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When’s the last time you saw a grade FIVE 1991? Just won, already sold this was for a private customer of mine. 1991 Honda Beat, one owner, grade 5!, 5,650 miles. Bought for an obscene price but our bid was much, much higher.     
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Dec 23, 2020 05:23
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lucky!!
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Dec 23, 2020 08:35
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everdave posted:When’s the last time you saw a grade FIVE 1991? I saw that yesterday as I was looking through. The grade 5 caught my eye. Congrats to you and your new buyer!
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Dec 23, 2020 13:09
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Cacafuego posted:I saw that yesterday as I was looking through. The grade 5 caught my eye. Congrats to you and your new buyer! Thanks! I usually forward any grade 4.5 to my buddy just to show him, a 5 is just crazy. Buyer is over the moon excited about this one.
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Dec 23, 2020 13:39
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Hello Friends, After several years of longing for a Japan Import, i have finally found a german company trusty enough to handle the import and TÜV conversion of the car i always wanted to get: a NISSAN Skyline R34 (GTT in this case, GTRs are just too expensive nowadays) They have a guy directly in Japan that handles the auction who will send me the Fotos and Auction sheets (with a translation). I would like to know, in general, how detailed and how accurate can i expect the auction information to be? it was already made clear that i will bear no risk for a lemon, the car will be made to my Spec in germany regardless, but i want to best substance i can get my hands on and i am particulary careful about any kind of rust or prior damage around or under the vehicle. Will this be noted on the auction sheets? do they take pictures of the undercarriage? How does sthe "Grade" system work? My Project budget are 35000 €, with another 5000€ of buffer should there be an absolutely perfect specimen that is just out of budget, however this does include Shipping to germany, Taxes and conversion work (all in all around 7000 € + whatever is left for Upgrades) so the auction price should fall somewhere around the 25000€ mark (3.2 Million Yen) the Import company assured me that the budget will be plenty good for an excellent vehicle but since there are experts in this thread too, i would like to know if that statement can be reflected.
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Dec 23, 2020 20:03
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Just my opinion but I used to trust the auction sheets a lot more than I do these days. I think with the rising prices and influx of buyers some auction houses are not grading as strictly as they used to. On the other hand I know some houses that don’t auction often grade way tougher than the car really is and I’ve gotten some great deals (for example Honda and Nissan). Spending that kind of money I’d highly suggest getting the car inspected before bidding or buying.
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Dec 23, 2020 20:54
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Combat Theory posted:Hello Friends, Comedy/adventure option: drive it home from Japan yourself. There's a vehicle ferry that runs to Vladivostok...
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Dec 23, 2020 21:17
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Combat Theory posted:Hello Friends, I'm going to be as clear as I can possibly be. ABSOLUTELY UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU TRUST THE AUCTION SHEET ALONE. None, no way. Pay the $50~ bucks to have the car actually inspected so they can find things like cracked blocks, hidden corrosion holes, blown head gaskets (lordy so many), various flavors of mildew smells from various leaking seals. Or, on the other hand, the "holy poo poo this is really nice" inspection reports give a nice boost of confidence when bidding. Those examples I just listed off are ones I've personally found with inspections. To quote the OP (and myself  )KakerMix posted:
I can not, in any circumstance, understand why people would skip the third party inspection. everdave and I are directly opposed when it comes to this, I will always get it and if for some reason I can't, I don't bid and that vehicle falls away. He will bid on vehicles without inspections, I never ever will. There is always another car to bid on tomorrow. As for the sheets themselves, those are filled out by the people assembly-line driving through the photobooths. They can't spend much time with them and their own biases can get in the way. They aren't out to swindle anyone, but if you are in a car for 5 minutes how in the hell can you tell if the transmission grinds or if the block is cracked or if the coolant tank is empty? Or if there is some hosed-up seal blown out from a fuel line or something. It's supposed to follow a standard but as everdave has already mentioned, one auction house's grade 3 is another house's grade 3.5 is another house's grade 4. There isn't enough consistency to count on the sheets. The sheets are there to help you decide what vehicles to inspect, the inspection report itself is what you use to actually bid. I myself have not noticed any changes in grading during the pandemic, all I've seen is prices shoot vertically. KakerMix fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Dec 24, 2020 |
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Dec 23, 2020 21:27
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Put it this way: I bought a hiace on the auction sheet alone because the auction house didn't allow inspections. The vehicle was missing the bottom 6 inches, as in the bottom 6 inches of the body simply didn't exist, they had rusted completely away. I re-auctioned that vehicle in japan. It got rated 3.5, and because of that I made money on it.
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Dec 24, 2020 00:00
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KakerMix posted:I'm going to be as clear as I can possibly be. Oh thanks for the inspection note. I am not at all familiar with the process in japan itself, so i assumed that the guy in Japan was there for exactly that inspection. No money has crossed yet (i merely gave the order to start looking for vehicles 2 days ago) and i will not send out anything without a proper inspection to rely on. As far as i can tell the company has about 16 years of experience in importing Japanese Sports Cars to Germany and (so far) i could not find an unsatisfactory review (apart from "they took very long to find a car"), but this kind of info is exactly what i wanted to know.
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Dec 24, 2020 01:21
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Combat Theory posted:Oh thanks for the inspection note. I am not at all familiar with the process in japan itself, so i assumed that the guy in Japan was there for exactly that inspection. No money has crossed yet (i merely gave the order to start looking for vehicles 2 days ago) and i will not send out anything without a proper inspection to rely on. this thread has the resources for you to search on your own and avoid whatever markup (usually double, seems like) they want to charge you. you can just go to japancardirect and wait til your car shows up. im sure you have your reasons for using an importer, just something to think about. could save a heap of euros.
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Dec 24, 2020 02:44
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MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:this thread has the resources for you to search on your own and avoid whatever markup (usually double, seems like) they want to charge you. you can just go to japancardirect and wait til your car shows up. im sure you have your reasons for using an importer, just something to think about. could save a heap of euros. I'm going to guess the aforementioned TÜV certification.
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Dec 28, 2020 23:25
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My friend and I bought a 73 Datsun 240z a few months back. He's been working on it, and even started a blog detailing the whole process. My car knowledge is pretty rudimentary so I'm just the moneybags man, but I've really enjoyed seeing the process. https://240zed.blogspot.com/?m=1
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Dec 29, 2020 01:46
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Early 240s//Fairladys are exploding in price. I’ll check that blog out at work tomorrow! I got another delivery today and I have 22 more coming not sure if anyone still interested. 
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Dec 29, 2020 05:04
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22? Holy poo poo dude!
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Dec 29, 2020 05:13
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Killed a Girl in 96 posted:My friend and I bought a 73 Datsun 240z a few months back. He's been working on it, and even started a blog detailing the whole process. Jealous. I can confirm that The Future Language is a great program, though.
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Dec 29, 2020 06:51
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Rhyno posted:22? It’s out of control. I don’t know if it’s kosher but I’m @carsfromafar on IG. I had an amazing November and I put everything back into cars. Which if I had known the customs hell December was maybe I wouldn’t have. I have some really cool cars coming and I don’t buy the normal stuff.
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Dec 29, 2020 08:18
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I've seen lots of little Kei trucks running around Charleston (usually on the islands as work and farm trucks) lately and I always wonder if they purchased from some of you guys.
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Dec 29, 2020 15:59
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LeeMajors posted:I've seen lots of little Kei trucks running around Charleston (usually on the islands as work and farm trucks) lately and I always wonder if they purchased from some of you guys. Probably not, so many people bring in your standard white kei truck. Now I do have a white kei dump at port but I made an exception. Tons of kei cars/trucks coming but I try to get the weird or unusual stuff. 
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Dec 29, 2020 17:02
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I will forever love your "ooooh something shiny!" method of car buying. Please continue.
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Dec 29, 2020 17:25
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everdave posted:Probably not, so many people bring in your standard white kei truck. Now I do have a white kei dump at port but I made an exception. Tons of kei cars/trucks coming but I try to get the weird or unusual stuff.
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Dec 29, 2020 17:37
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Rhyno posted:I will forever love your "ooooh something shiny!" method of car buying. Please continue. It’s my style and so far has worked very well for me. If something I have never seen before comes up I’m on it. Rhyno posted:I will forever love your "ooooh something shiny!" method of car buying. Please continue. 
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Dec 29, 2020 17:39
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InitialDave posted:Looks up the kanji for "road's closed, pizza boy." Turns out that stupid sign truck is costing me more in port and boat fees than I paid for it. It’s stupid I understand they want to drain the generator but our shipping line won’t even take it. Had a choice either have them rip the gen and sign out or for almost the same price drain and lash everything. I asked if there was option 3 where my broker just went and got it and pushed it off a cliff. Apparently not.
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Dec 29, 2020 17:45
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Sold our Blizzard today, means now the oldest vehicle we have for sale is our Suzuki Wagon R, which is finally all buttoned up and put back together and WILL be going up for sale soon  Soarer was cool, especially because it was all original and only had 20,000 miles on it but nobody cared. Doesn't matter that it has the 7M-GTE, it's all digital dashboard, it's cool functioning air suspension, or the super low miles, didn't matter. We sold 15 cars in the amount of time that Soarer sat around waiting for a buyer. Can safely mark MZ21 Soarers off the 'to buy' list at auction. Sorta same for the Blizzard, but not because it's not desirable, but because it wasn't as nice as the stuff we normally sell. Feels kinda lovely and classist to say, but it is so much easier and more pleasant to sell a 20k vehicle than it is to sell a 7k one, no matter what it is. The 20k stuff, people seem to know what to expect, what they are getting. The sub-10k stuff seems to be more hardliners, people that just respond to your ad with "lol" (obviously a jealously thing 'cause we always sell the lols  ), dreamers and just a ton of work for little profit. If it were in perfect condition then we could have probably sold it for 13k~ or so and had a nice time with selling it, but because it was more beat up and priced differently it wasn't fun.From my wife and I's POV sub-10k stuff isn't worth it usually, and this includes almost all kei cars. Low mileage, too, doesn't seem to mean anything on its own, in what we've seen without some sort of desirability in place. A Land Cruiser will always sell if it's nice, doesn't matter if there is 70k on the odometer or 230k, they always sell.
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Dec 30, 2020 02:21
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KakerMix posted:Sold our Blizzard today, means now the oldest vehicle we have for sale is our Suzuki Wagon R, which is finally all buttoned up and put back together and WILL be going up for sale soon Congrats! I liked the soarer, but the AT lost my interest. There’s a few styles I like, that being one of them, but an auto trans is not something I want. Like I really like the eunos cosmos and some of the Nissan glorias, but I don’t want it with an AT and that’s all those came with. If you or anyone else finds a nice 1st gen Subaru alcyone (American Subaru xt), with the pop up lights and a 5sp, please alert the thread. A friend had one of those and I’m on the lookout for one.
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Dec 30, 2020 03:47
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Alcyone never had a factory 5 speed as far as I know.
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Dec 30, 2020 03:54
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Cacafuego posted:Congrats! I liked the soarer, but the AT lost my interest. There’s a few styles I like, that being one of them, but an auto trans is not something I want. Like I really like the eunos cosmos and some of the Nissan glorias, but I don’t want it with an AT and that’s all those came with. I've seen maybe one or two in the last year, both have sold for around 8k USD. I don't know what you have in your head for pricing but if you think it's cool, someone else does as well. everdave posted:Alcyone never had a factory 5 speed as far as I know. Their talking about the Subaru XT  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru_XT From the before the SVX. Subaru is a big fat jerk and re-used the name on both of them.
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Dec 30, 2020 03:57
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KakerMix posted:I've seen maybe one or two in the last year, both have sold for around 8k USD. I don't know what you have in your head for pricing but if you think it's cool, someone else does as well. Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about. $8k + all the import paperwork/shipping is definitely doable for one in good condition.
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Dec 30, 2020 04:03
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Cacafuego posted:Yeah, that’s the one I’m talking about. $8k + all the import paperwork/shipping is definitely doable for one in good condition. Oh no I mean 8k at auction. Tack on another ~3500 or so at least for it to be in the US and legal, depending on where you are geographically. If you aren't on a coast the expect more because it is not cheap to overland a car.
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Dec 30, 2020 04:05
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KakerMix posted:Oh no I mean 8k at auction. Tack on another ~3500 or so at least for it to be in the US and legal, depending on where you are geographically. If you aren't on a coast the expect more because it is not cheap to overland a car. Yeah, sorry, $8k+$3500 is definitely doable for one in good condition. I’m just NE of you in Orlando, FL. Duncan has one for ~13k, but I think you’ve said they pretty much just shine it up once it’s off the boat and don’t make sure it’s mechanically sound before they sell it, so that makes me a bit hesitant.
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Dec 30, 2020 04:20
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I can not remember ever seeing an XT at auction. Alcyones//SVX up all the time. It could sell big or slip under the radar if one comes up again. Hell I’ll buy it if it’s cheap no one argues my bids anymore. I sort 72-96 under 150k km 6 days a week. Thankfully auctions closed til the 4th.
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Dec 30, 2020 06:21
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Cacafuego posted:Yeah, sorry, $8k+$3500 is definitely doable for one in good condition. I’m just NE of you in Orlando, FL. Yeah I mean years ago, when I still had the Acty I bought from Japanese Classics, Duncan had a cool looking Jimny. I asked about the AC and he said he didn't know and he'd have to go start it and see if the AC worked. He did say the AC worked but uhhh not being familiar with the vehicle like that gave me pause. Like hell a big reason I like to wash and detail these cars is because I get more familiar with them. I've been familiar with all the vehicles we've sold just because of how I like to do it. But yeah if you wanted a first-gen Subaru Alcyone I'll try to let you know. Just so you are aware though, as everdave has sort of indicated, auctions are nightly (save for Japan's Sunday, our Saturday) meaning if one DOES show up we have a window of between 2 days at the longest (which isn't common) to around 4~ hours before the auction goes live. Depends on the house but typically 6-8 hours seems to be the lead time from a vehicle being posted and when it's auction is up. There isn't a lot of time.
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Dec 30, 2020 07:34
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everdave posted:I can not remember ever seeing an XT at auction. Alcyones//SVX up all the time. It could sell big or slip under the radar if one comes up again. Hell I’ll buy it if it’s cheap no one argues my bids anymore. I sort 72-96 under 150k km 6 days a week. Thankfully auctions closed til the 4th. I think it's the Alcyone in Japan so you'd only see an XT if it was mislabeled?
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Dec 30, 2020 07:34
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MY INEVITABLE DEBT posted:I think it's the Alcyone in Japan so you'd only see an XT if it was mislabeled?  Yeah in Japan the SVX is the newer one that was auto only, the non-SVX is the one we're interested in. Speaking of:  Two of them in the last 3 months, unfortunately both autos which would explain why I didn't pay them any attention. This does track with what I remember about the 5 speeds though, a nicer one with 100k km and a 5 speed should be around 8,000 USD. That other one with a grade 99 is sold as-is, usually the sheet will say 'delivered by flatbed' or something similar.
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Dec 30, 2020 07:37
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Both the XT and SVX are cool as gently caress. I considered buying an SVX, but got cold feet when I actually thought about why the guy was selling it, and why it wasn't selling. Parts must be a nightmare.
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Dec 30, 2020 08:19
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I almost never look at upcoming auctions. Just the day/night of. And it can get overwhelming what is day for us is 14 hours ahead in Japan. Then I’ll be at work and make my run through and out of nowhere they have late adds. At some point you just have to say I’m not gonna catch them all. I did look at upcoming auctions for the 5 Beat but that was for a buyer who had unlimited money. I’ve probably skipped XTs being labeled as Alcyones bc I’m just not in the market for our SVX. I will pay more attention now.
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Dec 30, 2020 12:37
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How much time do you need left on the auction to be able to get an inspection and place a bid? I’m guessing the bids aren’t instantly submitted to the auction house.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:31
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everdave posted:I almost never look at upcoming auctions. Just the day/night of. And it can get overwhelming what is day for us is 14 hours ahead in Japan. Then I’ll be at work and make my run through and out of nowhere they have late adds. At some point you just have to say I’m not gonna catch them all. I did look at upcoming auctions for the 5 Beat but that was for a buyer who had unlimited money. I’ve probably skipped XTs being labeled as Alcyones bc I’m just not in the market for our SVX. I will pay more attention now. You have 22 cars on the way, you should definitely not be planning to catch them all.
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Dec 30, 2020 15:39
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Snowy posted:How much time do you need left on the auction to be able to get an inspection and place a bid? I’m guessing the bids aren’t instantly submitted to the auction house. Minimum 2 hours, but depending on the house even that might not be enough. Bids themselves have to be in within 30 minutes of it running.
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Dec 30, 2020 16:33
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Some houses won’t inspect until right before. I know their name but can’t think of it. On a break from auctions it def starts with a N. And some places don’t allow inspection. And some I can hear super early. Edit I think it’s USS Nagoya who won’t let an inspection happen til last minute, which sucks bc sometimes they end very late for us. everdave fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Dec 30, 2020 |
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Dec 30, 2020 19:19
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