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Snowy posted:Maybe dumb question but why didn’t they just sit in the driver’s seat? Hard mode.
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Oct 22, 2023 21:35
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Ahhh I’m dumb. I was thinking it was right hand drive but they didn’t want to sit on the right for some reason My bad 
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Oct 22, 2023 23:17
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madeintaipei posted:I've noticed a few USPS rural carriers here drive late 80's Japanese market imports. They're so non-descript you almost don't see them as out of the ordinary. I couldn't even tell you what models they are. Something larger than a kei, but smaller in footprint, and taller than, a 3rd gen Civic. Not vans or station wagons. Two door, four seat cars with windows all around. My grandma's used a JDM Subaru in northern Wisconsin, probably the best option. For some reason most of them still drive from across the car.
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Oct 23, 2023 15:10
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Deteriorata posted:Can't reach the mailboxes from the driver's seat. you can if you drive the wrong way down the street
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Oct 23, 2023 19:51
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MikeyTsi posted:Think I may have just seen an import goon in the wild today, rocking a red kei fire truck in a Taco Time parking lot. Pretty sure I've seen that exact truck too.
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Oct 23, 2023 21:39
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Failson posted:Pretty sure I've seen that exact truck too. Man, how many goons do we got in the Greater Seattle area?
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Oct 24, 2023 03:01
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MikeyTsi posted:Man, how many goons do we got in the Greater Seattle area?
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Oct 24, 2023 05:01
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Safety Dance posted:I don't know, but the Seattle thread in LAN moves so loving fast. SNR is low though. I've got a Sambar and Midget II in the area. And a GT-Four. And a Soarer. And... a MR2. I went a little crazy earlier in the year. It's a lot of a cars to work through / on... dailying the GT-Four for now though!
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Oct 24, 2023 06:50
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movax posted:SNR is low though. Some day,.... there will be a Legnum vr4 in the area.
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Oct 24, 2023 09:16
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MikeyTsi posted:Think I may have just seen an import goon in the wild today, rocking a red kei fire truck in a Taco Time parking lot. I rolled into Seattle for work yesterday and spotted a red JDM not-kei crew cab fire truck n traffic. I think it was a Toyota Ace, but never got to see the front of it. Aluminum wheels and larger tires on the rear for whatever reason, but still rocking the red steelies in front. Any of you?
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Oct 24, 2023 21:59
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Darchangel posted:I rolled into Seattle for work yesterday and spotted a red JDM not-kei crew cab fire truck n traffic. I think it was a Toyota Ace, but never got to see the front of it. Aluminum wheels and larger tires on the rear for whatever reason, but still rocking the red steelies in front. If it was cab-over it might be an imported older Isuzu/Fuso/Hino, but they also have been brought to the U.S. brand new forever so it might be a survivor. Unless you saw it was RHD  I know in times past in this thread people spotted old bigger-than-kei diesel fire trucks as well on auction sites, so it’s possible.
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Oct 25, 2023 08:20
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harperdc posted:If it was cab-over it might be an imported older Isuzu/Fuso/Hino, but they also have been brought to the U.S. brand new forever so it might be a survivor. Unless you saw it was RHD Unfortunately I was not able to determine RHD-ness. Could very well have been an actual ISDM small fire truck once upon a time. And yeah, it could have been an Isuzu easily, I think. It was definitely neat.
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Oct 25, 2023 21:38
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MikeyTsi posted:Some day,.... there will be a Legnum vr4 in the area. It'll be easy to spot, broken down on the side of the road.
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Oct 26, 2023 01:05
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MikeyTsi posted:Man, how many goons do we got in the Greater Seattle area? There’s a good amount, guessing like 20-30? There was some weird Seattle gbs thread a while back and saw a bunch of names I haven’t seen in the lan thread.
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Oct 26, 2023 03:22
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Anyone aware of a place in Japan (Tokyo preferred, but flexible on location) that will buy a car for you at auction, title it in the dealer's name + put insurance on it so you can drive it in Japan, then sell on consignment for you when you leave? Hoping to make a trip back next summer, possibly for as long as 4-5 weeks. I've previously spent a few years living in Kyushu and have gotten back into Japanese study in the last year (passed a mock N3 a few months back and hoping to take a swing at N2 in July while I'm there). When I lived there, I owned my own car and motorbike, but knew a number of other foreigners who had arrangements with their mechanics where the mechanic was still the owner on paper, and the person effectively leased the car from them. I did something kind of similar when I went back for a summer in 2015; bought a kei car and registered it in a former neighbour's name (since I was a tourist and couldn't do this myself), drove it for 5 weeks, and sold it to him for a cheap price when I left. We made sure the insurance covered me, worked out great for everyone. I love road trips and especially enjoyed it with Japan's great driving infrastructure. A big part of the trip would be doing large format landscape photography, so having my own wheels would make a lot of sense as I know from experience it's a PITA to schlep all the kit around on trains, not to mention get out to the good scenery. Is anyone aware of places that might offer this kind of service to a tourist? I do know of an Australian run place in Yamanashi that at least used to it for bikes, but probably prefer a car specialist. I'd most likely be after a cheap kei van, MT is fine and probably preferable. I'm not sure whether budget/common sense would allow for it, but am at least toying with the idea of getting something 25+ years old and exporting it back to the US at the end if I like it enough (probably something a bit bigger/fancier in that case, like a Delica or AWD Hiace).
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Nov 11, 2023 15:32
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I'm interested in tracking down a smaller pop-top sort of camper. Something like a Mazda Bongo Friendee or other. Any tips/suggestions for search terms on JCD?
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Nov 13, 2023 19:50
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Ethics_Gradient posted:Anyone aware of a place in Japan (Tokyo preferred, but flexible on location) that will buy a car for you at auction, title it in the dealer's name + put insurance on it so you can drive it in Japan, then sell on consignment for you when you leave? I don't have the most connections in Japan but I do know a few people and they all say the same couple things. TopRank does part of what you ask, but the idea with them is they store cars not legal for import yet but you can visit and drive them in Japan on rental insurance. The end result though is you taking the car with you when it becomes legal to import to your country. The issue that arises is the costs of dealing with all of this is high enough it's usually cheaper to just rent from Omoren, and they do have quite the variety. It just isn't generally economically viable to offer this on full cars vs. bikes is what I'm hearing. c355n4 posted:I'm interested in tracking down a smaller pop-top sort of camper. Something like a Mazda Bongo Friendee or other. Any tips/suggestions for search terms on JCD? Besides just trawling the auctions often, no, because the terms aren't always there. One day it will be listed as 'Bongo Friendee' then the next 'Bongo Friendee Adventure ++' then the next 'Mazda Other' even though they are all the exact same camper van. We're at the mercy of whatever data the auction houses put into the databases and it just isn't something they can spend a lot of time on getting the nuances of ancient vans for the data to reflect that. They operate on massive volumes so specialty stuff like that just gets lost sometimes.
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Nov 14, 2023 17:57
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Thanks KakerMix. I ended up finding one and probably overpaid a bit. I figure it is the tax for not having to deal with paperwork/shipping. Has anyone had to get glass for their vehicle? No chance of finding a rear windshield for this Mazda Bongo Friendee stateside. I'm terrified of having someone fix a leak and breaking the glass in the process. Amayama won't ship glass. I've found the following websites: https://www.rhdglass.com/ https://justjapaneseglass.com/ Not much information about them.
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Nov 27, 2023 18:43
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       Auction Sheet posted:mt, ac, seats worn/torn/dirty, carpet dirty, hitch member installed, cargo area dents/scratches/surface rust, decals removed, undercarriage surface rust/paint, other dents/scratches Saw this Hilux at auction, went "woah" at the auction sheet and asked for an inspection. Yoshi in an exchange between us two via Email posted:Inspector couldn't get the vehicle to start even with a booster (starter is turning but doesn't start). No charge. I wasn't cool with just ~giving up~ so I pushed and asked why we just gave up if I was still interested in the rest of the truck, since the inspection itself was cancelled without my consent. Yoshi said the auction would probably get cancelled. I got Yoshi to send another inspector out, knowing that they probably wouldn't get it started either, and get an inspection on the rest of it. Yoshi reporting on the second Inspector posted:no sludge, coolant ok, no oil leaks, engine room dirty, tires worn and cracked, spare ok, cargo area dents/scratches but no corrosion or flaking, undercarriage surface rust no flaking or holes, body as is in diagram, windshield chips small, driver's seat torn 10cm on door side, passenger seat ok, signage, no burns, carpet stains, gears ok, lights ok, mirrors ok wipers ok Looks great to me! Put in a bid on the dead truck and won! The auction wasn't canceled after all, good thing I pushed to inspect and bid anyway. It's a 92 Hilux, whatever issues it has, especially electrical, are going to be piss-easy to fix ESPECIALLY with it still being in Japan. While waiting to hear back about how we're going to handle a not-starting Hilux, I get the dock pictures:         No mention about it not running or starting or how it got to the docks and made its way through the auction. I look at the dock pictures and see what probably was the issue. 1992 Toyota Hilux SSR shortbed, diesel, manual, 4WD, solid front axle, OEM front winch, AC. 54,903 km, or a bit over 34,000 total miles. Completely stock besides it's steel wheels getting painted gold, which I quite like. It's a dual battery truck, so my guess is there is a connection issue between the two batteries that the inspectors weren't equipped to handle, and someone at the auction went 'lol' and connected them back up or something. Maybe someone was at the auction intentionally trying to scare people away from the truck and I called the bluff. Either way, an extremely low mileage, clean manual diesel Hilux like this is worth so much goddamned money I couldn't pass it up. c355n4 posted:Thanks KakerMix. I ended up finding one and probably overpaid a bit. I figure it is the tax for not having to deal with paperwork/shipping. Awesome! Re: glass We did replace the windshield on a Toyota Sera that a transporter didn't close the hood all the way on so the hood flew up at highway speeds and hosed it all up, but it wasn't a typical situation since the DeLorean dudes that run the parts side happen to have a shipment of OEM Sera windshields, presumably because because cool door cars chill together. We bought their last one, shipped in a crate, installed locally. Wasn't cheap, but the transporter foot the bill so whatever. KakerMix fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 03:37
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Oh my fuckin god that truck is sooooo sick
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Jan 4, 2024 04:50
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KakerMix posted:Maybe someone was at the auction intentionally trying to scare people away from the truck and I called the bluff. Either way, an extremely low mileage, clean manual diesel Hilux like this is worth so much goddamned money I couldn't pass it up. Wouldn't surprise me at all, I've seen that at local police and "farm" auctions. That's a great looking truck and I'm sure you'll make good money on it.
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Jan 4, 2024 11:49
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50kkm since '92 on a Toyota pickup. How is that even possible. Worth so much god drat money indeed
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Jan 4, 2024 11:50
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Want that Hilux. Great find. I'm moving to a RHD country in Africa for work for a few years. I was hoping to take advantage of that by importing a Japanese SUV in the 2000-2001 range so that it would be at the "legal to bring back to the States with me" point by the end of my assignment, but it looks like the local government will not let me import anything more than 10 years old. Boo. I still may buy a car from Japan but if I can't take it with me, I have to deal with significant duty recapture on resale etc. Might not be worth it.
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Jan 4, 2024 12:01
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KakerMix posted:
I can't be the only one who noticed that it IS running in this photo, right? Just gonna point out the tach and voltage, while blurry, definitely aren't where they'd be if it was dead, looks like it might even have a full tank. Also, driver's left foot has the clutch down by the looks of it, and it looks like it's in reverse - I would think they'd just put it in neutral if they needed to move a dead vehicle around. Pretty sure you nailed it; a connection was "loose". Funny how that happens on some more desirable stuff at auctions.  All it takes to figure out what gauge is what was googling Hilux cluster, though I think the same era 4Runner used the same cluster in the US (just in murican units instead). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 12:09
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ThisIsJohnWayne posted:50kkm since '92 on a Toyota pickup. How is that even possible. Worth so much god drat money indeed Inspection sheet said “decals removed” which probably means it was the kind of work truck that stood around a fair bit, or only ran really short distances. Tyro posted:I still may buy a car from Japan but if I can't take it with me, I have to deal with significant duty recapture on resale etc. Might not be worth it. I went to Nairobi on a business trip a few years back, and so many of the cars on the road have stickers that give away that they’re from Japan - from the obvious dealer stickers (eg Saitama Toyopet) to police inspection and Japanese emissions-related stickers, a ton of cars were clearly shipped over once the shaken got expensive.
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Jan 4, 2024 12:12
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KakerMix posted:
Hey Kaker, uhm, I might be interested in this truck. How can I reach out to you? Aside, I’m within spitting distance of the Jacksonville port.
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Jan 4, 2024 17:17
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I take it that the truck is worth enough that the chicken tax doesn't matter? Nice find.
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Jan 4, 2024 18:58
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randomidiot posted:I can't be the only one who noticed that it IS running in this photo, right? Just gonna point out the tach and voltage, while blurry, definitely aren't where they'd be if it was dead, looks like it might even have a full tank. Also, driver's left foot has the clutch down by the looks of it, and it looks like it's in reverse - I would think they'd just put it in neutral if they needed to move a dead vehicle around. Pretty sure you nailed it; a connection was "loose". Funny how that happens on some more desirable stuff at auctions. It's inherent to how the auctions work. You can also see a car both in front and behind the truck on the pictures. It's an assembly line and a not-running vehicle can't be in the line because it can't move under its own power. The fact that the auction sheet didn't mention anything about it not running is clue #1, plus it just being like any other car in the pictures (there is one auction house that will actually take pictures of a not-running vehicle in the line, usually with a tow strap moving outside of the frame of the picture since it will be pulled by another vehicle) or most of the time you'll get pictures like the higher-res doc pictures I posted. Someone will have to wander out to the yard to snap the photos, but the auction sheet will usually have an X rating since poo poo isn't running. That there is a person sitting in the truck, in the line like any other car, means its running just fine. The Electronaut posted:Hey Kaker, uhm, I might be interested in this truck. How can I reach out to you? Aside, I’m within spitting distance of the Jacksonville port. Sent you a PM here on SA. SpeedFreek posted:I take it that the truck is worth enough that the chicken tax doesn't matter? Nice find. The 25% tax is not-insignificant of an amount but that always gets passed on to the end buyer, like anything. Hiluxes and Land Cruisers always sell, and as time marches on they become more and more desirable since it's impossible to buy a new vehicle like them. This will be our 6th? 7th? Hilux we've imported. Like Land Cruisers, all Hiluxes are good. EDIT Rip my picture hosting, lets see if it comes back tonight. KakerMix fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jan 4, 2024 |
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Jan 4, 2024 20:10
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This may be a dumb question, but I've seen several YouTube videos where people have purchased and imported used Mercedes AMG, BMW M, and Audi RS cars from Japan into North America. They're left hand drive cars and models that were sold here. However, the importers said that they saved tens of thousands of dollars compared to buying the same car from a dealer here, Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, etc. Is this actually a thing or are they just cherry picking extremely specific example for clicks?
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Jan 4, 2024 22:44
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Mr. Apollo posted:This may be a dumb question, but I've seen several YouTube videos where people have purchased and imported used Mercedes AMG, BMW M, and Audi RS cars from Japan into North America. They're left hand drive cars and models that were sold here. However, the importers said that they saved tens of thousands of dollars compared to buying the same car from a dealer here, Bring a Trailer, Cars & Bids, etc. Is this actually a thing or are they just cherry picking extremely specific example for clicks? It sounds like someone in Japan bought models from the USA and imported them into Japan, then they were re-exported back to the United States, since you specifically say 'models that were sold here'. If they were cars originally physically sold in the United States and exported to Japan, then re-imported over here then, on the face of it, nothing is odd about that. I can imagine once you move that far north into the price game for cars you can start to extract savings from buying from another country. You see it happen (over a longer timeframe) for German cars. If you and I were in Germany and we wanted a specific 911, chances are high that we'd look to Japan to re-import a 911 that they brought in from Germany years ago. Same could be true for US-market cars. Also I'd just kind of assume it's bullshit because youtube is not a place to go for truths.
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Jan 4, 2024 23:58
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Further context: For a long time, the big German brands didn't own their importers into Japan - e.g. how BMW USA, MB USA are direct subsidiaries of the mothership in Munich and Stuttgart, and sell the U.S. market vehicles to their authorized dealership network. Instead, they were imported through a third-party who negotiated the rights with BMW, MB, GM, etc. (That company is Yanase, and they still have dealerships sitting next to BMWJ and MBJ in Japan). And for a long time, they didn't import right-hand drive vehicles -- or at least, I'm guessing customers had the option of getting LHD models, because you do see a bunch of them from the 1980s and 1990s around. (I just saw a very nice E24 635csi driving the other day and it was LHD). So tl;dr it's possible it was originally sold LHD in Japan, it's possible it was brought into Japan from the U.S. (I don't remember Japan's laws offhand but I think they're looser than the draconian American set of rules) but so long as there's a paper trail everything should still be ok. There are VIN checkers online for both brands you can drop a number into and get details, including original market of sale.
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Jan 5, 2024 01:13
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Yeah afaik Japan is "lol whatever you want but $$$$$$$$$$" outside of smog rules inside certain jurisdictions. A lot of old diesels, the Land Cruisers and Hiluxes, aren't easy to have registered in certain places. For the USA it is a hard 25 year rule. If it has a US VIN though, then it doesn't matter.
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Jan 5, 2024 04:02
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Thanks. The videos all mentioned Yanase. They weren’t clear on where the cars originated from, they just said that LHD cars in Japan are seen as more prestigious and that so that’s why many of the higher end German models are LHD. I figured there was more to the story otherwise people would have realized this long ago and would be arbitraging all these cars.
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Jan 5, 2024 04:06
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KakerMix posted:Also I'd just kind of assume it's bullshit because youtube is not a place to go for truths. WHAT? Samcrac has NEVER told a lie!
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Jan 5, 2024 15:36
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Not urgent, but does anyone in here have preferred vendors for JDM parts, particularly transmissions? This is probably a "second half of this year" project at earliest but I'm working on figuring out a BOM/cost for a manual swap for my Subaru SVX because it seems like something is burned out on my 4EAT and if the transmission itself is bad I'm not throwing a few thousand at a new lovely 4-speed auto when I could throw another 1-2k at the manual that I actually want (including install prices because I don't have the skills/space to DIY). I just don't know what vendors are reputable vs what vendors will just sell any broken-down poo poo and claim it's in good shape.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:43
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                         It's real freakin' cool KakerMix fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 23:30
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Are the license plate lights on the bumper?
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Feb 16, 2024 23:53
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Aww yeah. Beautiful car, and love the intake / yellow fogs. Had a 4AGZ powered AW11 for awhile and it was an absolute hoot. My current AW11 is N/A and it's fun, but I miss the added boost. Assuming you're yanks, how do you guys get on with adjusting to RHD? One good thing about Australia is we're naturally RHD, so importing cars here is a really easy transition. Isometric Bacon fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 00:03
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Not urgent, but does anyone in here have preferred vendors for JDM parts, particularly transmissions?. I've been using amayama.com and partsouq.com for new OEM parts, or at least trying to find if things are still available for my Century. They also help with finding the part numbers. More esoteric things I then try eBay to see if something is available more locally, or shared with another platform. Failing that. I try Yahoo Auctions through zenmarket.com.
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Feb 17, 2024 00:11
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Mr. Apollo posted:Are the license plate lights on the bumper? I thought it was a bit odd to but hey, they still work!  Isometric Bacon posted:Aww yeah. Beautiful car, and love the intake / yellow fogs. Would love to swap in one of those 20v 4AGs into my AW11 MR2. Before we got our North American Volvo wagon, the last LHD for-USA vehicle we had was a 1991 Geo Tracker (aka Suzuki Escudo). The entire run we had our dealership we only drove JDM import inventory since it's a lot cheaper to drive when you absorb your insurance and plates under a dealership. For us, it's easy as we don't commute anywhere and rarely hit up drive-thrus, so edge cases like 'being behind a large box truck turning left and not easily seeing past it' didn't happen often enough. Our largest issue was highway driving as most of what we did import was Land Cruisers and Hiluxes, not great at going 80 mph (130~ kph). The people we sold to likewise never seemed to have an issue at all, besides the flipping the wipers on instead of turning on your signal. When I drove in Japan it was loads harder because all the rules burned into my head were mirrored. It is far easier to just sit 4 feet over and have the turn signal stalk be opposite than it is to have every rule you know be mirrored.
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Feb 17, 2024 00:29
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