Team Gaijin Racing finishes 4th in a 12hr endurance race at Ebisu !

TGR finished in 4th place in their class and 16th overall in a race which featured 40 entries from all over Japan. It was a grueling 12hrs in mid 30C temperatures but the guys did extremely well thanks to long preparation hours and team work !

Read all about it on their blog http://tgrdatalog.blogspot.com/

Welcome to my "workshop"

Most of my stuff already arrived from Japan except for the wheels and of course the car.
The car should be here next week and adding time needed for customs clearance etc perhaps as early as the week of 13th.

More to come ...

Starting to miss Tsukuba ...

Found this random snap today taken of Tsukuba circuit...
Still have my Tsukuba license and a reminder in my email today to sign up for free practice ... sigh!

Importing a car from Japan to Australia - Part 2

So you got your Vehicle Import Approval (see Part 1), what happens next ?

Now you need to arrange to ship the car to Australia ! Again sounds relatively simple but is it ?

The 1st thing you'll need to do is find a shipping export agent in Japan who can ship your car for you. I was lucky enough to have met Miguel who is one of the owners of the Honda Prelude we raced in the 6 and 12 hour endurance races at Ebisu Circuit and who represents Newera a company dedicated to exporting cars from Japan. Through him I was put in touch with his export agent and the rest was history.

The 2nd most important thing you'll need to do is prepare your car.
Preparation could mean a lot of things to many people depending on the car and one's risk tolerance. In my case the shipping method I chose was RORO (roll on roll off) as opposed to a container which means that it is less secure (but cheaper) and thefore the car had to be stripped of anything that could be potentially stolen during shipment. Things like electronic gauges, racing harnesses, gearshift knobs (yeh you wouldn't believe how they get nicked !), ECUs, spoilers, basically anything that can easily be removed.

In addition to that since the car will be literally driven on and off the boat ramp I needed to raise the suspension to give the car enough clearance to avoid scrapping the underbody. 

Now Australia is a fairly strict country when it comes to pollution and ozone layer protection and so the car had to be thoroughly cleaned inside out to remove any contaminants and soil which otherwise would prevent it from being released from customs on the other side of its journey. Remember if you don't clean the car, expect to pay for quarantinee services in Australia ! Not cheap !

The second part of this step is to ensure you degas your airconditioner. Before going any further, I was actually not required to degas at the time of leaving Japan but due to the Ozone Department's lack of committment to this statement I decided to degas anyway and avoid expensive charges on the other side. The deal is if you are personally importing a car and can prove so you don't need a license to bring an airconditioner gas as part of your vehicle but that is on a case-by-case basis and I simply didn't want to dick around with them and hope for the best. Degas your car for a mere 5,000yen in Japan, send it over (you won't need to pay any levies/taxes on the gas !), show them the certificate of degasing you would have received in Japan and re-gas the car in time for Australian summer at your own convenience. Couldn't be simpler and less hassle free ! Remember if you don't degas you may need a license and it is $AUD300 for 5 days once-only fee plus levies and taxes. Is it worth it ? No and plus you'll be protecting the environment !

As far as insurance is concerned, total loss insurance in case the boat burns, goes under or something unthinkable happens where your car is not recoverable is about 3,000 yen based on a value of 1.3 million yen. Worth taking ? well the odds are very low but you never know ! Individual theft, damage is much moe likely but this kind of insurance is astronomical at around 60,000yen and so I opted to take my chances. What can they do ? Steal my pedals !! :)

Your shipping agent will de-register the car which will help you obtain a refund on the compulsory tax and compulsory insurance you would have paid earlier. You'll also receive a full refund on a recycling fee, a fee which is paid by everyone in Japan when they purchase a vehicle to dispose of that vehicle at some point in its life, simply because you're exporting it out of Japan.

All in all you'll be looking at FOB costs (agent) + shipping costs per cubic meter (boat owner company) + export overseeing process (agent) and you'll end up with your car on a boat to Australia for a journey of about 3-4 weeks, a Bill of Landing document (which you'll need to present to customs in Australia) and an export certificate (which you'll get from the agent on Japan's side) will be given to you also.

If all goes well you'll have to move to Part 3 where the excitement of paying customs duty, GST and all sorts of fees awaits you !

Importing a car from Japan to Australia - Part 1

A while ago I said I would write a couple of words about the process of importing a car from Japan. Personally I found that when searching the web for this kind of information it was scattered, sometimes incorrect and often misleading.

This post will be the 1st one of I don't know how many yet but as they come along I hope they'll give you some ideas on how to go about it.

There are obviously many ways to import a car from Japan to Australia and I will concentrate only on the one which is know best which is personal importing.

So what constitutues a personal import ? In a nutshell, if you owned and used a car in Japan for a continuous period of 12 months or more you're eligible. Sounds simple huh ? Well yes and no !

First of all, you'll need to have evidence (in English) which shows the following :

• You purchased the car at least 12 months ago and you have a document of such purchase. This is usually pretty straight forward and the document needs to be translated to English at least for the important pieces. If you don't have such a document it's not a show stopper as many expats don't buy cars with an intention of importing them into their own country (at least initially) !
• Your car was parked for a period of 12 months or so at or near your place of residence. This means that if you moved in the last 12 months you'll need to show a parking contract of each of the parking spaces and the proximity of these spaces to your place of residence. This means a translation of contracts for both parking and residence. A huge pain in the ass especially in Japan where getting specific documents is very painful and time consuming. A screenshot of Google Maps helps to show proximities of parking if it's not at your place of residence.
• You need to show a copy of your passport and all of its pages showing your travel in and out of japan during the period of 12 months or beyond. This also needs to be substantiated with your own statement saying when, where and how long for you were out of Japan. Basically you'll only be eligible for import if your actual stay in Japan is 12 months or longer and any travel out of the country isn't counted. Sucks if you do overseas business trips for lenghty periods of time ! Keep that in mind !
• You need to show a copy of the compulsory japanese insurance and have it translated showing you paid the insurance for the last 12 months. You should have that when you purchased the car or were asked to renew it.
• You need to show a copy of the compulsory japanese tax and have it translated showing you paid tax for the last 12 months. Same deal as above.
• You'll need to show a copy of your current vehicle registration known as a shaken certificate. This also needs to backup your claims of ownership in the last 12 months. Again all translated.
• You'll need to show a copy of your Japanese driver's licence which should have been obtained at least 12 months ago. This alone can be a show stopper.
• You'll need to show a copy of your Australian driver's license which should also be valid. No idea why they needed that to be honest.

If you think we're done, well not quite !
What follows is a bunch of evidences of your intention to actually leave Japan and move back to Australia ! Great huh !?

You'll need :

• A document from your employer or ex-employer showing when you intend to resign or when you resigned from your job
• A document from your current landlord showing you intend to move out from your apartment. This apartment address must be the one where the car was parked in its 12 month period of interest.
• A plane ticket showing your departure date or an intention to depart Japan

Obviously different people have different circumstances but the above documents are standard across all applications. One difference in my case was I started applying whilst still in Japan whereas most people apply after arrival in Australia so I just had to show my intention to resign and no actual plane ticket.

In terms of costs, you'll need to have every document requested translated to English which is costly. I think in my case around 20,000yen or so. It also takes time.

And to sum up, when you think you want to import a car using this scheme you should first read some information here, download this form, send it the Department of Infrastructure, Transport... and pay $AUD50.00 and if all goes well after about 4 weeks you will receive a letter with your own Vehicle Import Approval (VIA) stating you were granted a Personal Import against a given make/model/chassis.

The biggest pain was getting all documents together and having them translated. The application is pretty straight forward and in case they need more information they'll email you so it's best to provide as much as you can at the onset to speed up the process.

Choose your car carefully also as these days you can only get a VIA once every 5 years !

In Part 2, I'll touch on preparation and shipping ...