Dodgy dealers

So this week we will be telling you a few dodgy car stories. Im going to focus on my recent experience about wanting to import a car from Japan to Australia. SO i'm in the market for a decent EVO and under sevs law the VIIIMR qualifies for import without having to own it overseas for at least a year and blah blah ... all the other stupid import laws. Some of you are probably wondering why i would bother going to the trouble of importing, and my answer is you can get mint cars in Japan and at a fraction of the cost you will get one on the AUDM. As long as the particular model complies with vehicles eligible for import (theres a list called SEVS that has all the models). ALSO you can avoid dodgy Australian car dealers, which i will get to in a minute.

So I jump online and browse the Japanese car auctions, as well as contact a few importer brokers that can source the car over from Japan and organise compliance etc. NO surprise it is cheaper for me to source one from Japan with decent mileage...in fact it would even work out cheaper for me to FLY to Japan, bid on the car in person, put it on a ship and send it home, and fly home...IM not joking, the mark-ups the dealers make on these cars in Aus is cray cray.

So before i go ahead and commit to buying the car in Japan i decide to do a little domestic shopping here and this is where i get to the whole lot of dodgy....
I visited 6 used car dealers that had a selection of EVO's for sale and considering these cars are around 2004 models i was shocked to find some with 40,000kms and less! BOY, now was i confused! Was i waisting my time importing a car? when i could get one here with such low kms and drive it home straight away and just pay the extra $$.

BUT wait! It gets even more interesting. After tossing and turning i jump on forums and speak to a few importers and find that a few people have been ripped off by dealers that import cars and then wind back the mileage. So i go back and visit the 6 car dealers and ask them if i can see the 'Dereg' or Export certificate, which is in Japanese but shows the vehicles kms at the last 2 compulsory vehicle roadworthy checks in Japan. 5 out of the 6 dealers refused to show me these papers claiming that they had lost them and other excuses. BUT under SEVS import rules dealers that are compliance workshops are required to keep the original copy of this document on file. All these dealers except for 1 were compliance workshops and this now confirmed my suspicions that in fact these cars i was looking at had a lot more mileage than what was showing.

Im not saying that all dealers are involved in this, and i know of a few that are more than happy to show you all the papers you need... But there are used car dealers that are still importing cars, getting them professionally detailed and winding back the mileage. And these guys are sharks, that deserve to be punched. J-Spec is an import broker that has also done a little research on this practise and if you want to read a little more about their findings - follow this link.

Needless to say i plan on sourcing the Evo from Japan and have my eye glued on a few... will keep you posted on how my importing experience goes.

- Boost