Not sure that with all the chaos in Japan, now is the time I would be thinking about getting a grey import.

I understand there can be rust issues as I believe salt isn't used on roads in Japan, so there is less underbody protection. Not sure if this is still true. Colleagues have imported from Europe to the UK and have had to produce a certificate of conformity to get it registered. There could also be an issue with an uncommon car which was never sold in exactly the same form within the EU, not having been tested previously, so no certificate would be available. I would suggest it isn't worth the hassle for such a car, unless you know that these problems don't apply.

Steven Quas

Hamburg

Edited by Steven Quas on 08/05/2011 at 01:53

A friend imported his so-called grey new-ish Nissan via Dublin and despite the poor £/€ exchange, got a good deal. (We live nearer to the RoI than SE England.)

The warranty seemed to be world-wide and was all in English, as was the owners handbook, and while the labels on the switches &c were mostly icons, one or two were in Japanese.

The best part was the Sat Nav - no maps of Europe, just one of Japan, and a massive error message in Japanese probably saying location not found!

Edited by BigJohnD on 23/05/2011 at 03:55

If you haven't come across it already, goo-net exchange is useful for getting an idea of specs and prices.

Hello,

I imported a car from Japan back in 2000. I bought it from a Japanese dealer who had a partner in the UK. So, the car was advertised in Japan and the UK with the UK customer (me) picking up the cost of importing it and converting to the UK spec.

I had the car undersealed, fog lights fitted, speedo converted, radio converted and an alarm fitted. The process was very easy, but only because the UK partner made it so. I even have the Japanese de-registration docs.

BTW Lots of cars that arrived via Dublin were stolen.

Personally, I wouldn't import one now, for the reasons given above inother replies. Also, when I bought the car, it was money I could afford to lose, should something had gone wrong.

Ultimately the car I imported, an Mitsubishi FTO, was about 25% cheaper all in. I still have the car now!