We Bought A Car!

...it's a forester.

Three years ago I heard that older cars were extremely cheap in Japan.  I did some research (read: google searched "car export japan") and found japan-partner.com.  Sure enough, ya!, cars were dirt cheap in Japan. Subaru STis that would sell for $18,000 in the U.S. were listed at $4,000!  What was going on?!? Another two minutes of googling told me that renewing vehicle registration (Shaken) on older cars in Japan could cost as much as half the original price of the car.  It was much more economical to sell the car to an exporter at a rock bottom price and buy a new car than to renew the registration.  The exporters would then ship the cars off to China or Russia where well-built Japanese cars were in high demand.  This is how and why we decided to start our trip in Japan. Cheap cars (cheap cool cars!) made the trip doable.  From then on we took it as fact that de-registered used cars in Japan are cheap and that we could buy them and drive them out of the country.

Twelve months ago we knew that our entire trip hinged upon us buying an inexpensive but capable and reliable car in Japan.  I also started to realize that we hadn't done any real research on how and where we could buy a car. Ezra and I did some more googling and sent some emails to a few of the exporters with big online storefronts.  We assumed that a large and official looking online presence meant efficiency, professionalism, and trustworthiness. A few weeks went by with no response and we sent some follow up emails.  Then some more follow up emails.  And some more.  Eventually we stopped sending emails and forgot about the whole thing.  We focused on funding the trip and school.

Six weeks ago we realized that we had less than two months before we stepped off a plane in Japan.  We still didn't have a car waiting for us.  We still didn't know how to buy a car in Japan.  We didn't even know if we could buy a car in Japan.  We put me in charge of the car and so I did some more googling. But this time it was personal...  Literally.  I stumbled (not literally) onto an online forum consisting of everything related to importing Japanese cars into Canada. There was a large section dedicated to Japanese exporters.  I ignored all of the big companies this time (and rightfully so - I later found that most of the big companies misrepresent their vehicles because there are almost no ramifications for them when the customer complains that the car they received looks nothing like the car they paid for AND the engine is blown, etc.).  I found two guys who ran their own exporting companies out of Japan.  They both came well recommended by the online community of Canadians whose reviews I was browsing.

Five weeks ago I sent two emails, one to Mark and one to Steve, both of whom are exporters in Japan.  After exchanging some emails with each I decided to go with Mark.  When I was explaining our situation and the difficulty we were running into with registering a foreign car (see my next post detailing the nightmare that registration has been and is) Steve gave a definitive "no you cannot register the car under your name" while Mark said "it's tough, but I've done it before."  That was the deal breaker for Steve.

Three weeks ago we wired a $1,000 deposit to a Japanese bank.  We hoped that we hadn't just sent a thousand dollars to a scammer sitting on a couch in some other part of the world.  It's hard not to trust Mark's New Zealand accent.

Two weeks ago at 8:46PM Mountain Time we got an email with a link to a 1998 Subaru STi sedan that was up for auction.  Low miles and great condition. We told Mark to bid on it and gave him a 500,000yen maximum.

One weeks and six days ago we found out we didn't win the STi.  We twiddled our thumbs for another 12 days.  Note: we didn't actually do much twiddling. We were busy with passport photos, overnighting visa applications, more passport photos, graduating from college, moving out of our respective houses in Colorado Springs, sitting through eight hours of ceremonies at Colorado College, driving back to Portland, Chicago, and Fort Collins, and in general, putting our lives in order before we leave the country for six months.

Yesterday evening I received this email from Mark:

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Hi Ya,

Hope you are well.

The following are up for auction tomorrow which have current shaken.

I realise you only want one, I can try on all three of them in the hope to secure one so please let me know the amount you want me to try up to per vehicle.

Cheers

MB.. 

2000

Forester S/Turbo 5spd

100km's

Electric's, A/C, Alloys.

Grade: 4.0 - LH Door Key Cylinder Broken, Alloys some scuffs, Rear Hatch has some dents, LHF & RHR Door has minor dent, body has some minor car park dents/scratches.

2000

WRX Hatch STi 6spd

96km's

Electric's, A/C, Alloys

Grade: R (accident/repaired rear) - Hatch & Rear Panel Changed, Alloys have scratches & center caps missing, body has some scratches and car park dents.

1999

WRX Hatch 5spd

106km's

Electric's, A/C, Alloys

Grade: 4.0 - Consol Lid Missing, Some Minor Car Park Dents/Scratches, Bumpers have some minor scuffs.

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We skipped the WRX and asked Mark to bid 500,000yen on the STi and 400,000yen on the Forester.  The STi would come up for auction first so if we didn't win that Mark would bid on the Forester.  

Today (well yesterday because it's now well past midnight) at 8:45PM I got this email:

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Hi Ya…

You online….?

Yes…. got the Forester.

Cheers

MB..


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HURRAY!  FINALLY!  I was so excited when I read that email.  I was secretly hoping to win the STi but in the end, the Forester will be better.  I just got off the phone with Mark (Skype).  We ended up winning the car for about 150,000 yen which is less than $1,900 USD.  With all the registration fees it will be close to $3,000 but we were expecting to pay between $5,000 and $7,000 so this car will free up some money in our budget as well!

I'll leave all the details for a later post but the car we won is a 2001 (2000 in Japan because their model years work differently than ours) Subaru Forester S. It's a 2.0 liter turbo engine that wasn't available in the U.S.  Pretty cool.  I can't begin to describe how relieved and excited I am.  And tired.  Talking to Japan during their business hours means I'm up late in the U.S.  More to come on the vehicle registration nightmare, trip equipment/gear, passport/visa fiasco, a detailed post about the Forester (Fozzy for short), and then the actual trip!

-Jack

2000 Subaru Forester Turbo: