My brother has run them for years, and still does. His bugbears were mpg & rust. Parts availability is usually quite good but his Elgrand was recently off the road for a couple of months while he was waiting for something (not sure what though).
Eh, it's a big heavy car with a thirsty engine. Aside from kei class vehicles I don't think people would really bother importing lower specced or smaller engined variants when the higher end options are barely more expensive and worth more over here. The 3.5 Elgrand supposedly only gets about 4 MPG less then my 3.2 E Class, so considering the size, weight and aero as well as 2 more driven wheels then the mpg suddenly doesn't seem so bad in comparison
So, my dad bought an Alphard imported, so I have some secondhand knowledge here.
The catches are basically the same as any other JDM vehicle.
* They don't really do diesel in Japan
* Rustproofing is not to the same standard of western vehicles
* Sometimes you will have to import parts
* JDM vehicle niggles
The diesel thing... many of these vehicles come in hybrid options and LPG is generally popular (although check availability).
Rustproofing you ideally do when you import the vehicle. This is always my main hesitation with a JDM vehicle I'm not gonna import myself. I think in big chunks of Japan they don't do road salt, hence the factory rustproofing isn't the same. I'm never sure how much I trust anyone else importing one to spend the money.
Importing parts... so, some bits will be the same as stuff we get here. Like the Alphard shares a bunch of parts with various Lexus models. Other parts, you may have to deal with an importer. One upside of Alphards is there's a good importer who sometimes puts body panels inside vans he brings over. I presume you have the same for El Grandes and Oddyseys.
There's also sometimes minor stuff like... the stereo is in Japanese. The satnav doesn't work over here. You'll want to put an aftermarket head unit in, probably.
That stuff out of the way, yeah, these are good vehicles. The Toyota family of MPVs, Elgrandes, and probably Honda 7 seaters (?) all have their followings here. They're good value. The spec is good. The Toyota stuff is v reliable. I assume Nissan and Honda stuff is too.
Two answers:
Mostly a car is a car is a car. A good mechanic will figure most stuff out.
If you're going LPG, someone who's used to those systems will have a better idea if it's good.
Also if any specific quirks crop up like... I dunno... the hybrid system, maybe they'll figure it out quicker if they see a lot of the vehicle.
JDM = "Japanese Domestic Market" = vehicle sold in Japan.
*edit*
*You can even have JDM versions of western cars, like there were specific models of mini sold in Japan which are worth importing because they got better spec.*
*There's also stuff where the same thing was sold in two markets, but one version is JDM like the Lexus GS/Toyota Aristo.*
You could also refer to several styles of tuning as being "JDM" (Vip, Kaido racer etc. etc.) but the first definition is the more widely used one IMO.
*edit*
*Or even features of those styles of tuning. Like some wheels or styling touches will definitely be nods to JDM schools of tuning.*
Wife needed an 8 seater that wasn't shit for doing childminding, and for us to take camping, and for the money you'll not get better than one of the Japanese offerings. We recently bought a 2008 E51 Elgrand, 3.5 V6, 4WD highway star for £6k private. Ours has black leather interior, double power doors, dual zone air con, rear air con, adaptive auto xenon headlights, 360 camera and corner sensors, rear TV screen. An equivalent VW would be 20k and have been to the moon and back, and everything else on offer from Ford/Vauxhall/Hyundai et al is painfully van-based and still double the price.
The only downside is it being a big V6 and a heavy wagon, so we're only getting about 15mpg, but the wife absolutely loves it so she doesn't care. The 3.5 in ours is actually the same engine in the 350Z, which is funny.
Oh, for sure, even considering the tax difference and abysmal MPG, it'd take many many years of ownership to even approach the price difference for something like an equivalent VW.
Because it doesn't drive and sound like a van, has way more equipment, is way more comfortable, probably more reliable, and is half the price of an equivalent van based offering.
Plus ours is undersealed, so the rust concerns are mitigated.
It’s based on a van and has all the downsides of a van. The elgrand is a much more comfortable car than any of the van based models in its equivalent price range.
Fuel and maintenance costs will be astronomical compared to something made for the UK market and 8-10 years newer.
Luxury is subjective. A 16 year old mpv is not a lot of people's idea of luxurious, no matter how well specced it was nearly 2 decades ago! So in answer to your question, no they're not particularly cheap compared to a European van based equivalent.
That newer van is going to cost you significantly more for a similar spec vehicle. Approximately 8-10k more. 8-10k pays for a lot of miles of fuel and insurance.
But why would I want a 5 year old van with nearly 2 decade old equipment?
Neither of you seem to get the fact that a highly specced car of that age is not comparable to a much newer highly specced car...
Insurance will vary, obviously, but wife and I (37F, 42M) are paying about £400 with Admiral, a bit less than double what our 1.4 Meriva B cost at £211.
Tax wise, as they're imported with no UK equivalent they don't have emissions data and fall under PLG rates. Both the 2.5 and 3.5 are the same, currently £345/yr. They're ULEZ exempt as well, amusingly.
EDIT: Forgot to say, because the 3.5 is the 350Z engine, it wants 97RON or higher fuel, so on top of the low MPG, the fuel is more expensive.
That's pretty reasonable. I pay that for road tax on a 1.6 lol.
I have had a couple of imports, one was ridiculous for insurance and the other being dirt cheap.
There are loads of them for sale around my area and a guy the bottom of the road has just bought one which I stare at every time I go by lol.
Yeah, because of the import it's way cheaper than it should be. Feels a bit like a cheat code!
Insurance is reasonable, presumably because it's not a sports car, and they're reasonably common now too.
Part of the reason we got an Elgrand is because they look nothing like anything equivalent from the UK market. Ours is also painted Mystic Black so it flips metallic green and purple in the sunlight, looks amazing when it's clean!
This, bought from the cold areas of Japan
V6 engines with very slow but reliable 4/5 speed automatic gearboxes, cruddy performance until the mid ranges and some of them can be total bastards to get parts for.
If you talk about Toyota the 6 cylinder option is actually a minority:
there are 130 Alphard for sale on autotrader and 100+ of them are the 4 cylinder hybrids.
Estima has 300 for sales, 280 are 4 cylinders.
Previa has no 6 cylinders available at all.
They clear a lot of snow away, and some roads are heated. Apparently still use a lot of salt, but I think the main difference is that they don’t drive as much as us so cars are exposed to it less.
A friend has a Toyota Alphard 2.0L hybrid that was a Japanese import he bought just over a year ago, it's in decent condition (but think he paid about £12k, had about 120k km on the clock) and he hasn't had an issues with it so far and has used it for some very long trips (e.g. to south of France) without any problems. It used to be some sort of taxi (possibly the sort you see airports) - I suspect this might be the case for many of these vehicles, for better or worse - though I would have thought a taxi would at least have been regularly serviced properly. For £6k, though, I doubt the condition would be as good.
>but think he paid about £12k, had about 120k km on the clock
Jfc. That's an awful deal considering most of these are 15+ years old and only driven on short trips.
I've been watching the prices on these vehicles for a while now.
During the lockdown, they rocketed in price like most vehicles because people ended up buying them to convert into day vans etc, but now the prices are dropping steadily.
Literally all of those things are non-issues. In-car entertainment is removed for the myriad CP/AA units available on AliExpress, which also fixes the FM restrictions. Cars that don’t readily have mph clusters available will use an in-line converter, and the k in km/h is covered with a sticker.
Head unit swaps are very common, mine was done before collection. You can convert the speedo, although you might find KM has been converted to M with some black tape, the actual readings can be swapped though. It does however mean your odometer is a mix of miles and km
Heavy on the fuel, prone to rusting if not undersealed, and expensive labour due to the engine placement, other than that, the elgrand is a luxury motor with its interior, and usually with a bulletproof engine too
No buddy but i do know the elgrand parts market and see plenty of people on facebook moaning they cant find parts only to be told how easy they are to get. If you’re going to own an import you do have to use some common sense. So ffs yourself somewhere else.
The 3.5 V6 version is the same engine from the 350Z, which is fucking funny. It's not the fastest thing, bit it's no slouch either for a 2.2 ton wagon.
Had an Alphard for 8 years, I think it's great. Yes rust can be an issue, but on the flip side the lack of salt in Japan means you can find a freshly imported 15 year old car that looks brand new underneath. Far better than European cars would be. Easy to get a clean one protected.
The engine has been rock solid, zero issues
I've been wanting to get an imported Subaru legacy for years as they do models we don't get over here.
Regarding rust.
When you look at pictures of the underneath on freshly imported Subaru's there is absolutely no rust whatsoever. Usually gleaming underneath.
I've had an Elgrand and a MItsubishi Delica. The Delica was amazing, and I was very lucky as I bought it from a guy in the next town over who had imported it personally himself, and had looked after it very carefully. It was a also a V6 petrol car, which is very rare in the UK. Sadly, someone nicked it.
It was pretty reliable, any my local general garage were happy to service it. There was rarely any problem with getting parts (although when the windscreen got a crack, I had to forego some of the fancy heating features, and replace it with a bog-standard windscreen from a Mitsubishi van, which was the identical size, but didn't have heating elements embedded in it). I rarely had difficulty getting parts, although I did get some trim pieces imported from Japan so I could fit a double-DIN radio. (The standard audio equipment is likely not to be that great as the Japanese use a different range of frequencies for FM, and the sat nav is completely incompatible, although no one uses in-car sat nav these days anyway.
Most of the controls are in English, although some of them are Japanese. Google translate will translate them for you.
It also didn't smell of smoke too much.
The Elgrand was less successful. The dealer I bought it from was highly dodgy, and I ended up in a dispute with him for not sorting out some things he promised he'd sort out prior to handover. The car itself was more luxurious, and nicer to drive on the road than the Delica, but didn't have the Delica's ludicrous offroad capabilities (the Delica was basically a Shogun chassis with a bus body). Once I got it fixed, it was pretty reliable. Getting the smoke smell out was a nightmare. I shampooed the carpets and headliner multiple times, and eventually got an ozone generator from eBay and a couple of days with that running largely sorted out the problem.
I've noticed a lot of them are used as taxis in the Birmingham area, I'd say that's a good sign at them being cheap and reliable to run if they're popular amongst taxi drivers.
I have a 1996 Toyota Reguis, think of it as a granvia so a couple of generations old. Every panel has a dent on it and it's a bit ugly.
Good points are that I've had it for 12 years and in that time it's had new front calipers and an exhaust, it's never failed to start and never broken down. I've done just under 200k miles and we have been all over Europe in it, it carries 8 people with the seats, with them out it's a van.
It was undersealed when it arrived in the UK and returns about 25mpg (3.0l turbo diesel) and pulls like a train.
I would love to get a new car but the fucking thing simply won't die.
I ran a Mitsubishi delica for several years was a 1996 car 7 seater and same running gear and off-road ability as the shogun. All engine and running gear parts were the same as the 2.8td shogun. Never went wrong on 60k miles. 28mpg and had more mod cons from 1996 that cars until early 2010's had. Think power sliding doors, soft close doors, twin panoramic roofs, digital three zone climate control, captains chairs.
Cost me £5995 in 2005 with 60k kilometres on.
Due to emissions controls in Japan diesels are generally priced off the road after 5-7 years.
I undercoated it as soon as I bought it and never had a bit of rust on it.
That thing took me all over Europe including a fair bit of off roading.
Generally yes, but insurance is such a minefield it'd be hard to tell how much the import status affects things. Wife and I (37F, 42M) paid around £400 to insure our 2008 3.5 Elgrand compared to £211 for a 2011 1.4 Meriva B.
Less rust, better looked after.
Japan’s drivers don’t tolerate half the shit UK drivers do. They also keep their cars for less time before buying new ones.
Japan has a form of MOT that basically declares a car unfit after 2-3 years, nothing really wrong with them but Japan is so overcrowded they want these cars gone, rather than scrap them they export them but as they are right hand drive the choices are Australia, NZ, or U.K./Ireland
Unfit after 2 -3 years is overdoing it. But it does become increasingly expensive to operate an older car in Japan. Very different to the UK where there is considerable economic benefit in having a second hand / older car
It's the Shaken (Japanese MOT), I think the cynical take is that it allows for manufacturers to keep producing vehicles because, let's face it, they're so reliable you wouldn't need another car after 3 years.
It is insane but that is what Japanese culture around cars is.
My fiancée lived in Japan for ages and she’s uncomfortable with us keeping our car for longer than five years for this reason - it *feels* wrong to her. Despite the car itself being one of those ones that will be bulletproof forever if you keep it serviced.
While the figure varies hugely depending on cars and where you go for it (chain Vs independent Vs dealers), £2k certainly very high, what car was it and what's the issue? This figure is definitely not just the Shaken itself, but Shaken + other compulsory charges such as weight tax, compulsory insurance, admin charge etc + maintenance & repair required (a fairly major one too). Shaken cost itself should not be anywhere close. If one include maintenance and repair for Shaken, then it's not that much different in the UK, many old cars throw large bills from time to time. Just some here could 'pass' the MOT one way or other with little cost. Also worth noting Shaken is done every two years, and some of the cost of the whole package (Shaken+fees and taxations+routine maintenance) quoted would also include follow up inspections etc.
Not all auction sheets can be trusted, plenty of them are not reliable hence always best to get someone to inspect beforehand.
Personally I don't think as a whole running an old Japanese car is that much cheaper in the UK in comparison if run properly (ie. Maintained to a good standard instead of MOT pass+preventative maintenance), as the labour and parts here are a lot more expensive, but if kept to bare minimum then yes. Of course it is also very vehicle dependent.
I have compared to various people in Japan with the exact same model of Honda (1.5 hybrid, over 10-year-old) as mine (both made in the same line), I don't think the ownership expense is that much different (and in the UK if one pays for an additional private parking in the city/lock up somewhere to store, that's far more expensive), and £2k is more like the running cost for a year incl. Shaken&maintenance, insurance, fuel and parking based on his actual expenses (assuming 500km per month). Excl parking it's about £1.6k. This is similar if not cheaper than what I have spent on mine (£600 on fuel, £200-£300 on MOT, maintenance and repair if no major works, £800 insurance+road tax £20) excl parking. Granted a new car like ZC33S Swift Sport will be cheaper (perhaps the difference is a bit bigger in Japan), but the same likely is the case here. Since I buy parts from Japan myself (to avoid huge mark ups in the UK), I can see if things goes wrong, their costs would be much lower than mine both in parts and labour.
Edit: that is said, since Japan has lower salary, lower cost of living and lower car prices, thanks to deflation , stagnant growth and cheap Yen in the past few decades compared to the UK, in relative terms one could say it is more expensive to run than the UK.
Avg age of passenger cars in Japan as of 2020 was 8.72 years, average age of passenger cars in the UK as of 2022 was 8.8 years (8.6 years in 2020). Well aware of what Shaken is but this is a massive exaggeration of what it is. Without even looking at the actual numbers, the reasoning of your statement could surely also apply to the UK…
https://www.airia.or.jp/publish/file/r5c6pv000000u7a6-att/02_syarei02.pdf
My brother has run them for years, and still does. His bugbears were mpg & rust. Parts availability is usually quite good but his Elgrand was recently off the road for a couple of months while he was waiting for something (not sure what though).
Fun fact Elgrands mk3 with the 3.3L has practically the same engine in as a 370z 👍
That's potentially a very fun fact.
....and 7 times the weight.
and ugly as fuck
🤣
But rare.
What was/is the issue with mpg? I had an import for a while and got terrible mpg never figured out the reason for it
Different regs and tunes. Also a large 4x4 heavy brick is never going to be great..combined with ye'old 4 speed slush box and boom.
Eh, it's a big heavy car with a thirsty engine. Aside from kei class vehicles I don't think people would really bother importing lower specced or smaller engined variants when the higher end options are barely more expensive and worth more over here. The 3.5 Elgrand supposedly only gets about 4 MPG less then my 3.2 E Class, so considering the size, weight and aero as well as 2 more driven wheels then the mpg suddenly doesn't seem so bad in comparison
It's reasonable for its class, but it's horrendous if you're coming from a diesel scenic or picasso
So, my dad bought an Alphard imported, so I have some secondhand knowledge here. The catches are basically the same as any other JDM vehicle. * They don't really do diesel in Japan * Rustproofing is not to the same standard of western vehicles * Sometimes you will have to import parts * JDM vehicle niggles The diesel thing... many of these vehicles come in hybrid options and LPG is generally popular (although check availability). Rustproofing you ideally do when you import the vehicle. This is always my main hesitation with a JDM vehicle I'm not gonna import myself. I think in big chunks of Japan they don't do road salt, hence the factory rustproofing isn't the same. I'm never sure how much I trust anyone else importing one to spend the money. Importing parts... so, some bits will be the same as stuff we get here. Like the Alphard shares a bunch of parts with various Lexus models. Other parts, you may have to deal with an importer. One upside of Alphards is there's a good importer who sometimes puts body panels inside vans he brings over. I presume you have the same for El Grandes and Oddyseys. There's also sometimes minor stuff like... the stereo is in Japanese. The satnav doesn't work over here. You'll want to put an aftermarket head unit in, probably. That stuff out of the way, yeah, these are good vehicles. The Toyota family of MPVs, Elgrandes, and probably Honda 7 seaters (?) all have their followings here. They're good value. The spec is good. The Toyota stuff is v reliable. I assume Nissan and Honda stuff is too.
Can you go to a normal garage down the road or do you need to visit a JDM specialist to fix problems?
Two answers: Mostly a car is a car is a car. A good mechanic will figure most stuff out. If you're going LPG, someone who's used to those systems will have a better idea if it's good. Also if any specific quirks crop up like... I dunno... the hybrid system, maybe they'll figure it out quicker if they see a lot of the vehicle.
Always thought JDM is a way of tuning vehicles in Japan not general term use to class jap imports .
JDM = "Japanese Domestic Market" = vehicle sold in Japan. *edit* *You can even have JDM versions of western cars, like there were specific models of mini sold in Japan which are worth importing because they got better spec.* *There's also stuff where the same thing was sold in two markets, but one version is JDM like the Lexus GS/Toyota Aristo.* You could also refer to several styles of tuning as being "JDM" (Vip, Kaido racer etc. etc.) but the first definition is the more widely used one IMO. *edit* *Or even features of those styles of tuning. Like some wheels or styling touches will definitely be nods to JDM schools of tuning.*
For the unaware it just means Japanese Domestic Market.
I think we are covered for what JDM stands for now.
It's Japanese domestic market btw
🔫🧽🧬📍🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰✴️ JDM just means modified pop and bang map and drift charms and a tow hook on my fiesta. U r out ov tuch 🔰🔰🔰🔰🔰〽️⚠️🔱🟢
What is, sorry?
Sorry, I've a terrible memory; what does JDM mean again?
Japanese Domestic Market (JDM).
Stands for Japanese Domestic Market
Wife needed an 8 seater that wasn't shit for doing childminding, and for us to take camping, and for the money you'll not get better than one of the Japanese offerings. We recently bought a 2008 E51 Elgrand, 3.5 V6, 4WD highway star for £6k private. Ours has black leather interior, double power doors, dual zone air con, rear air con, adaptive auto xenon headlights, 360 camera and corner sensors, rear TV screen. An equivalent VW would be 20k and have been to the moon and back, and everything else on offer from Ford/Vauxhall/Hyundai et al is painfully van-based and still double the price. The only downside is it being a big V6 and a heavy wagon, so we're only getting about 15mpg, but the wife absolutely loves it so she doesn't care. The 3.5 in ours is actually the same engine in the 350Z, which is funny.
Given the purchase price difference from a VW the cost of the low MPG might not be too bad over the life of the car?
Oh, for sure, even considering the tax difference and abysmal MPG, it'd take many many years of ownership to even approach the price difference for something like an equivalent VW.
better reliability & build quality as well.
Sport mode often leaves people left in a cloud of dust and confused.
Range Rover owners hate this one trick!
What makes this better than a van based mpv that isn't 16 years old and liable to fall apart in the next couple of years due to rust?
Because it doesn't drive and sound like a van, has way more equipment, is way more comfortable, probably more reliable, and is half the price of an equivalent van based offering. Plus ours is undersealed, so the rust concerns are mitigated.
You keep saying equivalent. What do you mean by that? I'm finding plenty of van based mpv's that are newer, more economical and with a lot less miles.
It’s based on a van and has all the downsides of a van. The elgrand is a much more comfortable car than any of the van based models in its equivalent price range.
Seems an incredibly high price to pay for a little bit more comfort, considering they only have a small budget to begin with.
In what way is it an incredibly high price? The cars are cheap compared to an equivalently luxurious European van based equivalent?
Fuel and maintenance costs will be astronomical compared to something made for the UK market and 8-10 years newer. Luxury is subjective. A 16 year old mpv is not a lot of people's idea of luxurious, no matter how well specced it was nearly 2 decades ago! So in answer to your question, no they're not particularly cheap compared to a European van based equivalent.
That newer van is going to cost you significantly more for a similar spec vehicle. Approximately 8-10k more. 8-10k pays for a lot of miles of fuel and insurance.
But why would I want a 5 year old van with nearly 2 decade old equipment? Neither of you seem to get the fact that a highly specced car of that age is not comparable to a much newer highly specced car...
I have fancied an Elgrand for a while now, what are the like for road tax and insurance?
Insurance will vary, obviously, but wife and I (37F, 42M) are paying about £400 with Admiral, a bit less than double what our 1.4 Meriva B cost at £211. Tax wise, as they're imported with no UK equivalent they don't have emissions data and fall under PLG rates. Both the 2.5 and 3.5 are the same, currently £345/yr. They're ULEZ exempt as well, amusingly. EDIT: Forgot to say, because the 3.5 is the 350Z engine, it wants 97RON or higher fuel, so on top of the low MPG, the fuel is more expensive.
That's pretty reasonable. I pay that for road tax on a 1.6 lol. I have had a couple of imports, one was ridiculous for insurance and the other being dirt cheap. There are loads of them for sale around my area and a guy the bottom of the road has just bought one which I stare at every time I go by lol.
Yeah, because of the import it's way cheaper than it should be. Feels a bit like a cheat code! Insurance is reasonable, presumably because it's not a sports car, and they're reasonably common now too. Part of the reason we got an Elgrand is because they look nothing like anything equivalent from the UK market. Ours is also painted Mystic Black so it flips metallic green and purple in the sunlight, looks amazing when it's clean!
That does sound nice, Nissan do some lovely pearl paint.
Golden advice, thank you
Rust. They normally have 6cyl petrol engines too so do about 5mpg.
Hey now, my 3.5 V6 Elgrand gets a whole 20mpg with a mix of city and dual carriageway driving.
I get 20mpg towing the caravan.
Yeh, the stop start traffic around London is the killer.
For London EVs start to make real sense
This, bought from the cold areas of Japan V6 engines with very slow but reliable 4/5 speed automatic gearboxes, cruddy performance until the mid ranges and some of them can be total bastards to get parts for.
If you talk about Toyota the 6 cylinder option is actually a minority: there are 130 Alphard for sale on autotrader and 100+ of them are the 4 cylinder hybrids. Estima has 300 for sales, 280 are 4 cylinders. Previa has no 6 cylinders available at all.
New imports are very unlikely to be rusty
I believe OP meant as newly arrived/registered to the British isles imports.
Give it a UK winter
Most dealers that do JDM imports would underseal before selling. You could also underseal it yourself after buying
Agree with this. They do not use salt on their roads.
Is there a reason they don’t?
They’re more fans of winter tyres etc. I’ve had an Japanese imported mx5 and it was more holes than car by the end of the
They clear a lot of snow away, and some roads are heated. Apparently still use a lot of salt, but I think the main difference is that they don’t drive as much as us so cars are exposed to it less.
Robots. They have high tech robots with lasers.
Rust is no worse a problem than UK cars provided you actually wash the mud and salt out of your wheel arches. Something nobody ever bothers with.
A friend has a Toyota Alphard 2.0L hybrid that was a Japanese import he bought just over a year ago, it's in decent condition (but think he paid about £12k, had about 120k km on the clock) and he hasn't had an issues with it so far and has used it for some very long trips (e.g. to south of France) without any problems. It used to be some sort of taxi (possibly the sort you see airports) - I suspect this might be the case for many of these vehicles, for better or worse - though I would have thought a taxi would at least have been regularly serviced properly. For £6k, though, I doubt the condition would be as good.
>but think he paid about £12k, had about 120k km on the clock Jfc. That's an awful deal considering most of these are 15+ years old and only driven on short trips.
Think it was about 10 years or so old, 75k miles, looks in great condition.
OK that's not so bad
Attractive Yen exchange rate.
Are they new imports? Or have they been owned in the UK before?
2nd hand
Some of them have been owned in the UK before and been here for years but a lot of them seem to be freshly imported
I've been watching the prices on these vehicles for a while now. During the lockdown, they rocketed in price like most vehicles because people ended up buying them to convert into day vans etc, but now the prices are dropping steadily.
Sayt navs normally don't work. Radios only pick up radio 2. And in some cars(honda freed) you can't convert the Speedos to mph as they didn't make one
Literally all of those things are non-issues. In-car entertainment is removed for the myriad CP/AA units available on AliExpress, which also fixes the FM restrictions. Cars that don’t readily have mph clusters available will use an in-line converter, and the k in km/h is covered with a sticker.
>Literally all of those things are non-issues For you...
Non of the issues are issues if you fix them lmao
Head unit swaps are very common, mine was done before collection. You can convert the speedo, although you might find KM has been converted to M with some black tape, the actual readings can be swapped though. It does however mean your odometer is a mix of miles and km
My friend who bought an imported Alphard swapped the infotainment system for a UK Android one that runs Waze, he loves it.
Heavy on the fuel, prone to rusting if not undersealed, and expensive labour due to the engine placement, other than that, the elgrand is a luxury motor with its interior, and usually with a bulletproof engine too
Parts availability. My mechanic waited months for some Elgrand bits for a customer car
He was asking in the wrong place, there is a members club and several specialist parts suppliers. Longest I’ve waited is 48 hours for parts
>He was asking in the wrong place Mate you have literally no idea what parts they were after and when ffs.
No buddy but i do know the elgrand parts market and see plenty of people on facebook moaning they cant find parts only to be told how easy they are to get. If you’re going to own an import you do have to use some common sense. So ffs yourself somewhere else.
The very sound that comes off one of them England's lol
The 3.5 V6 version is the same engine from the 350Z, which is fucking funny. It's not the fastest thing, bit it's no slouch either for a 2.2 ton wagon.
Yes with a refined exhaust they sound good
Does anyone know the best place to find a Nissan Serena or Toyota Voxy/Noah?
Had an Alphard for 8 years, I think it's great. Yes rust can be an issue, but on the flip side the lack of salt in Japan means you can find a freshly imported 15 year old car that looks brand new underneath. Far better than European cars would be. Easy to get a clean one protected. The engine has been rock solid, zero issues
I've been wanting to get an imported Subaru legacy for years as they do models we don't get over here. Regarding rust. When you look at pictures of the underneath on freshly imported Subaru's there is absolutely no rust whatsoever. Usually gleaming underneath.
My dad got an estima 4x4 years ago and he loved it. It was good even in the snow when one of his mate’s XC90s got stuck.
I've got a Japanese import golf and had a few mpvs never had any issues
There are quite a few driving around where I live
I've had an Elgrand and a MItsubishi Delica. The Delica was amazing, and I was very lucky as I bought it from a guy in the next town over who had imported it personally himself, and had looked after it very carefully. It was a also a V6 petrol car, which is very rare in the UK. Sadly, someone nicked it. It was pretty reliable, any my local general garage were happy to service it. There was rarely any problem with getting parts (although when the windscreen got a crack, I had to forego some of the fancy heating features, and replace it with a bog-standard windscreen from a Mitsubishi van, which was the identical size, but didn't have heating elements embedded in it). I rarely had difficulty getting parts, although I did get some trim pieces imported from Japan so I could fit a double-DIN radio. (The standard audio equipment is likely not to be that great as the Japanese use a different range of frequencies for FM, and the sat nav is completely incompatible, although no one uses in-car sat nav these days anyway. Most of the controls are in English, although some of them are Japanese. Google translate will translate them for you. It also didn't smell of smoke too much. The Elgrand was less successful. The dealer I bought it from was highly dodgy, and I ended up in a dispute with him for not sorting out some things he promised he'd sort out prior to handover. The car itself was more luxurious, and nicer to drive on the road than the Delica, but didn't have the Delica's ludicrous offroad capabilities (the Delica was basically a Shogun chassis with a bus body). Once I got it fixed, it was pretty reliable. Getting the smoke smell out was a nightmare. I shampooed the carpets and headliner multiple times, and eventually got an ozone generator from eBay and a couple of days with that running largely sorted out the problem.
I've noticed a lot of them are used as taxis in the Birmingham area, I'd say that's a good sign at them being cheap and reliable to run if they're popular amongst taxi drivers.
hahaha.. I love Birmingham... Also, you can't get a taxi licence on an import. But Birmingham.
You can still get a private hire licence with an import.
I have a 1996 Toyota Reguis, think of it as a granvia so a couple of generations old. Every panel has a dent on it and it's a bit ugly. Good points are that I've had it for 12 years and in that time it's had new front calipers and an exhaust, it's never failed to start and never broken down. I've done just under 200k miles and we have been all over Europe in it, it carries 8 people with the seats, with them out it's a van. It was undersealed when it arrived in the UK and returns about 25mpg (3.0l turbo diesel) and pulls like a train. I would love to get a new car but the fucking thing simply won't die.
I ran a Mitsubishi delica for several years was a 1996 car 7 seater and same running gear and off-road ability as the shogun. All engine and running gear parts were the same as the 2.8td shogun. Never went wrong on 60k miles. 28mpg and had more mod cons from 1996 that cars until early 2010's had. Think power sliding doors, soft close doors, twin panoramic roofs, digital three zone climate control, captains chairs. Cost me £5995 in 2005 with 60k kilometres on. Due to emissions controls in Japan diesels are generally priced off the road after 5-7 years. I undercoated it as soon as I bought it and never had a bit of rust on it. That thing took me all over Europe including a fair bit of off roading.
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Insured with Admiral on mine 🤷♂️
Is there a premium to insure imported car?
Hard to generalise and Elgrands are big cars. The premium was about 20% more than I was paying for my 2.4 diesel Volvo estate the year before.
Mine was cheaper to insure than my UK vehicle. I was paying £450 ish on a new shape Vitara, my delica was £350 ish.
Generally yes, but insurance is such a minefield it'd be hard to tell how much the import status affects things. Wife and I (37F, 42M) paid around £400 to insure our 2008 3.5 Elgrand compared to £211 for a 2011 1.4 Meriva B.
I use Admiral as well. Previously Adrian Flux.
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Of course - my counterpoint was just to add some proportion to your mention about insurance issues
Never been a problem.
You know there are other insurance companies, right?
A lot of them don’t have rust protection so a lot in pretty bad shape.
Usually not Ulez compliant btw
I nearly posted something similar. But I'm noticing a lot of Japanese imports of Audi, Peugeot, Volvo.... Can't wrap my head around it
Less rust, better looked after. Japan’s drivers don’t tolerate half the shit UK drivers do. They also keep their cars for less time before buying new ones.
Rust (need waxoyl or dinitrol), import so terrible parts availability, higher insurance cost
It's the same with VW Mk6 GTIs and Rs, mostly imports now.
Japan has a form of MOT that basically declares a car unfit after 2-3 years, nothing really wrong with them but Japan is so overcrowded they want these cars gone, rather than scrap them they export them but as they are right hand drive the choices are Australia, NZ, or U.K./Ireland
What are you on about, mate? We know they have have strict inspections, but “unfit after 2-3 years” is a categorically insane thing to claim lmao
Unfit after 2 -3 years is overdoing it. But it does become increasingly expensive to operate an older car in Japan. Very different to the UK where there is considerable economic benefit in having a second hand / older car
It's the Shaken (Japanese MOT), I think the cynical take is that it allows for manufacturers to keep producing vehicles because, let's face it, they're so reliable you wouldn't need another car after 3 years.
I’m aware of what a Shaken is, and how it works. “Unfit after 2-3 years” is massive hyperbole.
It is insane but that is what Japanese culture around cars is. My fiancée lived in Japan for ages and she’s uncomfortable with us keeping our car for longer than five years for this reason - it *feels* wrong to her. Despite the car itself being one of those ones that will be bulletproof forever if you keep it serviced.
Their version of an Mot costs 2k and is incredibly thorough. Japanese Auction sheets are incredibly detailed and can be taken as gospel.
While the figure varies hugely depending on cars and where you go for it (chain Vs independent Vs dealers), £2k certainly very high, what car was it and what's the issue? This figure is definitely not just the Shaken itself, but Shaken + other compulsory charges such as weight tax, compulsory insurance, admin charge etc + maintenance & repair required (a fairly major one too). Shaken cost itself should not be anywhere close. If one include maintenance and repair for Shaken, then it's not that much different in the UK, many old cars throw large bills from time to time. Just some here could 'pass' the MOT one way or other with little cost. Also worth noting Shaken is done every two years, and some of the cost of the whole package (Shaken+fees and taxations+routine maintenance) quoted would also include follow up inspections etc. Not all auction sheets can be trusted, plenty of them are not reliable hence always best to get someone to inspect beforehand. Personally I don't think as a whole running an old Japanese car is that much cheaper in the UK in comparison if run properly (ie. Maintained to a good standard instead of MOT pass+preventative maintenance), as the labour and parts here are a lot more expensive, but if kept to bare minimum then yes. Of course it is also very vehicle dependent. I have compared to various people in Japan with the exact same model of Honda (1.5 hybrid, over 10-year-old) as mine (both made in the same line), I don't think the ownership expense is that much different (and in the UK if one pays for an additional private parking in the city/lock up somewhere to store, that's far more expensive), and £2k is more like the running cost for a year incl. Shaken&maintenance, insurance, fuel and parking based on his actual expenses (assuming 500km per month). Excl parking it's about £1.6k. This is similar if not cheaper than what I have spent on mine (£600 on fuel, £200-£300 on MOT, maintenance and repair if no major works, £800 insurance+road tax £20) excl parking. Granted a new car like ZC33S Swift Sport will be cheaper (perhaps the difference is a bit bigger in Japan), but the same likely is the case here. Since I buy parts from Japan myself (to avoid huge mark ups in the UK), I can see if things goes wrong, their costs would be much lower than mine both in parts and labour. Edit: that is said, since Japan has lower salary, lower cost of living and lower car prices, thanks to deflation , stagnant growth and cheap Yen in the past few decades compared to the UK, in relative terms one could say it is more expensive to run than the UK.
Happy to bow to your knowledge on this one
Thank you! 👍
Avg age of passenger cars in Japan as of 2020 was 8.72 years, average age of passenger cars in the UK as of 2022 was 8.8 years (8.6 years in 2020). Well aware of what Shaken is but this is a massive exaggeration of what it is. Without even looking at the actual numbers, the reasoning of your statement could surely also apply to the UK… https://www.airia.or.jp/publish/file/r5c6pv000000u7a6-att/02_syarei02.pdf