Hello everyone,
This is my very first post on this forum, and I am hoping that people on here will help me in solving my problem.
So, here it goes. I am looking to import a car to my home country from Japan for personal use only. As I am neither in Japan, nor can I travel to Japan to physically see and inspect the car, before buying it. I would like to know of reliable and honest Japanese companies who deal with the whole process of choosing and shipping a car from Japan over the internet.
After doing a week long research, I came across IBC Japan, which offer the facility to choose a car online, and get it shipped to my home country. But there are three things I have noticed about IBC in particular.
1. The majority of the cars on their website are like 10-15 years old, or in some cases even more. According to import regulations of my country, one cannot import a car which is more than 5 years old, and unfortunately IBC happens to stock a very minute amount of such cars.
2. The prices of cars that IBC is selling on it's website are considerably higher than let's say auction houses like USS etc. Upon asking the customer service about this, the only answer I got was that IBC sells quality cars, hence the higher price. This sounds a bit vague to me.
3. The shipping charges to destination port is fixed, and there is NO option to choose a different method or shipping line to reduce the cost, because upon research, I found out that IBC is charging twice the ongoing rate of shipping for the same car, and to the same destination port. Again, upon asking the IBC customer service about this, I was told that you don't have the option to choose your own method or shipping line, and if you purchase a car from IBC then you have to pay the cost charged by IBC on their website, which is like way over the top that one should be paying for shipping a car to his/her home country.
I would be grateful if you could help me figure this out for good. And also tell me if getting a car through IBC is worth it, or should I look elsewhere. I have come across this website "tradecarview.com," which has extensive listings of Japanese cars for export, but I am not sure about the credibility of dealers selling their cars on that website. Is it legit? What is the possibility that one of the dealer won't ship the car after I have paid them the money? This is something I am afraid of the most.
Thanks.