Job Discussion Forums

[JimDunlop2]

As I did once, about a year ago, I posted an article which came from my Blog site, as it was fairly informative in regards to house-hunting. This year, our house is secure, but we were compelled to buy a new vehicle so here is another Blog-esque article about my experience buying (my second) car. I will be posting up on my Blog site soon and thought I would share it with all of you first. It's Wednesday and it's too soon for a Friday silliness thread, so this one is actually somewhat relevant to life in Japan.

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There was a boy in Arkansas who wouldn't listen to his ma,
When she told him that he should go to school.
He'd sneak away in the afternoon, take a little walk and pretty soon
You'd find him at the local auction barn.

(The Auctioneer's song)

I haven't had the experience yet, but I would imagine that buying a car in Japan must be very much like shopping for a computer in Silicon Valley. It's a rather paradoxical experience. On one hand, you have some phenomenal bargains that you wouldn't get anywhere else, but at the same time, not necessarily -- most "deals" I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

About two years ago, the pastor of our church here in Japan offered us their vehicle free of charge, as they were planning on buying a new one. This is one of those uniquely Japanese experiences... It's the land of cars, after all. Right? They are so plentiful, a complete stranger will just give you one for nothing! Well, there IS a catch. Anyone who has spent any time living in Japan already knows what that catch is -- the big 'S.' SHAKEN (pronounced: shAH-ken, as oposed to shAYken). This is a mandatory vehicle inspection that is supposed to keep old, broken vehicles off the road, and rolling along safely and in a mechanically sound manner. Well, actually it's just a money-grab and a bi-annual rip-off designed to pad the pockets of people in the know, and provide artificial employment to countless office workers country-wide, processing and poring over the reams of useless paperwork this practice produces. But since your average shaken bill will run you anywhere from $800 to about $1600 (CDN), it's easy to see how some people prefer to just scrap their old cars and get a newer one that already has valid shaken for two years rather than pay that kind of money for keeping the old one on the road. But even scrapping a car isn't free -- it will cost you at least $100 in paperwork to have the sucker crushed and melted and deleted from public records.

To make a long story short, we took the pastor's car, paid the shaken on it, so we essentially had a reliable van for two years -- to take on trips, buy groceries, and whatever else we needed a vehicle for. Unfortunately, only about two months before the time to renew shaken was upon us again, we started to experience nasty car troubles. Overheating, the air conditioner started dying, the timing belt needed replacing, etc. With a mechanic friend fo mine, we did a bit of math and determined that to repair the van, and renew the shaken would cost us in excess of $2200. Was it worth it? We didn't think so. We figured that with $2000 in our pockets (money we saved up for shaken renewal) we would certainly be able to find a viable, newer replacement to our old van.

We began by checking out local car lots and online (Yahoo) auctions. The local used car lots were by far the most expensive option. The bare-bones minimum price for any kind of reasonable vehicle was well in excess of $5000 (CDN) -- something we were not prepared to pay. Yahoo auctions on the other hand, deals would vary and I was even able to come up with some cars that looked like they might be in reasonable shape and being sold for a reasonable price. I called a friend and asked him his opinion on buying a car online (not even having test-driven it) -- but he himself had purchased no less than two cars this way, both of which were decent purchases and he had no complaints, and nothing but positive things to say about his experiences. I was almost content with following this process through, except we were introduced to a Peruvian fellow some months back, who said that he deals in used cars, exporting them mainly to Latin America, but also selling them within Japan as well (to the Peruvian and Brazilian communities).

When I spoke to Jorge, I found out that he got his cars from an auction. Not an online auction, but a real, actual auction. Most Japanese people I've spoken to know very little about auctions in general, and aside from the famous fish auctions in some of the coastal ports throughout Japan, it seems to be a concept little-known (or at least not oft-spoken about) among the general population. Since my expectations were rather specific in terms of what kind of car I wanted, and was very concerned about getting a lemon, it was agreed that my wife and I would accompany Jorge to the auction on a Saturday, where we could see, examine, and otherwise choose the car we wanted ourselves. Brilliant!

It was about a three hour drive out to the NAA (Nissan Auto Auction) in Kanagawa. We left early in the morning and arrived shortly after 10 in the morning. When we finally disembarked, Jorge informed us that this in fact was a "dealer-only" auction, and members of the general public were not permitted. In fact, we technically weren't even supposed to be on the premises, but this being a typically Japanese experience, this rule seems to only get enforced if necessary -- which is rarely.

If any of you have ever been to Disneyland in California or Florida, you may remember what the parking lots looked like. Well, the auction yard looked very much like that. Cars upon cars upon cars, all packed to within inches of each other, spanning across several humungous lots, pretty much as far as you could see. Each time an auction gets held here, over 400 cars get sold, and auctions are held twice a week, on Fridays and Saturdays. Even more interesting, is that this is considered a small auction. Some of the larger ones can sell anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 vehicles a week!

The whole purpose of a dealer-only auction is this. Used car dealers in Japan often cannot get rid of their stock (HUGE surprise there, given the exorbitant prices) so they sell the cars at auction and purchase fresh ones to put on their lot, hoping that they may better entice their customers. Another large chunk of these cars are considered "junk" in Japan, given the culture's bloodlust for the newest, greatest, latest teachnology -- and that includes cars. These "junk" cars may just be old, some may have problems that most Japanese people can't be bothered to repair (due to expense or just the "annoyance" factor) -- but nonetheless, thousands of cars which are deemed "unfit" for Japanese drivers sucessfully get shipped across the globe, where they live out many more happy years with buyers who don't need to be, or don't have the money to be quite so choosy. I found out about mid-way through the auction that we were attending such a "junk" auction. Apparently, all the "nice" cars get sold on Fridays...

No matter... Off we went, lot guide in hand, into this massive maze of a parking lot, full of cars to be auctioned. Each car has the key in the ignition and its doors unlocked, so any potential bidder can fire up the engine, test out some of the car's features and give it a thorough inspection before placing a bid. This pre-bidding inspection goes on for roughly two hours before the first auction starts at 12:30. We scoped out a number of cars that were of interest to us, including one certain Nissan Serena that looked like it was in reasonable shape. I opened the driver's side door, fired up the engine, revved it for a bit, then turned the engine off and proceeded to check some of the other parts of the car. A minute later, I came back to the driver's seat, and tried to start it up again, only to be surprised that the car wouldn't start. What the....%&'*? Later on, I found out that it was common practise to "sabotage" cars in an attempt to deter other bidders from bidding too highly on a car someone may have wanted to bid on themselves. If it doesn't start, it's a piece of junk, right? Well, it wasn't even 5 minutes before a sharp-eyed dealer came up to the car, fiddled around with it for no more than 10 seconds and had it purring like a kitten. Obviously, he knew what was up and knew exactly what to do about it.

After scoping out the cars on the lot, the next step is to go into the auction building for the actual bidding. The bidding room resembles a large amphitheatre, with computer terminals at each seat. It looks a lot like the command center at Cape Canaveral... The method is simple. Lots get shown up on a huge projection display at the front of the room. Dealers insert their magnetically encoded membership card into the terminal in front of them, thus activating it. They then use a button control (like the ones you see on the TV show Jeopardy) to register a bid. It works just like an auction back home, except there is no question as to who is the highest bidder. Sometimes the auctioneer may say "mo chotto" if he feels that the highest bid isn't quite high enough.

In our case, because this was a "junk" auction, there was a somehat different method. The computer terminals weren't used at all. Instead, they placed large boxes at the front of the room, each of which had 25 slots or cubbyholes, with a number printed above it. Dealers would take special, pink bidding sheets, write their membership number on them, as well as their highest bid, fold the paper over and drop it into the cubbyhole corresponding with the lot number above it. Bidding was open for as long as the box remained on the table at the front. At some point, auction employees would take the box to another table, open it up, and remove the paper bids from the cubbyholes, and sorting them in the order of bid amount. The stack of papers would then get handed to the auctioneer, whose only job was to read out the lot number, the initial bid, and then the highest bid. The highest bidder's membership number along with the lot number were then written in black marker pen onto a poster on the wall at the back of the hall.

I also learned a few "tricks of the trade" here. Some dealers, before dropping their bid into the cubbyhole would try to blow and peek inside in an attempt to see how many bids there were for that lot, and if lucky, even to spy a bid amount. After we found a car which we decided to bid on, being no slouch, also blew into the cubbyhole, and saw at least two or three pink papers inside, one of which had 70,000 written on it. We adjusted our bid accordingly and waited.

When it was all said and done, here is what our sucessful bid of 85,000 yen managed to secure us:

- 1997 Nissan Serena (forest green)
- 14 months of shaken
- no accidents, body damage or obvious mechanical problems
- nice upholstery (no tears)

HOWEVER, because this is Japan, the price was nowhere near 85,000 yen! Just to drive the car out of the lot, you need the paperwork. The paperwork costs extra, eg. a receipt runs you about 10,000... And yes, in case you were wondering, this typical Japanese bureaucracy. I.e. You must have a receipt to take the car. But you cannot choose to NOT have a receipt. But yet, it's added on extra, as if you did have a choice. Well, in the end, paperwork brought the price of the car to 130,000. Then I had to pay comission to my friend Jorge, which was another 30,000.

Final price tag: 160,000. We still came in under budget, which was a good thing, because there were a number of small mechanical repairs that had to be made after the fact.

So, now we are set with a newer vehicle for the next while. The Japanese car auction was an excellent experience. I certainly learned a lot from it, and if I had to do it again, would be a lot more confident to do so. In addition, having seen what I had, and knowing where Japanese used car dealers get their stock, don't think I would ever buy a used car from a lot now. I would recommend, that if anyone wants to get a used, Japanese car, get to know a dealer who has access to one of the auctions, and get what you want for a really low price, and just a little bit of comission. You'll be glad you did.

BONUS: Here are some photos for you!

Our new car! (Yay!)



Computer terminals in the bidding room of the NAA



The bidding floor at the NAA (You can see the boxes with the cubbyholes where dealers drop their bid papers off to the right rear of the picture)

[Gordon]

Nice car, Jim and great story. I have had no less than 5 cars in Japan, usually by way of friends or contacts. There is a little place near my house where they do the shaken for me for 45,000 yen in total (for a K-car). Very cheap, I think. If I need little things done to it, they will often do it for free or help me do it.

[gaijinalways]

Great story Jim. I might be doing that soon if my in-laws' car craps out.

[Chris21]

Awesome info! My shaken is up in June and I'm thinking of getting a new used car. Now all I have to do is make friends with a used car dealer.

[ironopolis]

Great post, Jim, and really useful info. A mate of mine used to have a job similar to your Peruvian friend's, buying from auctions. In his case it was cars for export to New Zealand.

One bit of advice I'd add to anyone looking for a good used car deal. If you're not bothered about selling the car for much when you're finished with it and don't need an automatic, then look for a manual transmission car.

As anyone with even a remote interest in cars will have noticed, Japanese people rarely buy or want manual cars. So as a result, they're often difficult to shift 2nd hand. I'd much, much prefer to drive a manual than an auto but when buying a new car and having to think of its resale value, I went for the auto as all the advice was that you'd get many people initially interested when you sell it, who'd likely end their interest as soon as they found it was a manual.

The guy I knew buying from the auctions confirmed this, and said for 2nd hand manual cars it was very much a buyer's market.

[Like a Rolling Stone]

Hay Jim, do you have a blog address I want to read your stories the life youve lived sounds intresting.