Imports?

Hello all,

just seen an import from Japan on ebay 911 996 c2 manual, looks very cheap and only 25k miles, looks to be an honest seller and on the face of it a nice low mileage car.

A 25k miles UK car would be worth £30k+ from what i've been seeing. This car is around £20-21k mark.

Plus its silver and has a nice black leather interior, all the options except sat nav. Gt3 wheels but the old yellow indicator pack.

Since my other posts, i've been looking at my finances and think I'll definately be keeping the "right" 911 for 3 years or so. I realise imports are not as desirable, hence the lower price. Apart from being worth less are there any things to look out for in terms of servicing or repairing these cars?

anyone got an imported 996?

On the face of it, it looks like I could save £10k and have a nice 911.

Just want some info. cheers.


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What are the shipping costs. Then you have import duty and VAT.

Is there a Japanese version of an HPI check to ensure damage history, finance etc.

Just a few things to consider.




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and if it was a proper Japanese import it'll be LHD too.........even with Japan being RHD they have a bizarre quirk whereby the try and get their motors in the same spec as the country where they were built............Servo Sarai is yer man to speak to on here

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sorry should have said.



the car is in the UK already.

Its a 1998 R reg 3.4 c2 manual with air con 25000 miles!! and looks lovely 3 ownersm last owned since 2000.

Insurance doesn't work out any more expensive either which I was surprised about. I've asked him some questions and wouldn't buy unless it was checked over by porsche, figure I'm gonna go with one of there 111 point checks and 12 month warranty deals.

My main query is regards parts and service, if I phone up a dealer and quote the chassis number will they have a clue what car it is, or quote me some stupid servicing costs?

Probably getting ahead of myself, I'll see what the owner says and then I'll phone around some garages to see what thet say. The only down side is that its in silver!!! i didn't want silver but this car looks just like what I want.

for Those that saw my other post, i've completely changed my mind, figure I'm going to keep a nice 911 for as long as I can, definately longer than 18 months or so.

thanks for any info you can supply.



ps: i;ve joined PCGB last week, anyone a member?


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Hi Lee

You still havent said whether its RHD or LHD, but as someone who's had LHD imports for their last 3 911's, here's my 2 penneth. The differential narrows over time. The depreciation is no faster with an import/LHD than with a UK supplied car, they just start at different levels. Rather than regard it as a saving, I view it the other way i.e. with a set budget, going LHD/import allows you to get more car/spec for the same budget. My current PAJ is USA built (but never got there) as it was held in Stuttgart as a Porsche directors company car and if there was any car who's VIN would throw a wobbly in the UK then mine would certainly do it. My local OPC service it and it's no more expensive than if it was UK supplied. I think legally, dealerships cannot penalise in this way, and with Porsche, it is a 'world wide' warranty. For piece of mind, I had extended warranty put on it as it is still the most expensive motor I've owned and this was no problem at all. On a non UK/Europe VIN, there are very few things that are not in normal parts supply. The LHD market has less stigma attached to it now than it did 10/15 years ago and an open European market gives a wider re-sale footprint than RHD UK cars, and a few on here have found interest from many countries if their LHD car is up for sale. A RHD import should be somewhere between the UK RHD and LHD prices, but should over time, converge towards normal RHD prices i.e. eventually, its value will be all about spec/condition/care etc. LHD, converted to RHD are most often well under a LHD thats not been tinkered with, irrespective of who did the conversion.


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Looks like a v good buy on the face of it, but I'd strongly recommend an inspection by an OPC or better still an expert specialist. Certainly worth pursuing.

Sometimes, things like rustproofing is better on genuine UK spec cars- worth investigating what the differences are.

Re servicing, you can be certain that a specialist certainly won't charge more for an 'import' and I'm pretty sure that EU rules prevented main dealers from having dual pricing for imports.

If you wish, you can change the orange lights to clear for a few hundred £.

I just renewed my PCGB membership... I enjoy the mag and getting along to some events.


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Hi Lee



My 2 Yen's worth : )



If its Porsches from / in
Japan
you are interested in, I am more than happy to help.



Firstly, most Porsches in Japan (90%) are LHD as the Right Honourable Rodders pointed . However, RHD was / has been available on all 996 & 986 models and of course now the 987 & 997’s, RHD cars with manual transmissions are STILL NOT AVAILABLE!!!! BUT, you
can [/b:5i56Oi0JOA]order RHD manual cars.



In regards to the car you’re looking at, if you can get the VIN etc, Porsche
UK
will tell you most anything you want to know about it! If you get that info to me, I can ask my buddies at my OPC to do some research and they might be able to get some info.



As far as the car itself goes, I wouldn’t worry about it at all, Porsche cars from
Japan
end up all over the world – no issues what so ever. They are all made in
the same places -
pretty much to the same spec. Even if there were somethings different, Porsche would certainly have the parts but rest assured they are identical. I have so far sold two cars to the
UK
(personal cars to friends – not for money making purposes) and no issues whatsoever. I spoke to the OPC in Chiswick before and they were more than helpful and said they would be happy to take care of servicing etc. Anything can go wrong in a new or old car - because it had an extra boat road back to
Europe
doesn’t effect it at all.



Whilst we're on the topic I have heard about all this UK delivered car - load of crap as far as I am concerned - their all built by "the same professionals anways!" I really hate all this C16 C23 C08 crap – it means squat to Porsche even! The end product is the same its just for a different country.



I recently met with a senior director of Porsche and he knows I am a long time customer and he said in a conference in front of at least 200 people when specifically questioned about 'grey import'
, Porsche doesn’t care where you buy or drive your car. You are still the customer, if you ship your car to 4 countries then they will give you full support for warranty or recall’s or whatever for the period it covers.



I also learnt for all of you guys who are interested in buying new cars, you can order a car in Germany (or wherever the taxes might be lower than the UK )in RHD and then take delivery of it in the UK –. It might not say C16 on a silly white bit of paper but it will be made on the same production line.



In the case of the car you are considereing, the history of course can be checked, but the same common sense rules should apply, if doesn’t have history – be cautious or don’t buy it! In
Japan
though, you can authenticate the history of a car a lot easier than the
UK
.



So even if the current owner has lost the paperwork, I am sure the VIN will indicate which dealership sold it and then the rest is easy to trace – at least in
Japan
.





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Previous poster said:

Quote: Originally posted by Servo Sarai on 20 February 2006



their all built by Nazi's anways!

Click to expand...

Steady on Servo !!!!!!!!!!

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Sorry! Bad joke - I will edit it before I offend someone! You all know I work for a German company and I love all things German : )

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:lol:

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well this all sounds great.



I will be let you servo have the vin details if it gets that far, thanks for the offer.

Its a RHD car, sorry for not saying.

Lets see what happens and I'll keep you posted. thanks for all the comments, gives me some sort of confidence, everything above is exactly as I was thinking, it could be a great buy as long as everything checks out ok.

cheers


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Cool - let me know!

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