can get more selling it themselves
the same cars that are usually traded and sold at the big auctions for 40man and then resold by dealers for 70man

to find those cars isn't that hard but it takes daily searches on the internet, wasted trips to actually see the cars before the auction finishes, (or auction cancellation fees) and as already mentioned a lot of paperwork to get legal in your name

your mileage may vary

eric e

car dimensions are on the shaken form

one of those catch22 situations the japanese seem to love, to register a car in your name you need a parking space for it. to get a parking permit you have to give info that assumes you already have, or are in the process of getting a particular car

bit of a joke where we are out in the country. i could park 20 cars on what i use for the garden. but i still have to pay for a guy to turn up with a tape measure, even when he doesn't bother to get out of the car and just extends his lunchtime on my time