importing cars
- Thread starter Musashi
- Start date
just live in tokyo for a few years and then start missing USDM after you get sick of everyone having JDM. then move back here and do the same thing.
Damn...Half you guys must live in the middle of the US. If you lived in S. Cali all u gotta do is go up tp LA and buy a skyline for like 9 g's. I know of a couple of car lot dealer and even wrecking yards who have rhd drive cars. All kinds to pick from. s**t, this one place near the LAX is like a candy store for JDM s**t. As far as car and shipping goes. But handling reg and all that stuff really isnt that hard. I read a article in a mag (boggles my mind which one) about a guy with a black 91 jdm teg. He talked about getting the car legalized and all and he said its not as hard as people make it out to be as long as u know all the laws.
Musashi said:anybody know how or where to go to import Whole cars from japan? i don't want to spend hours, dollars and such turning my american hatch into a japanese hatch when i could just start out with a japanese hatchback straight up!
someone must know how!
well so you all know how to import car into the us it's a simple, but it all depends on what you want it for.
in the us you can import any car it to the us, but here is the tricky part. if it's a personal import for yourself and not for resale, and the car is over 10years old it's rather simple, you need documentation for the car, and prof of miles on the car, and get it smoged and passed inspection, then you don't have to get all the convertions done to the car. there are a few more steps invovled, and i'll get them later.
but this is for personal imports only and over 10 years old.
now for grey market cars it gets a lot harder, and car made in the last 10 years. this is ware it all gets really expensive, with newer car, they have to conform to us laws and regs for new cars and have to fitted with all safty and smog equpment, to pass inspetion, you have to have a license to trade with the country, or a dealer licence to import and pay all tariffs and taxes on the cars when they come to the states.
this i'm missing a lot of information, and this is all of the top of my head, i looked into importing cars about 6months ago, and still looking for information, on this one.
as far as the two go personal importing is the cheapest, and easiest. but shipping and legalizing the car will still cost about 2500-4500 depending on the shipping of the car, and this is on top of the price of the car.
hope this helps and i'll get the rest of the information when i find it....
I would love to import a car from Japan. An Integra Type R and Skyline would be the ones I would do.
What the hell is the US so worried about smog regulations and s**t for? We already got global warming why the hell would it matter now? The USDM makes me wonder sometimes...
What the hell is the US so worried about smog regulations and s**t for? We already got global warming why the hell would it matter now? The USDM makes me wonder sometimes...
Tom
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very very true, but our gov't just sucks .SCCRules said:I would love to import a car from Japan. An Integra Type R and Skyline would be the ones I would do.
What the hell is the US so worried about smog regulations and s**t for? We already got global warming why the hell would it matter now? The USDM makes me wonder sometimes...
yeah, so vote kerry and make it suck less! honestly though, how many people are going to import jdm cars anyway? enough to make a difference with smog or safety? most americans are happy with their saturns.jspeczcturbo said:very very true, but our gov't just sucks .
i didnt read this whole post - but imin england and did all the research, to help a friend ship his skyline back tot he states - you basicly have two options. ship the car as is and pay to have alot of work done to it to convert it to us spec or spes it as a show car and pay alot for the paper work it takes todo it. and just for record if noone has already said it - the skyline is the only rhd car allowed in the states to stay rhd, and not be show car only. everything else has to be converted to lhd. its only allowed b/c of the great want for that car.
well i head a this from a couple of years ago..but i was under the impression that Motorex or something like that was the only company in the united states that had been approved by the government to make skylines legal...through crash testing and what not. If this has changed lemme know?
motorex is not like that - they do not "make" skylines they just import and sell them - and yes they are the only ones that are legal to sell them in the states. but they are not the only ones that can import them. you goto japan buy your own car and import it - it is legal and has nothign todo with motorex. they suck anyway - way over priced. you can get a decent skyline for nothing - but gotta weight it.
when you get it back it will cost an arm and a leg to get parts for it. hell even gettin belts for the motor are hard and crazy to get unless you know someone there in japan, then ya gotta wait for shippin.
im me if you need more info
when you get it back it will cost an arm and a leg to get parts for it. hell even gettin belts for the motor are hard and crazy to get unless you know someone there in japan, then ya gotta wait for shippin.
im me if you need more info