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The Used Car Market and Japanese Car Auctions
 Provide Cars sources cars from over 90 auctions all around Japan for car dealers and other bulk buyers overseas. So, what is it about the car market in Japan which car dealers overseas find so enticing? Access Closed, Dealer-Only Car Auctions Provide
Cars buys from closed, dealer-only car auctions all over Japan. Some
are parts of large auction houses, such as USS or JU. Others are small,
independent auctions. The
common factor with these auctions is that they are closed,
car-dealer-only auctions. In order to take part, you have to be a
registered car dealer in Japan, and you have to pay regular fees as
well as handing over a deposit. In many cases these car auctions will
also require that their members also have a Japanese guarantor, to
cover them in the case of non-payment. It
is impossible for a car dealer overseas to be able to meet these
requirements, but you can by-pass these by buying through Provide Cars. This
is where Japan's car dealers get stock and get rid of stock. These
auctions are not open to to public, and so the prices in these auctions
are considerably lower than you would be able to find on a car dealer's
lot. Why are Japanese used cars so much cheaper and better quality than similar secondhand cars in other countries? New Cars are Cheap - Second Hand Cars Are Cheaper The
Japanese car manufacturers (Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc) love to be
number 1 in their home market. Being the number 1 car manufacturer here
means selling more vehicles than the other guys. The
only way to keep on selling millions of cars year after year is to
keep prices down. Then, if new car prices are low, there is only
one
way that used car prices can go - down. So, the cheap new car market creates a flood of even cheaper used cars. The Japanese Culture of "New" Japanese
people love new things. Whether it is the latest gadget or cell phone,
or whether it is a new car, the Japanese have a cultural preference for
anything that is new.
A good example of this outside the car
world is that the average age of a house in Japan is 23 years old. This
means that on average a houses are demolished and rebuilt every 23
years, which is a very short period.
The result is that the
Japanese consumer is more likely to get rid of his or her new car after
a relatively short time. Of course, the flipside of this is that people
are less willing to buy used cars, so secondhand car prices tend to be
lower.
The Shaken Roadworthiness Test and Used Car Prices New cars in Japan do not have to take the roadworthiness test (called shaken = "shah ken" in Japanese), but after a few years this test becomes a biennial event. Putting
a car through this test can cost between one and two thousand dollars.
The effect is that as the test approaches, many people will decide to
get a new car instead. Since a lot of the population does this, the used
car market becomes flooded with cars, driving secondhand car prices
down. Japanese Used Cars Have Low Mileage It
is fortunate that Japan has an excellent public transport system. As
anyone who has lived in Japan will tell you, the amount of time
you can spend sitting at traffic lights is phenomenal. Although Japan
has a very good network of expressways, the average speed of traffic away from these toll roads is
very low due to lights and congestion. The upshot of this is that Japanese used cars have lower mileage than many similar-age cars in other countries. Sometimes
the mileage can seem very low, and this can raise the suspicion that
the odometer has been tampered with. However, Japan has very strict
penalties to deter against this, and the car auctions are also very
good at checking for this, so the odometer reading is reliable.
You can be sure that if
a car has had its odometer replaced or changed, or if the odometer has 5
digits and so could have "rolled over", this will be noted in the car
auction inspector's report which we translate for customers prior to
bidding.Japanese Used Cars are High Quality Japanese
people are very careful with their cars, often buying them from
official dealers and having them carefully maintained. The Shaken
roadworthiness test and low mileage they are driven also ensures that
Japanese used cars are often in much better condition than similar cars
in other countries. LHD Foreign Cars in Japan The
Japanese used car auctions are also a great place to source foreign
cars. These can be found in both LHD (left hand drive) and RHD (right
hand drive ) arrangements. Even though Japan is an RHD country in
general, there is a cachet about having a foreign car in LHD. This
results in the situation where cars such as Jaguars, Aston Martins and
Bentleys that are designed and built in the UK, which is an RHD
country, are often seen in LHD format on the roads in Japan.
Foreign
cars in Japan often start at a price premium compared with local
Japanese cars when they are new. However, the high cost of parts and
maintenance contributes to their used prices dropping relatively
quickly.
The only LHD cars which are very rare in Japan are LHD
cars that are made by Japanese manufacturers. So, cars such as LHD
Lexuses tend to be almost absent from the secondhand car market.
Seasonal Variations in Used Car Prices at Auction The
peak season in terms of numbers of vehicles in the car auctions in
Japan is in the Spring time. The end of one financial and fiscal year
at the end of March prompts many individuals and businesses to new
vehicles and get rid of old cars at this time. In
March and April there are days when the number of cars in the auctions
can exceed 50,000. This is both excellent additional choice for buyers,
and it also means that competition per car is lower so that prices in
general tend to drop. If you are interested in buying cars from the Japanese car auctions, please take our online auction service for a test drive: Click here to sign up for a free 14-day, no-obligation guest log in. |
