I\'ve been looking around for a while, and I\'m getting close to buying an RX7. Pistonheads isn\'t really doing it for me at the mo, and none of the for sale ads on here have really caught my eye, so I\'m leaning towards importing one.
I\'m just looking through carsensor.net, and can\'t work out the pricing on there. Cars are listed as 200+ million yen. There\'s no way that RX7s are going for £1.8 million and above in Japan....
Take this one for instance:
http://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/detail/CU0005781274/index.html
248 million yen?
Is that £2k, £20k, £200k? Or am I reading the prices totally wrong? I\'m guessing £20k.
If it is £20k, (and that looks like a fairly basically modified car, albeit in pretty good nick) then are all these £3k imports I\'ve seen on other websites going to be utter sheds, and £20k is the price of a good import?
Cheers,
Andy
£20k sounds about right for a late spec fd. esp such low milage!
the £3k ones (dont think fresh imports would be that cheap as they carry a premium due to shipping ocsts etc) would be typically R grade or high milage and will definitely be an early one 92, 93 year.
OK cool. Cheers.
What\'s the general opinion on fresh imports? I wouldn\'t mind spending that bit more to get a good one, but based on UK prices £20k is a LOT of money for any RX7, never mind a standard one. Is it worth going for maybe £10k + import fees, or am I as well waiting for a cheaper one to take my eye over here and sort it out mechanically if needs be?
Be careful and add up all the costs, you have the base price then a fee to get it on a ship. Then beofre it arrives you get a bill on the total amount ie. car+shipping+associated fees+customs clearing and port fees at 10% Import Duty Plus 17.5%VAT. This along with Mot prepp plus test, registration fee and road tax plus any repairs needed will soon bump up the price.This tied in with around 130Yen to the GBP makes it bl00dy expensive!!
There are some great cars around in the UK for sale, i\'m sure it\'d be a whole lot cheaper for you! There\'s no way any RX7 can be worth over £20k, just get a Porsche Turbo instead, i loved my last one :3gears-lh
Dave.
Quote from: themightyo;714219OK cool. Cheers.
What\'s the general opinion on fresh imports? I wouldn\'t mind spending that bit more to get a good one, but based on UK prices £20k is a LOT of money for any RX7, never mind a standard one. Is it worth going for maybe £10k + import fees, or am I as well waiting for a cheaper one to take my eye over here and sort it out mechanically if needs be?
bear in mind that they were £30k+ as new depending on spec. late Jap 99-02 cars are still fetching up to £40k!!!
graeme
ps: also remember that you can\'t legally drive in the UK yet either a 2001 or 2002 model (not too sure about the 2000 one admittedly)
Quote from: trotter;714283ps: also remember that you can\'t legally drive in the UK yet either a 2001 or 2002 model (not too sure about the 2000 one admittedly)
why not?
i know they got rid of the \'model report\' and sva for cars last year and replaced it with IVA.
From what i\'ve read, as long as it goes through IVA then all is ok?
seems too simple?
The pound is far to week to buy anything from japan, unless it is bizzarely cheap and then youve got to ask questions as to why.
The exchange is circa 1.29 used to be 2.29, do the mattthhhh!
248,000,000.00 JPY
| = | 1,896,535.01 GBP |
something not quite right there :rollin:confused:
As Dave has mentioned, remember to factor in all the costs if your importing one. Duty and VAT is based upon the purchase price in Japan, so a top end car will cost a lot to bring in on the current exchange rate.
There are a lot of good FD\'s for sale at the moment from stock to highly modified. What sort of FD are you looking for and maybe we can help point you in the right direction?
I completely agree with your sentiments on finding the right car in the UK. Apart from a small handful, there are no nice RX-7\'s for sale. Most are the remains of what were a cheap import some years ago.
Importing and whilst buying from Japan. The Japanese commonly refer to monetary values as hundreds the ambiguity of the 2 million yen as being 200.
The prices on carsensor are massively inflated - I say this with huge experience of importing cars and I have been monitoring the site since it\'s inception. Carsensor is purely Japanese Domestic Market (hence tax inclusive prices which you do not pay for export) but you will still find trash on there. Most cars however, are not and the price is reflective of this. There are bargains out in Japan - dealer part exchanges / private sales if these do not find themselves transiting through the auction portals then you can make an exceptional purchase. It really is a case of looking in the right places.
The days of cheap imports is also well and truly over. I started by purchasing at a rate of ¥180 to £1 during 1996/1997 followed by a gradual increase with the peak being circa ¥250 to £1 in 2006. Now in 2010 you are looking at a rate of ¥130 to £1, so you can imagine how the price of cars have been affected drastically. The current yen rate has been stagnant since 2009 partly down to the Yen losing it\'s fixed term with the $ - there are no signs of a recovery.
A fresh import and one chosen to specification will almost always be more expensive than most of the cars for sale in the UK. One simple reason is that it is far more worthwhile for an importer to bring in a cheap and perhaps even an aesthetically unpleasant car which would yield the same return as an expensive unit. Also because there aren\'t many who would be willing to stump up and pay top money for a well sorted RX-7. In my experience, I have seen a lot of people purchase cheap ones only to be left spending more on putting things right than the outlay of an already sorted car from the outset.
There a lot of RX-7\'s in Japan that wholly justify the >£20000 price tag, I myself have been guilty of this on a few occasions but with no regrets. These cars have a sterling heritage in Japan often seen as a true testament of the finest sports car to have ever come out of Japan. :)
Freddy
Quote from: rx-dave;714222There\'s no way any RX7 can be worth over £20k, just get a Porsche Turbo instead, i loved my last one :3gears-lh
Dave.
I would say the Spirit R justifies that sort of price tag. There are so few of them on the road (2 in the UK I believe) and there were a limited number made so they do tend to hold their value.
Did someone say that they have scrapped the model report?? If not then as has been said, a 2002 car can\'t be driven on the road as you won\'t be able to clead it through an ESVA.
hi mate you can try //www.bonsaicars.com as this is were i got my last rex from its a auction site but its up to you on what car you get you can request the auction sheets and you let them know how much you want to spend in total and they wont got over and they calculate all the fees, vat, port fee, shipping etc.. with in your limit they also register it for you ant mot,tax.
Quote from: L18M;714287why not?
i know they got rid of the \'model report\' and sva for cars last year and replaced it with IVA.
From what i\'ve read, as long as it goes through IVA then all is ok?
seems too simple?
admittedly i\'ve not kept abreast of the new IVA stuff, but according to the DVLA website it does appear this simple!! My apologies - my brain is throwing out a comment along the lines of the later ones cannot pass emission tests and thus can\'t get conformity certificates, which was why they stopped importing them??
1st time poster thort i have to warn wen i saw bonsai. i was stung by bonsai. would not recommend at all. check gtr club were another member is taking legal actions for similar problems. cheers cem
Yeah, I\'ve read mixed reviews of bonsaicars. OK a couple of years back, but turned evil recently.
As far as what I\'m looking for, I\'m after a pristine stock or good slightly modified (non-sequential, maybe single turbo) car, but with a standard body, and the timescale hinges on how long my new job takes to get off the ground.
Examples of my ideal car are:
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1844775.htm
Just looks so perfect, and I love the blue.
Or this one. Especially this one:
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50564
I showed up just a bit too late for this one. I would have had it at the time as well, cos I was feeling flush. Yeah, I know it\'s a bit more than "lightly modified", but it\'s just about the nicest RX7 I\'ve ever seen.
Quote from: trotter;714428admittedly i\'ve not kept abreast of the new IVA stuff, but according to the DVLA website it does appear this simple!! My apologies - my brain is throwing out a comment along the lines of the later ones cannot pass emission tests and thus can\'t get conformity certificates, which was why they stopped importing them??
could well be.
cant remember off the top of my head but wasn\'t it 2001 or 2004 where they changed the emissions brackets etc but then its only this year that they have gone really strict hence no more rx8?
i guess you can always use the ethanol on near empty tank trick when they do the tests? lol
Quote from: L18M;714548could well be.
cant remember off the top of my head but wasn\'t it 2001 or 2004 where they changed the emissions brackets etc but then its only this year that they have gone really strict hence no more rx8?
i guess you can always use the ethanol on near empty tank trick when they do the tests? lol
or ye olde put-the-sensor-up-the-back-of-the-mondeo-round-the-corner jobbie.... hehe
Quote from: themightyo;714532Yeah, I\'ve read mixed reviews of bonsaicars. OK a couple of years back, but turned evil recently.
As far as what I\'m looking for, I\'m after a pristine stock or good slightly modified (non-sequential, maybe single turbo) car, but with a standard body, and the timescale hinges on how long my new job takes to get off the ground.
Examples of my ideal car are:
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1844775.htm
Just looks so perfect, and I love the blue.
Or this one. Especially this one:
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50564
I showed up just a bit too late for this one. I would have had it at the time as well, cos I was feeling flush. Yeah, I know it\'s a bit more than "lightly modified", but it\'s just about the nicest RX7 I\'ve ever seen.
Hi,
I know what you are saying about finding a FD i myself looked at several including that blue one on the pistonheads link! Which I cannot recommend: (
You will find one eventually after a year of looking and even getting flights to Newcastle i found mine, a stock UK spec FD :)
Good luck with your search.
shaQ
You could try Miguel at Newera they always seem to source good clean examples.
Having been unable to source an FD to suit my specification in the UK for almost a year now (Vintage red, 1999+, sub 60k km, stock body) I have had to turn to importing. As many have pointed out, if you only plan to keep the car for a year or two and sell it on, you\'re going to lose a heck of a lot of money on it. I am purchasing with a view to keeping the car for certainly the next 5-10 years anyway, if not the rest of my life, so I\'m not overly bothered with the exchange rate. It\'s going to take a very, very long time to return to the levels it was at a couple of years ago, and I\'ve waited 10 years already to be in a position to make a commitment to a second car and I don\'t fancy waiting the same again on the exchange rate!
3 months of scouring auctions has proved fruitless so far, but I\'ll find one eventually. I\'m going through DCY Europe who have been extremely attentive to my needs and if the car doesn\'t meet my expectations when it arrives, I\'ll be refunded in full for the 50% I have to pay upfront. Hopefully it doesn\'t come to that tho!