The annual large Japanese holiday "Golden week" will be upon us soon.

The auctions will be on holiday for the following days: 
Last normal day for auctions: April 27th (Saturday)
First normal day for auctions after the break  Wednesday 8th

Some people consider buying through Provide Cars cars from the Japanese used car auctions as a risk.  How do you know the cars in the auctions are alright?  

Personally, I would find buying from a dealers stock list as a greater risk!
Is the appraisal of the car exporter unbiased?  
Is there something the exporter doesn't want you to know about the car?  It may be major, it may be minor!
Are you sure the car has done 53,766kms not 153,766kms? 

The obvious point in this argument is that of course a Japanese used car dealer is always going to be biased about his stock that he is selling to you!

Now, the important question:  is the appraisal of a car purchased through Provide Cars in the Japanese car auctions unbiased?

Although the appraisal system in the auctions is not perfect, it needs to be excellent, or at the very least, "good", for the whole process to work.
You need to understand that the majority of vehicles sold in the Japanese car auctions are bought and sold for the Japanese local market.  Exports are a minor in the whole process.  If the appraisal system of a certain auction was biased in favor of the seller, unsatisfied buyers would stop buying from that auction, the auction would have no income from commissions from the sale of vehicles and then would fail to be a viable economic entity for the owners.  For an auction to function and exist, there needs to be happy buyers.

Secondly, there is a claim period after purchase (usually about 4 days) where the purchaser of a vehicle can claim to the auction about defect unlisted on the auction sheet.  If the fault that is listed on the auction sheet can not be claimed on.  Any fault that is NOT listed on the auction sheet can be claimed on.  It is in the interest of the auctions to reduce, or even better, have no claims involved in cars sold each week.

Finally, odometer readings.  The auctions run together a computer system recording all chassis numbers of vehicles and odometer readings at time of sale in any auction.  If any vehicle appears that has differing data (kms reduced) to that which is on the systems history, the auction "pounces" on the seller demanding to know an explanation.  If a good explanation is not given, the seller can be banned from purchasing from that auction.  Worse still it could involve being investigated by the police.  I have known of a dealer who spent 6 months in prison for altering odometers.
No such case with used car exporters selling their stock.
It is common for exporters selling from their stock to adjust the odometer.  A car with 53,000kms on the clock is worth a lot more than a car with 153,000kms on the clock.  The exporter knows that in certain countries it is not possible to sell an adjusted odometer reading vehicle (like New Zealand), so they make you "Log In" to your region before viewing their stock page.  If your region is New Zealand, you will see the stock listed as 153,000kms.  If your region is not like New Zealand then they will show you the stock as having 53,000kms.  As they are not sure which region will buy the stock, they do not adjust the odometer until the car is sold.  If it is sold to New Zealand, it is not adjusted.  If they sell it to another region with 53,000kms odometer reading, they adjust it.  If there happens to be a whistle blower, informing the Japanese police about the crime, then they can claim it was an input mistake on their stock page.
Differing companies may vary their tricks like above, but their motivation is the same: deceiving you!

To make it clear on odometers:  used car exporters can modify and deceive at will, auctions can not.

So I ask you:  which is riskier to buy from?  A used car exporters stock list or by purchasing through the auctions through Provide Cars?

The export timeline. So which one is faster? Buying from a dealers stock or buying from the auctions.

First of all we need to understand the process of exporting a used car out of Japan.

1. A car is purchased by an exporter, agent, Japanese used car dealer, and in our examples case, Provide Cars.

2. The documentation is usually sent and arrives at Provide Car's office within a week of purchase. Let's say a week, though there are exceptions.

3. The car's deregistration document (or registration document if it is still registered) needs to be changed to an official “export deregistration document”. This means some documentation writing then a visit to the local “Rikunkyoku” or local city car registration office, with documentation in hand and number plates in hand (if it was still registered). If you have a dot missing or a “t” uncrossed then forget about any success that day! In Japan there are no exceptions, every “t” crossed and every “dot” dotted. If you manage to succeed in getting your “export deregistration certificate”, then you are ready for the next step.

4. Ship booking. Yes, Provide Cars can only book a car on a ship if you have your “export deregistration certificate”. Plus, you must book at least one week before the boat leaves. Some countries there is only one boat per month, so if you miss this by a few days... well that is a pity!

5. Send documentation to the export yard for customs clearance. The cars export certificate must be sent to the shipping line's agent to clear customs on the Japan side. Included with this a various other documents.

6. Nothing goes wrong and the car is sent/exported to your port.

7. Documentation is received back from the export yard to Provide Car's office.

8. The original “Bill of Lading” is received from the shipping line.

Now what in this process differs from buying from a dealers stock and buying from the auction through Provide Cars?

The dealer has usually purchased his stock a few days to weeks or even months before he sells it. This means most times he has the de-registration document available.

Compared with buying directly from the car auctions, the delay will be perhaps a week after the decision to purchase from a car dealer.

Now add onto this payment. A Japanese used car dealer will not book a car for export until the car has been paid for. Often a TT transfer will take a few days, even up to 5 days, that is basically the time it takes to purchase a car from the auctions and have that cars documentation arrive at Provide Cars office.

So essentially, the time it takes from the moment of purchase, whether from a used car dealer's stock or from the auctions, to the moment of export, is the same.

So in terms of time saved, there is no issue between purchasing from a dealer stock or purchasing  from Provide Cars through the auctions in Japan.

Advantages:

Price

You will get the best price, especially if you are patient. Exporters, Japanese car dealers all buy from the auctions for their stock as that is the cheapest place to purchase a vehicle in Japan. It is purchasing at the wholesale rate, rather than the retail rate as through a dealers stock page.

Large Selection of Vehicles to Choose From

The larger the selection of vehicles there is to chose from the better it is for the buyer. Getting 10 vehicles the same colour with a variety of kms on the clock means you have a variety of prices being sold and hopefully finding the one that fits into your budget. Having the same model in a variety of years also helps to gain the right vehicle into your budget. For example a 2005 Toyota Estima is the same model as a 2006 Toyota Estima, though with all other factors the same, the later will sell at a higher price in the auctions. Basically the more to choose from, the better the vehicle will be.

Diadvantages

Time frame

Because we can only see the vehicle 2 or 3 days before it sells, the time frame to decide whether to purchase or not is limited.

Photos

Most auctions only show 2 or 3 photos of a car before it sells, often these are at a distance. Compare this to a dealers stock, where he may have up to 20 photos of a vehicle on his stock page.

A lot more has to rely on the auction sheet when purchasing from the auctions.

So there are the advantages and disadvantages for purchasing from the Japanese car auctions. For price and variety, definitely the auctions. If convenience is a strong value of yours over savings then your best bet may be to purchase from a dealer stock page.

Car passed. Negotiation, what to do?

The whole realm of “negotiation” after a car has passed in the Japanese used cars auctions not many bidders seem to understand the whole process. Some of them want to:

1. Offer a bid under the passed bid price! (No sorry that will not work, (the auction will not even receive such an offer)).

2. Offer a bid AT the passed price. Getting closer now, BUT, every Japanese car auction has set RULES that state at what price negotiation can start from.

3. Ask to negotiate the next day or even the next, next day after the auction. The Japanese used car auctions have set rules on exactly what time limits you can negotiate from.

4. Some customers would like to negotiate through the auctions and then perhaps withdraw their offer if they “change their mind” afterwards. Sorry not possible, negotiation purchased cars, unlike normal purchasing through the auctions, can not even be cancelled!!

Here are the basic rules.

 

After a car has passed in the auctions, you are allowed to negotiate, however, you must negotiate according to the rules of the auctions. This means in USS auctions you must negotiate at least 30,000 above the pass price. Other auctions, we ring and ask what price the seller wants to start negotiation from. Other auctions it is 10,000yen above the pass price. Every Japanese used car auction has it's rules, and there is no compromise from those rules.

Order of negotiation.  You may be willing to negotiate higher than another bidder.  However, if the other bidder has their negotiation in BEFORE you, they have buying rights OVER you.

Time limits. Some auctions allow up until 12pm the following day for negotiation. However, if the auction can not contact the seller, there is no negotiation. Other auctions in Japan only allow until the end of the auction and others only a certain amount of time since the car passed.

Contract. Unlike most purchases in the Japanese used car auctions, where you can cancel a car purchased within the first hour of purchase or sometimes before the auction closes, for a large fee, negotiated cars can not be cancelled. You negotiate, you own, period.  

Many people buy cars from Japan by going to a dealers homepage, looking at the stock item then buying.

Now is the time to buy!

In the Japanese used car auctions vehicles increase this time of year. If vehicles increase this time of year, then due to the law of supply and demand, the auctions become over-supplied, and to sell a vehicle you have to accept a lower price. All the better for the buyers in the auctions (as well as the exporters and in your case the importers).

 

So why the increase in vehicles in the Japanese used cars auctions this time of year?

 

1. The end of the financial year for many companies, especially used car dealers in Japan. This is stock take time of year and a good chance to re-auction cars that have not been selling. Also other companies, also at the end of their financial year, replace vehicles regularly, especially at the end of the financial year.

2. Private owners of vehicles must pay in May, the annual car tax. This is no small amount of money that must be paid during May. This is where the decision makers of the household will decide whether to keep their vehicle for another year or trade it in at a local trade in company (Gullivers used car trade in is the largest). The Japanese public, not being card holding “car dealers”, do not have the ability to sell their vehicles into the Japanese used car auctions, it all must go through a dealer.

These car taxes can be quite high. They increase for the engine size of the vehicle:

Less than 1000cc 29500yen

Between 1000 and 1500cc 34500yen

1500cc to 2000cc 39500yen

2000cc to 2500cc 45000yen

2500cc to 3000cc 51000yen

3000cc to 35000cc 58000yen

3500cc to 4000cc 66500yen

4000cc to 45000cc 76500yen

45000cc to 6000cc 88000yen

over 6000cc 111,000yen

You may need to check your chassis wall to check the number hasn't been replaced if you have one of the following top 7 stolen vehicles from Japan:

 

	2010	2011	2012
Toyota Hiace	2,519	2,773	1508
Toyota Landcruiser	865	1,071	1,085
Toyota Celsio	1,279	1,419	1,071
Toyota Crown	867	926	971
Toyota Prius	209	514	861
Mitsubishi Canter	179	490	531
Isuzu Elf	612	654	514

Although Toyota Hiace had the largest number stolen, as a percentage of the total sold that year, it was most dangerous last year to drive a Toyota Celsio, of every 1000 registered in Japan, 6 were stolen.  
The second most dangerous car to drive in Japan last year was a Toyota Landcruiser with 4.6 cars stolen in every 1000 registered in Japan.  

Is there any variation from one Japanese car auction to another?   Should I purchase from any Japan car auctions or should I ask my agent to look for vehicles in certain specific Japanese vehicle auctions?  

Personally I would only choose to purchase from certain auctions if I was purchasing a car for myself.  There are a number of factors to consider.

1.  Locality

Purchasing a vehicle from one of the three main centers: Tokyo, Nagoya, Kansai, means the costs of internal transports from the Used Car Auction to the wharf area where you are having your car exported, are minimal.  Always ask our sales staff to search for your car from auctions such as CAA Tokyo, TAA Tokyo, USS Tokyo .... basically anything with the word Tokyo or Yokohama included in the used car auction name.
The same goes with Nagoya:  Honda Nagoya Auction, USS Nagoya, CAA central (Chubu), TAA central (Chubu).  Also any words using Gifu is also in the Nagoya area.
Kansai is a little more complicated as you have used car auctions in the areas of Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara to name a few.  One of the largest, also being close to the port so not needing large transportation fees is HAA Kobe.  
If you view a car on another site from a USS auction in a place you have not heard of before, and you are interested in purchasing this car through us, ask us where the used car auction is and how much transport would be to the nearest exporting port.  Just reduce that inland transport amount from your purchase price.  Sometimes you can get bargains from these distant auctions EVEN WITH the extra inland transport.  Think of the over all picture and costs.  Although we can not show you USS car auction details due to copyright inflictions, there are many, many sites out there that blatantly show their data, so check their sites and then come back to us with your order.

Once you are outside of the 3 main auction areas of Japan, inland transport is a major factor.  Purchasing used cars in auctions in Kyushu or Hokkaido means transportation costs as these islands usually do not have shipping lines that export to your country.  Make sure you know the most likely cost of your internal transport to your local port for export before you purchase.

2.  Locality warnings

Just a small note to say, some used car auctions in Japan, are just not worth bidding on.  First of all, you all know that there was a nuclear meltdown in North Eastern Japan that nearly spiraled out of control.  Well it did have an impact on some of the cars sold in the Used Car Auctions of Japan.  These auctions include anything with the name Tohoku and Fukushima.  Our staff regularly check number plates in ALL Japanese used car auctions with license plates relating back to these areas. 

Apart from "glowing" car warnings, there is also a "rusty" car warning.  Some cities in Japan receive huge amounts of snow, Niigata I think receives world record amounts of snow, being on the wintery cold western side of the Japan alps.  To melt this snow, certain salts are spread onto roads that helps reduce the melting point of the snow, and therefore the snow itself.  The chemical result of this chemical reaction is ... acid, sulfuric acid.  Sulfuric acid has a natural ability to turn all your iron associated parts of your car into red rust!  So avoid any small mention of rust from auctions in the Niigata area as well as the snowy Hokkaido used car auctions.  Just ask our staff whether the auction you would like to bid on may have a rust problem.  

Again, we have a network of people throughout the auctions to check cars you are interested in purchasing from.

3.  Used Car Auction reputations.

Although we'd like to present to you a picture that all used car auctions in Japan present their cars in equal presentation with unbiased judgement, unfortunately that is not true.  The reality is, some are more honest than others.  Rather than writing a list of the "good used car auctions" in Japan against the "bad used car auctions" in Japan (we might get in trouble here, the Japanese used car auctions can cause us trouble), just ask us the reputation of the auction that we find a car for you to purchase from.

Having knowledge as a tool in your purchasing arsenal about what auctions to purchase from is your edge in this competitive industry.  We strive to give you that edge.

The BMW Z8 roadster was produced in 2000-03 model years.
It has all the necessary ingredients of a true sports car: superior performance, outstanding design and rarity.
All-aluminum chassis exceptionally stiff and light, resulting in exemplary road feel.
Under the hood a 4.9-liter V8 producing 394 horsepower and 368 pound-feet of torque.
People mesmerized by its stunningly unique styling and the sonorous note of its exhaust system.
In 1999 Z8 was revealed to the world by James Bond in "The World is Not Enough"

Provide Cars proud to be part of BMW heritage as we just purchased 2000 Z8 for one of out customer in Europe.

Was it your country?  Let's look at the top 25 countries that imported used cars from Japan in 2012.  Of course, Myanmar was there, but was it number one?  Take a look below:

How would you like to be the most Eco Friendly camper on the camp site this summer?  

No, you didn't tow your caravan to the camp site in your dirty-diesel-turbo-blowing-black smoke all the way to the summer camping ground!  
No, you didn't fill your 100 liter V8 petrol tank 2 times to get to the camping ground!  
And no, you didn't pollute the environment with your hole-in-the-muffler, dirty injectors, diesel glugging, smoke exuding camper truck!  
No, you arrived quietly (on battery power as you cruised into the camp site) in your Toyota Prius Camper!  The only noise made when you arrived were the dolphins jumping and the whales breaching as they jumped and breached as high as they could to be seen by you and hopefully wave to you.



Yes, you don't jump on the Eco wave, you make the Eco wave this summer by showing the camping community what really is important.  A PRIUS CAMPER VAN.  Now take a look at this and let you green saliva glands salivate:











We have been taking many orders for Toyota Prius' to be purchased in the auctions in the last 6 months.  Word is that the newer model (2005 and up) doesn't have any issues with it's batteries like the earlier models did.  You can save $1000s of dollars by purchasing directly from Japan rather than buying in your own country.

Nissan went into the Tokyo Auto Show with a stack of swooped up models, to show their fans what exactly can be done with a couple of spoilers and paint. The Juke Nismo (find a model today in the car auctions) with aftermarket cars like the Leaf Nismo Performance and the GT-R Nismo GT3.

See if you can recognize these models: there is a caravan, a leaf, a juke, a fairlady, a GTR and a note

Provide Auctions (တပတ်ရစ် ဂျပန်ကား လေလံပွဲများ) မှ ဝယ်ယူခြင်းဟာ ပြည်ပပို့ကြသူတို့၏ ကားဒိုင်ကြီးမှ ဝယ်ယူခြင်းနဲ့စာလျှင် ပိုကောင်းသည့် အကြောင်းရင်းများ။

 

1. သီးခြား စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးမှု

သင်သည် Provide Auctions မှတစ်ဆင့် တိုက်ရိုက် ဝယ်ယူလျှင် သင်က ဝယ်လိုသည့် ကားကို သီးခြား စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးပေးပါသည်။ လေလံပွဲများသည် ယေဘူယျအားဖြင့် ၎င်းတို့ ရောင်းကြသည့် ကားများကို ပိုင်ဆိုင်ကြသည် မဟုတ်ပါ။ ၎င်းတို့သည် ရောင်းသူ နဲ့ ဝယ်သူတို့ ကြားထဲမှာ လွတ်လပ်သည့် အဖွဲ့အစည်း အဖြစ် ရပ်တည်နေကြကာ၊ သင်က ဝယ်လိုသည့် ယာဉ်ဆိုင်ရာ ဘက်လိုက်ခြင်း မရှိတဲ့ အစီရင်ခံစာကို ထုတ်ပေးနိုင်ကြသည်။ Provide Cars သည် အဲဒီလို ဘက်လိုက်ခြင်း မရှိတဲ့ လေလံပွဲ စာတမ်းများကို ဘာသာပြန်ပေးပါသည်။

သင်သည် ပြည်ပကိုပို့သူ တဦးအား ၎င်း၏ကားရုံထဲက ရောင်းလိုသည့်ကား ကောင်းရဲ့လား မေးမယ်ဆိုရင်၊ ကောင်းပါတယ်လို့ အဖြေကို ရမှာ ရှင်းနေပါတယ်။ သူဟာ အဲဒီကားကို သင့်ကို ဝယ်စေလိုပါတယ်။ သူဟာ သူ့အလိုကျ အဖြေကိုသာ ပေးမှာ ရှင်းနေပါတယ်။

2. ရောင်း​ဈေး | လက်ကားဈေးနဲ့ ဝယ်နိုင်ခြင်း။

သင်သည် Provide Auctions ရဲ့ ကားကို ဝယ်မယ်ဆိုရင်၊ ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံထဲက ကားကိုတစ်ဆင့်ရောင်းသူ တဦး ပေးရတဲ့ ဈေးကိုပဲ သင်ပေးရပါမယ်။ အဲဒါကြောင့်မို့လို့ အဲဒါကို လက်ကား​ဈေးလို့ ကျွန်တော်တို့ ခေါ်ပါတယ်။ တစ်ဆင့်ရောင်းသူဟာ ယာဉ်ကို လေလံပွဲမှာ ဝယ်ယူပြီးရင်၊ ရောင်းဈေးကို ထပ်တင်ပြီး ၎င်းရဲ့ ကားရုံ ဝက်ဆိုက်မှာ ပြန်ရောင်းဖို့ ကြိုးစားပါတယ်။ တစ်စီးစီးကို လျင်မြန်စွာ ရောင်းမရဘူးဆိုရင် သူဟာ ဝယ်​ဈေး အတိုင်းပဲ ရောင်းနိုင်ပါတယ်။

သူရောင်းတဲ့ ကားတွေ ပိုစွဲဆောင်မှု ရှိလာစေဖို့၊ ပြည်ပကိုပို့သူဟာ ကားထဲက ခရီးတိုင်းကိရိယာကို နောက်ကြောင်း ပြန်လှည့်လျက် ကီလိုမီတာနည်းနည်းရှိတဲ့ ကားကို ဈေးချိုချိုဖြင့် ရောင်းလိုကြပါတယ်။ အဲဒီလိုနည်းဖြင့် ယာဉ်ကို ဝယ်မှုဟာ အန္တရာယ်များပါတယ်။

3. အမျိုးအမည် ပိုများခြင်း

တစ်ဆင့်ရောင်းသူတို့ရဲ့ ဘယ်ကားဒိုင် ဝက်ဆိုက်မှာမှ Provide Auctions မှာလို ကားအမျိုးအမည် မစုံနိုင်ပါ။ ဥပမာ၊ အပတ်စဉ်တိုင်း Toyota Corolla 3000၊ Hilux Surf 1000 တို့ထဲက စိတ်ကြိုက်ကို ရွေးလို့ ရနိင်ပါတယ်။ တစ်ဆင့်ရောင်းတဲ့ ကုမ္ပဏီဟာ ဘယ်လောက်ပဲကြီးကြီး လေလံပွဲများမှ ကားတွေကို ယှဉ်ပြိုင်လို့ မရနိုင်ပါဘူး။

4. စာရွက်စာတမ်းများကို အာမခံစီစဉ်ပေးပါသည်။

လေလံပွဲမှာ ရောင်းပေးလိုက်သည့် ယာဉ်အားလုံးဆီမှာ ပြည်ပပို့ဖို့ လိုအပ်သည့် စာရွက်စာတမ်းများ ပါပါသည်။ တရားဝင် စာရွက်စာတမ်း မပြည့်စုံသော ယာဉ်ကို ပြည်ပတင်ပို့ရန် ခဲယဉ်းပါမည်။ ခိုးထားသည့် ကားများကို လုံးဝ တင်ပို့မရနိုင်သော်လည်း၊ အချို့သော ပြည်ပပို့ကြသူတို့က ဂျပန် အကောက်ဌာနက ယင်းကားမျိုးကို ပြည်ပပို့ခွင့်ပြုမယ့် မျှော်လင့်ချက်ဖြင့် စာရွက်စာတမ်းများကို မိတ္တူကူးပေးကြပါသည်။ မရိုးသားတဲ့ ပြည်ပတင်ပို့သူဟာ ခိုးထားတဲ့ ကားဖြစ်တာကို ဘယ်တော့မှ ပြောမှာ မဟုတ်တဲ့အပြင်၊ လှည့်ဖြားမှုမရှိ ပုံမှန် ဝယ်ယူထားတဲ့ ကားဆိုပြီး သင့်ကို ရောင်းပါလိမ့်မယ်။ လေလံပွဲမှာ ကားကို ဝယ်ခြင်းဖြင့် ခေါင်းခဲရခြင်းမရှိဘဲ ပြည်ပကို ပြဿနာမရှိ ချောမောစွာ တင်ပို့နိုင်ပါတယ်။