Japanese car imports

[Gary]

hi i am currently in the process of importing my own car it's a 1996 glanza v i live in northern ireland there is a couple maybe more questions i would like to inquire about

1 i have set my budget (600,000jpyen) which includes a fees an cif to ireland dublin wot i want to know is how much of that is going to be used for bidding?
2 what would my final costs be or how would they be i.e vat 17.5% -23%duty10% landing fee ?? custom agent fee ?
3 would this budget get the spec i want?
4 do i deal with an agent that bids on my behalf personaly an sources my car for me before auction an tells me of the condition ?
5 how do i get the ball rolling in the importing process ?

thanks gary

[Terence]

You are looking at the following costs.


Vehicle sale price - good examples are obtainable for around 300,000 YEN
FOB Charge (120,000 Yen)
Autoadvan advan service fee - 250 GBP for this month only
Shipping cost - around 350 - 400 GBP
10% Duty
VAT as mentioned
Shipping agent fee 170 GBP
SVA, MOT and then finally registration.

I would allow a budget of around 3200 - 3400 GBP for this vehicle.

I believe you are after the EP91 - little pocket rocket.
These vehicles can come highly modified if that is what you are after. Have a look in our auction section.

You will need to type in 'starlet' to get the correct auction list.

With our service you look at the auctions.

You tell us how much you want to bid and if you win it, we will handle the rest. You just need to pick it up and get it registered.

[gaz gt]

[quote="Terence"]You are looking at the following costs.


Vehicle sale price - good examples are obtainable for around 300,000 YEN
FOB Charge (120,000 Yen)
Autoadvan advan service fee - 250 GBP for this month only
Shipping cost - around 350 - 400 GBP
10% Duty
VAT as mentioned
Shipping agent fee 170 GBP
SVA, MOT and then finally registration.

I would allow a budget of around 3200 - 3400 GBP for this vehicle.

I believe you are after the EP91 - little pocket rocket.
These vehicles can come highly modified if that is what you are after. Have a look in our auction section.

You will need to type in 'starlet' to get the correct auction list.

With our service you look at the auctions.

You tell us how much you want to bid and if you win it, we will handle the rest. You just need to pick it up and get it registered.[/quote]

my final budget in which i want in gbp ?5000 which will include all fees
1 purchase of vehicle
2.FOB
3 service charge
4 shipping costs
5 duty
6 vat
7 shipping agent fee
8 sva fee ?255 in northern ireland not the preperation work as i will do this myself
is this a good overall budget to set as my final car price at my door without registration as i can handle that
the 600000jpyen was only the budget i set to take me as far as getting the car shipped i.e fob+service fee+an shipping fees
the other fees where not included in my budget
so overall what would my bidding amount be out of my ?5000 sva'd price?

[gaz gt]

would it be cheaper bringing my car in through ireland dublin an sva'ing it here or go throgh england an sva'ing it there wot r the costs of this also i was only saying that i would do the prep work cause i might get 1 with alot of modifications which i would have to source standard parts for the test or what would companys charge to do this just for the test ??
sorry about all the Q's:

gary

[Terence]

With a 5000 GBP budget you can have your pick of vehicles at auction.

You have set your budget too high.

There should be no 1996 Glanza vehicle you can not buy on your budget.

As you can see from the auctions on our website there are some modified examples. You may wish to go for these. But there MAY be extra costs involved if you need to take the SVA test.

On SVA test you MAY have to change the exhaust to one that conforms with EU rules if the exhaust is modified, this happens rarely. There is nothing stopping you from fixing the modified system back on afterwards if you wish. (seems a big waste if you don't!)

Tyres can be a problem in the SVA test around 1/20 of the cases, the tyres can be perfectly good with plenty of tread but If it does not have a certain mark on them, they are not within EU standards.

Depending on the modifications, no other parts are problematic apart from maybe the CAT.

There really isn't that much work that goes into the SVA and MOT. Speedo change (50 GBP), rear fog light (5GBP) and petrol filler adapter (25 GBP)

You may choose to import into Dublin direct, we have customers that do that. It is more expensive to import into Ireland direct however. I believe you have to pay VRT.

Importing direct to Dublin you will be charged Eu Duty [10%] for importing from outside of the EU and you will also be charge VAT [21%] before you are charged VRT.

There are no tests apart from NCT once the car is registered if its for private use.

[Terence]

I found this article on the internet. It is a user's experiance importing into Ireland. You should find this useful.

Source: Fto-Ireland
Written: by Kevin O'Donovan

This is a guide for importing a car from Japan to Ireland. The car I imported was a 95 Mitsubishi FTO GR with a manual gearbox, but the information here applies to any car being imported into Ireland.

First step is of course to find a car you want to import. It's a good idea to know what you would pay for the model car you want if you bought it locally, and weigh that up against the full costs that come with importing a car. Every car you import from outside the EU is subject to government taxes - customs, VAT and VRT (discussed later on) so the price you pay for the car abroad is only the start of the total cost. Not to mention port charges, payments to any agents you use and of course road tax & getting the car NCT'd.

Once you've bought the car it'll need to be shipped to Dublin. Unfortunately this seems to be the only port in Ireland that used Japanese cars are shipped to.

When the ship arrives in Ireland you'll need a number of documents to take delivery of the car and to register it. Firstly to accept delivery, i.e. for the car to be taken off the ship, you'll need the original bill of lading document. This should be sent by mail from Japan once the ship leaves. There is a pre-designated company that will unload the car that you will need to provide the bill of lading to. Note that they'll only take the car off the ship and park it on the dock though, and take no responsibility for the security of the car thereafter!

When the car has arrived and has been taken off the ship, it'll be kept on the dock for customs to inspect the car. For this they'll need an invoice, which includes the cost of the car and the shipment cost to get the car to Dublin. They will also need the certificate of deregistration. At this point they'll collect the customs and VAT charges, and you will be given an RF-100 form. This form is used for registering the car and paying for road tax.

The customs and VAT charges are calculated as follows:
- they start with the cost of the car + the cost of shipping the car, I'll call it X
- customs charge is 10% of the cost of X, so running total is X * 1.1
- VAT is charged on the running total at 21%,
=> overall total is X * 1.1 * 1.21

Once the car is on the dock, you have 7 running days before they start charging a fee for keeping the car on the dock. This should be ample time to have customs and VAT sorted out. They will usually inspect the car within 2-3 days of its arrival.

For the purposes of ensuring the security of the car (doors locked and car securely parked) once it has been unloaded from the ship, and for payment of the customs and VAT charges, there are a number of agents available to do this for you. Personally I think it is well worth it, as these guys are experienced at doing this, your car is safe, and you can just collect it once the customs and VAT has been organized. The charge for this was ?60 when did it in August '04 which I think was excellent value. The local agent for the shipping company will be able to recommend agents to use, but the one I used was Avant Shipping and can happily recommend them:


Avant Shipping
Unit Q2
North Ring Business Park
Santry, Dublin 9
Ph: 01-8425844
Fax: 01-8425883

The next step in the process is to register the car. This means bringing the car to a Vehicle Registration office (VRO) for it to be inspected, and the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) to be paid. VRT is a percentage of the Open Market Selling Price (OMSP), the percentage depending on the size of the car engine:

For up to 1400c its 22.5%, 1401-1900cc its 25% and >1900cc its 30%.

The OMSP is determined by the VRO. To find what the cost of VRT is, see the online VRT calculator on the Revenue Online Service here. There is also VRT FAQ on the Revenue website thats worth checking out.

I'm unsure of the legality of driving the car to the VRO, as at that stage it has no insurance\tax discs and no number plates. You may need to arrange for the car to be brought on the back of a car recovery truck. I think the shipping agents can organize registering the car & paying VRT for you for an additional charge.

For registering the car, you'll need to have the original certificate of deregistration, which will be in Japanese of course so you will also require an English translated version. This is usually sent from Japan with the certificate itself. They will also want to see the RF-100 form provided by customs. They will hold onto the certificate of registration, so if you want to keep a copy then photocopy it beforehand! The inspection seems to verify that the car being presented is the car that was deregistered, so they match the chassis number on the documents with the chassis number on the car itself. On an FTO this is (as you face the car with the bonnet open) at the back wall of the engine bay, below the wiper arms. Note: up to August last year the VRT did not accept cheques or credit cards, only cash and bank drafts.

At this point you will be issued with a car registration number (year/county/number) and you can then get your number plates. You can now insure the car as you have a registration number to give them. Note that your insurance company *may* accept the chassis number as a unique identification of the car, but again I'm unsure about the legality of driving with no number plates.

Next pay for the road tax at the motor tax office. Bring the RF-100 form, they will then issue your tax disc. Once the road tax has been paid you will be issued with a registration certificate, which will take a couple of weeks to arrive in the post. It may take a while for the car details to be registered in the NCT system, and may require a phone call to them to get them to add it in.

Once the car details have been added to the NCT system you can book the NCT and get the car tested. For imported cars however, they do not take into account the date of registration in Irelans, they take the initial date of registration in Japan as their basis. This means that your test will be backdated to whenever the last test was due for your car. In my case (1995) the NCT certification was backdated to 2003 so I was given a cert for 3.5 months. However, once you do the NCT test within 3 months of the registration date you will get it for the full 2 years + the time you did the test in advance.

This is from my own importing experience back in August 2004. It is intended as an informative guide to give an idea of what is involved in importing a car, and may not be completely accurate due to errors in recalling exact details and/or updates in regulations/legislation. No responsibility is taken for any liability incurred in any related transactions/etc. undertaken howsoever caused.

[gaz gt]

i live in northern ireland so i am still under british rule so does vrt include me or only if i live in the south?

also u reckon 5000gpb at the door price is to much just i want a real mint an good quick pocket rocket for that money
what do u reckon my highest bid should be then

[Terence]

You should consider the Nissan Pulsar GTiR.... those things are insane and it is common to find ones hitting 325+ BHP in Japan. As standard they were stupidly powerful anyway.

They are 4WD also, cornering abilities are exceptional.

Bring one in older than 1994 and you will not need a SVA test.

Just an MOT and you are ready to go!

Cheap too. They were not called mini skylines for no reason!! You need to sit in one to believe the experiance.

[Terence]

Sorry, Northern Ireland have the same rules as the UK.

SVA and MOT for you then.

[gaz gt]

power is insane baby godzilla with a insurance premium to match here lol
out of ?5k sitting at my door price with sva not reg'd what is the maxium i can bid with i know if i see the ryt car with the biggest majority of mods that i want so i can actually bid up to the max if i need doesn't mean i will use it tho just if an agent needs to bid higher he can (up to my maxium allowance) sorry if this sounds i bit confusing lol

[gaz gt]

i just want the best for my money since i am cutting out the public dealer as ?5k on the road which think u can get better for ur cash

[Terence]

With a 5k budget you can bid up to 600,000 yen.

That leaves you 2k for everything else.

The quote I gave you was based on our service www.japaneseauctions.co.uk - our new website.

If you need help just give us a call or post a message here.

We have a special offer on of 250 GBP service charge from our usual 400 GBP.

600,000 yen is far too much for this type of vehicle.

A bid of around 400,000 should be able to secure most 1996 examples.

If you do choose to go with another service please be careful with your bid price. If you bid 600,000 yen, the chances are you will find yourself winning the auction at something like 590,000 yen. Some dealers bump up the sale price.

All our final bid prices can be varified by the auction halls themselves.

I just took a look at the auctions for you and there are a few with modifications there(you also have access to them by the way! this forum is directly linked to our website and you can view full details inc auction sheets with your forum username and password)

[Terence]

To find the vehicle you need to type in starlet in the search box. A list should come up with preview photos.

Log in first tho otherwise you will not be able to click on the cars and see the auction sheets with front and rear photos.

[gaz gt]

that 600,000 yen. is my budget to get it fob+cif shipped too tho with a service fee included from urselfs so my actual bid budget is lower is wot i want to know

[Terence]

More details:-

Type in 'starlet'

narrow years down to 1996-2000

and hit search.

The press variant (arranges it in alphabetical order)

Then look from page 5 onwards. The GT's start there.

Sorry about the complex search. We are working on search by years and faster loading times at the moment. The new database code will be up in the next 24 hours and vehicles will load much faster.

[Terence]

Here is a breakdown of costs

Vehicle sale price 400,000 yen (2000 GBP)
Agent fee 250 GBP
FOB costs 120,000 YEN (600 GBP)
Shipping 400 GBP
Shipping agent fee 175 GBP (includes everything that needs to be paid at the port)

Total: 3425 GBP

Duty 10% 3767 GBP so far
VAT 17.5% 4426 GBP so far

Then you need SVA and MOT.

See your private messages I have just sent you one.

[Terence]

Please note you are likely to be able to purchase this vehicle for less than 300,000 YEN at auction.

[gaz gt]

ryt done some home work here my bid price is set at 450000yen by the time i pay the fallowing :
1. fob=?605
2.250
3.shipping =-?500
4.duty 10%
5.vat=17%-21%
6.agent fee ?170
final amount would cost me=?4960.00

please correct if wrong but i am trying to understand this so ?5000 my final @ the door price is right?

[Terence]

Yes your calculation is correct.

Remember MOT and SVA tho.

I have not seen a 1996 Galanza TBO sell for that much in auction. So should be less than that!

[gaz gt]

sva an mot i can do no probs just getting the car as far as my front door was the problem lol