Importing a car from japan? any tips?

yeah in theory you could but its only gotta take a copper with a chip on his shoulder who finds this unacceptale to make your life difficult, legal or not if a copper wants to give you a hard time then he will, I'd personally not want to chance it driving that far, you can have cars shipped to liverpool I think which if thats your nearest port then its more justifiable to the police.
 
Yes very true.

This idea is on the backburner for now, the cost of the Prelude at JUC for Y110,000 rises to Y315,000 when it reaches the UK, which equates to just under £2600. How much you think in total with VAT, import fees etc? I'm guessing not much change from £3200, then I have to MOT, register, tax, plus my travel from Inverness and accomodation fees. For all the hassle, I may just pay the likes of Torque GT to sort it out for 4 grand
 
why do you want to import a prelude anyway ? they're readily available over here,
 
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It's the 92-96 model I'm after, and so far in the UK they're all auto, 2.3 non vtec, 2.0, BB4 chassis (no 4 wheel steer), UK cars or rotten. Finding an imported BB1 (4 wheel steer) in manual and good condition is impossible, i've been looking solidly for months. On and off for years.
 
also your calculations are wrong too, I make a 110k car just under £2k landed here with all the taxes paid, so it'll be another £500 on top maximum to get it on the road.

if you request it gets put on the slow boat (8 weeks instead of 6) that will save some money too, my shipping was £600-ish instead of £1000.
 
jucprelude.png
 
Well the quote I got from JUC was Y310,000 shipped to the UK, with an extra Y6000 for insurance. I have emailed them again to confirm.

The above calculator, there is no agent fee? Maybe that's why I am being quoted £2500?
 
Im not sure as you're looking at dealer cars im not sure if the price listed for them is the FOB price, if not then sod that, nearly £4k for a prelude is a bit much when you consider how cheap they are over here and if all the UK ones are dogs then i'd look for a different car.

TBH the Dealer cars are silly expensive i'd just look on the auctions and preauctions you'll save a fortune and no doubt get one for 110k FOB which will then only be £2k landed with taxes paid.

there's a nice Accord Euro R on ebay at the mo for £4k

in fact there's 2

Honda Accord Euro R | eBay

Honda Accord EURO R( 220 BHP ) Type-R ,PEARL WHITE | eBay
 
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Cheers for the links but i'm not really interested in anything else, I owned a Prelude about 10 years ago and I've always regretted selling it, and been looking on and off ever since. No other car like them.

I don't understand why there's a difference in cost when importing a dealer car or an auction car both priced at Y110,000, but if that's how it works then maybe I should look keep looking at auctions, but so far over the past 3 months, i've yet to see a manual BB1 appear on an auction.
 
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That because the dealer price is the actual price of the car before juc's fee, de-reg fee etc, if you bid on auctions you tell juc your max price which will be an fob price which includes all the Japanese fee's.

So if you tell juc your max auction price is 110k they work out that price minus all the fee's so the actual amount they bid will be more like 60k not 110k.

But as I said the cars are cheaper at auction and no doubt if that dealer car went to auction it wouldn't sell for 110k it would be much less as the dealer cars are pricey.
 
No as the dealer cars have a dealer premium price added to them, it's just like dealers over here a UK dealer might put a vw passat for example on their forecourt for £1500 but no doubt you could buy a same spec same condition passat privately or on eBay for £1000, dealers charge more for cars in Japan just like they do over here.
 
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I tried to check out the auction pages on JUC but it's asking for a $1900 deposit first, which is daft for me as I don't plan on buying a car for that amount!
 
Pm Rees (juc) and ask for the members section link


I don't know if 110k fob will be enough for a nice prelude as im not up on my prelude prices in Japan, I just know for sure that the dealers are more expensive than the auctions.
 
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Robbs said:
That because the dealer price is the actual price of the car before juc's fee, de-reg fee etc, if you bid on auctions you tell juc your max price which will be an fob price which includes all the Japanese fee's.

So if you tell juc your max auction price is 110k they work out that price minus all the fee's so the actual amount they bid will be more like 60k not 110k.

But as I said the cars are cheaper at auction and no doubt if that dealer car went to auction it wouldn't sell for 110k it would be much less as the dealer cars are pricey.
Click to expand...

not necessarily, my car was in the dealer section and the price shown was fob, there were no extra fees to pay apart from the shipping and taxes this side
 
Dealer cars used to be listed FOB but things have recently changed and are now listed car price only.

The website is under going some changes recently and there will be more coming in days to come.
 
For the money you could buy something which doesnt have wrong wheel drive mate ;)

Also I drove from Glasgow to Aberdeen with no plates, was legit.
 
Bump on this. Does anyone know if I can Register a car without having to insure it? I'm importing a car from Japan, I want to register it first and then insure it/tax it etc. Is this possible?

Cheers
 
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