Looking to import a car from Japan, any recommendations on who is good to use?
Thanks
Anyone Import a Car Recently? Who Did You Use?
Gravediggaz on 26/08/2025 - 16:56
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I rang the dealership, and said I was sendinbg a tow truck around, and pay for it with Apple Gift Cards. Still Waiting…..
Looking to import a car from Japan, any recommendations on who is good to use?
DAZMAC
AutoHub Australia
Which model? If it's something like a Honda Fit Hybrid or Toyota Corolla Fielder don't waste your money. What you save over purchasing a local model you'll lose on insurance and servicing hassles, plus it will be hard to resell and you'll lose out again.
True
Limited insurers and they usually want to have an arm and a leg. I worry a lot of JDM import drivers might be uninsured.
I've used Iron Chef Imports a couple of times in the past, great experience.
The Lexus IS500 looks amazing.
The near new ones (all private import) aren't worth it for a car without factory warranty (>$100k).
I wonder what you could import one for all up. Retail is around AUD$90k in Japan.
I think kei cars are cool ( e.g., Honda nbox); however, I’d feel a bit vulnerable with all the large utes going around…
Why?
Plenty of decent cars local with untampered odometers.
Think he’s after an S204?
thinking something that is rust held together by paint with more hits than Elvis, S13, EK Civic.
CRX made of separate welded chassis and bro tune?
Prestige Imports, JSpec.
Spoke to them but ended up buying locally. If buying local check the VIN via Car VX to see if it was ever involved in any accidents, ODO is correct and how many times it was auctioned (many owners might indicate problems and they wanted to get rid of it).
Why can't you do the same with an overseas car? They provide the VIN.
They give you a list of cars, you ask them to inspect them. Then you need to pay US$20 for a car vx report. The report takes 24 hours.
I literally saw 2 of the cars I wanted and checked the VIN and one was auctioned twice then ended up being auctioned as a repair then resurfaced. The other was only auctioned once (10 year old car).
Not saying who but you can see import prices on Jspec but when you ring around they all wanted to increase your budget and look at only 4.5 auction grade cars. I ended up buying locally an auction grade 4 and interior grade B.
I've used Iron Chef before and would not recommend, they didn't check the car properly and it had rust in the roof rails, boot channel and overspray in the wheel arch which means it was repaired. Also don't believe the grading on the auction guide either, also i later found out that the same car was passed through auction previously with lower interior grading.
I haven't…
But there was some discussion about it recently here…