JDM CAR Auctions - Be Careful

[AZCrewdog]

I bought a Subaru Sambar mini truck at a Japanese Auction and finally got a good look at it. My first impressions were "look at all that rust". The Truck bed had severe corrosion - the engine access panel located in the rear of the truck bed was so corroded I had to order a new one from Japan. Then I looked at the underbelly and was shocked at the corrosion of the bed. For those who are familiar with the Japanese Auction process, my vehicle had a GRADE 4 Auction Inspection Sheet which means "Minimum Blemishes". I am attaching photos

[jdmvip]

Welcome AZCrewdog and sorry to hear about your bad auction experience! I won't say this is a rare experience as there are many shady Exporters out there. It does sound odd that you would have been unaware of such corrosion and serious rust. I don't see any photos of the car or auction sheet. Do you think you could post the auction sheet and what your Exporter said about the translation? If there is that much obvious corrosion it should have been noted on the diagram and the underbody rust would normally be mentioned in the notes. Grade 4 unfortunately does not guarantee the condition of the car, I have seen grade 4's with severe rust and engine problems but again these are always noted in the auction sheet.

[AZCrewdog]

Welcome AZCrewdog and sorry to hear about your bad auction experience! I won't say this is a rare experience as there are many shady Exporters out there. It does sound odd that you would have been unaware of such corrosion and serious rust. I don't see any photos of the car or auction sheet. Do you think you could post the auction sheet and what your Exporter said about the translation? If there is that much obvious corrosion it should have been noted on the diagram and the underbody rust would normally be mentioned in the notes. Grade 4 unfortunately does not guarantee the condition of the car, I have seen grade 4's with severe rust and engine problems but again these are always noted in the auction sheet.

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[AZCrewdog]

Boy I wish I could figure out this clunky software for up loading pictures. Most of us are not software engineers. I would be happy to text the auction sheet to anyone who can post it for me

[AZCrewdog]

It was my understanding that a Grade 4 Auction sheet means "minimal Blemishes". That was why I only bid on Grade 4 or Grade 5. Mechanically the car seems pretty good except the AC does not blow cold but seriously, your file upload system on this site sucks. I've never had so much trouble trying to figure it out. How 'bout making a small video on how to upload files. I managed to get three uploaded but then it stopped working.

[jdmvip]

Wow, yes that is quite bad. If you can upload the auction sheet that would be interesting. The real question is who is your Exporter and did they advise you about the issues?
With a good Exporter this can always be avoided, we always disclose everything with our service (eg. if the auction sheet shows rust and notes rust we will advise you of this).

[AZCrewdog]

Wow, yes that is quite bad. If you can upload the auction sheet that would be interesting. The real question is who is your Exporter and did they advise you about the issues?
With a good Exporter this can always be avoided, we always disclose everything with our service (eg. if the auction sheet shows rust and notes rust we will advise you of this).

I would be more than happy to text it to you or email it to you and you can post it . No offense but your site really sucks for uploading photos - it is not user friendly. So I used Carfromjapan.com. They were the 2nd company I used. I started off with a company called Beforward.jp. They had a nice website that was easy to use but they did not respond to my questions in a timely matter (yes, I paid attention to the time in Japan when I sent the emails. All they would do, 4 or 5 days later is send me more pictures of cars. I kept asking them: "I see that your website states about the possibility of long delays shipping to the Port of Long beach; If I buy a car will I have to pay for storage while awaiting shipment". They never responded to that question. I told them I would go elsewhere to buy a car if they would not answer; no answer came so I sent them an email telling them to close my account I was going elsewhere. I thought I would give Carfromjapan (CFJ) a shot. I started looking for cars on their site and asking questions which were responded to within 24hrs and yes they answered the question about storage - No there is no storage fees. I bought a car within two days. I was only looking at Grad 4 or Grade 5 because the information I had was to stay away from anything lower than a Grade 4. While the car was sitting in storage, I asked if They had a maintenance service that could replace some parts while it was waiting. I asked because parts would be cheaper if purchased in Japan and I was sure there was an abundant supply of KEI CAR mechanics who could do the work. They said NO we don't provide that service. Since I was new at this game, I had no idea if 3rd party inspections were even available. For informational purposes, I purchased my 1999 Sambar on January 18th and could not get space on a ship until June 30th and arrival at my doorstep on July 19th. Maintenance Service Vendors should put something together and contract their services out to the various Auction Brokers like CFJ. CRJ has been very good to deal with and I would use them again because I got excellent service from them. I sent them the pictures asking them to go back to the seller/auction and demand compensation because this is definitely a case of a seller hiding faults by camouflaging repairs and a bogus Inspection Sheet. There were several area's that had a piss-poor bondo job to hide dents and rust. The bodo was not even sanded smooth. They painted the spots white so those repairs were not obvious in the photos. My truck even had a rubber mat in the bed which covered up the engine access panel located in the rear of the bed. The access panel was nearly eaten away with corrosion and all the inspector had to do was lift up the mat to see the corrosion. I ordered a new engine access cover for Amayama and by the time it was delivered to my front porch, the $178 Subaru OEM Part, cost me almost $400. Now I have to replace the bed, I am waiting to hear back from Amayama, that bed is $1300 with $1000 shipping cost to the Port of Long Beach plus Amayama's fee for service. I am joining every forum that discusses JDM Auction purchases so I can pass the word about how these auctions operate and the fraudulent Auction inspections . Yeah they got me but my life's ambition is to ruin the JDM auction business in the hopes they will clean up their act

[AZCrewdog]

This is the craziest convoluted way to upload a file to a post. So let me ask where I am going wrong. So to the right of the post I see:


My Photos
[Open] [Quick Upload]

So I click on "Quick upload". and I get this :

Upload an image
Note that the quick upload will set the image viewing permission to public in order to add it to the post
Image to upload
No file chosen
I click on "Choose File" and select a photo out of my photo library and click "open" and the photo file appears next to the "Choose File"
Now what the hell am I suppose to do next. I try to click on the "HOST" button which is green in color and it turns grey when my mouse goes over it but the upload does not start. Huh? What idiot could have possibly designed this sytem that is so clunky and impossible to figure out. All I am trying to do is upload my Auction Grade Sheet. Can someone please walk me through this mind-numbing process