What goes wrong with Japanese imports, and how each one is avoided

Before the bid: the car itself

Buying from photographs is how most of the bad stories start. The auction sheet exists to prevent it: the overall grade, the interior and exterior grades, the body map with every dent and repaired panel, and the inspector’s notes, all of which need translating properly rather than skimming. A grade R car has been repaired after an accident; it is not necessarily a bad car, but it is a cheaper one and should be bought as one.

The chassis-number history is the second check: the mileage at every previous auction, the grades the car was given before, and how often it has been through the halls. Mileage that goes down, or a car that appears at auction every few months, is the record telling you something. Cars from the snowy prefectures carry underbody corrosion from road salt; ask for underside photographs or a pre-bid inspection. And know the variant you are bidding on: a GR Yaris RC is not an RZ, a Prado TX is not a TX-L, and the price difference is real.

1. Translated auction sheet, grade and body map read, not skimmed
2. Chassis-number history: mileage, previous grades, previous sales
3. Underside photographs or an inspection for cars from snowy regions
4. The exact variant confirmed against the listing
5. For electric cars, a battery state-of-health report

Before the bid: the paperwork that sets the tax

Five paperwork mistakes account for most of the money lost on Irish imports, and the calculator warns about every one of them. Bidding before the exporter has confirmed the Statement on Origin means 10% duty on a Japanese-built car, and VAT on the duty too. Assuming a German-built car bought in Japan is treated as Japanese means the same 10%, with no document that can fix it. Buying a Japan-only model with no plan for the CO2 evidence means the 41% band is assumed at the NCTS until a disclosure comes back. Buying a diesel with no route to its NOx figure means the €4,850 default. And guessing the Irish value low means meeting Revenue’s valuation on the day, when it is too late to change your mind.

For a car near 30 years old there is a sixth: the date. The vintage rate applies from the first registration in Japan on the export certificate, counted to the month. A car that is 29 years and ten months old on the day it is registered pays 41% of its valuation; two months later it would have paid €200.

Between the hammer and the ship

The exchange rate moves between the bid and the transfer. The calculator applies a 2% buffer for exactly this, but a 5% swing on a ¥1,300,000 car is about €360, and on a ¥9,000,000 Supra about €2,500. Pay promptly, and if the rate matters, ask your bank or a currency broker for a forward rate on the day you win.

Exporter fees surprise people who did not get the schedule in writing: the auction fee, inland transport, deregistration, the export certificate, the radiation check, storage if the payment or the sailing slips. Ask for the full schedule before the first bid, replace the calculator’s default Japan-side fees with it, and pay inside the exporter’s window, because storage at a Japanese yard is charged by the day.

At the port

The expensive port problems are all the same problem: the customs broker did not have the file before the ship docked. The exporter’s invoice, the export certificate and its certified translation, the Statement on Origin and the bill of lading should be with the broker a week before arrival, along with your EORI number, which takes days to issue and cannot be applied for at the quay. A car that sits at the port waiting for paperwork accrues storage charges, and the 7-day clock for the NCTS booking is already running.

Two beliefs cause trouble here. One is that a car over six months old with more than 6,000 km on it is VAT-free; that is an intra-EU rule and does not apply to a car from Japan, which pays 23% on the customs value plus duty regardless of age. The other is that the Statement on Origin can be sorted out later; a retrospective preference claim may be possible within time limits, but it is slow and uncertain, and the duty is paid first.

The two clocks

From the day the car arrives in the State, the NCTS appointment must be booked within 7 days and the car registered within 30. Both are missed more often than they should be, usually because the arrival date was not firm or the paperwork was not ready, and penalties follow. Book the appointment the day the arrival date is confirmed; the busier centres run out of slots.

At the appointment you are assessed on the evidence you have on the day. A CO2 disclosure that has not come back means the top band; a NOx figure you meant to get means the default. The disclosure request takes time, so it belongs in the weeks the car spends at sea, not in the week it lands.

On the road

The small things arrive together in the first month. Japanese tyres often lack the E-mark the NCT requires, so a set of four goes on the list. The radio receives Japanese FM, 76 to 90 MHz, and needs a band expander or a new head unit; the navigation is in Japanese and its maps are of Japan. A rear fog lamp is not mandatory, but where one is fitted it must work. Japan-only models need some parts ordered from Japan, which is a matter of a few weeks rather than a few days.

Theft is the one to take seriously. Keyless Japanese cars, the Aqua, the Prius and Lexus models among them, have been targeted in Ireland, and many Japanese-market cars have no immobiliser to the standard insurers expect. A certified immobiliser, a steering lock and a signal-blocking pouch for the key are cheap; some insurers make the first of them a condition of cover. Electric cars add two of their own: the Japanese Type 1 charging inlet, which needs a Type 2 to Type 1 cable, and CHAdeMO rapid charging, which the newest hubs are dropping.

The things that are not problems

Japan drives on the left, so the headlights dip the same way as Irish ones and the driver sits on the correct side. The speedometer already reads in kilometres per hour. The low mileage is usually genuine once the chassis-number history confirms it, because Japan’s biennial inspection makes the odometer a public record. And the Japanese-language menus that look daunting in the photographs are, on most cars, a setting or an aftermarket head unit away from English.