Reliable and Honest Japanese Car Export Companies

[Maverick]

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.

[Mark]

Welcome...

What country are you in......?

Reading through your post, the best advise I can give you is be very careful buying off "Trade Carview". A lot of the vehicles advertised on there, the sellers do not even own.

Cheers

MB..

[Maverick]

I am in Pakistan, and the destination port would be Karachi in my case.

Yeah, the Trade Carview website seems to be not credible enough of a source, even though it lists the maximum number of Japanese cars.

What's your take on IBC Japan? Are they reliable and trustworthy?

[Derek]

You will find a lot of information on this forum. Just 5 minutes searching the vendor feedback section will tell you an awful lot that is good to know.

tradecarview service is hit and miss. In some cases it can be great to get to know the market and have so many listed vehicles to purchase from but on the other hand, I don't recommend buying from any company that you can't get a second opinion from. I would do a search for the seller's name on Google and see what you can find. tradecarview has recently added a seller rating system but I'm not sure if the people rating the companies necessarily know what makes a good seller. The member of this forum do on the other hand.

The best advice I can give you is to start looking for an auction agent who can give you access to the USS listings and you can work with an exporter to find the right vehicles. This cuts a lot of the markup and worry about misrepresented vehicles.

If you have any questions please check out my site or send me an email or PM.

[Maverick]

Thanks for your prompt reply Derek. I really appreciate it.

The only reason I am leaning towards IBC Japan is that their website is well laid out with clear pricing (which are higher than normal) and procedure. IBS Japan is willing to be my auction representative for a deposit of 10,000 Yen. If I choose to go this route, then IBC Japan will be bidding on any car listed by USS or any other auction I choose. I happen to think that USS is the most reliable of the lot. I could be wrong though.

Derek, would it possible for you to be my representative, and help me find my preferred car from a Japanese auction house like USS? In case, that is possible, could you please tell me how much money would I have to submit to start the process.

P.S. I have already got access to the USS listings, but unfortunately I cannot bid on their cars directly while sitting in Pakistan.

Can you also tell me, if you can arrange a cheaper shipping for my car with NYK or any other shipping line, which serves Karachi Port. IBC Japan is charging like twice or even more in some cases, which I find quite unreasonable to be honest with you. They don't even give option to choose your own shipping line or method, for example RO/RO.

[Derek]

PM sent

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

[RyanV]

Don't use IBC. I don't think I've ever heard of anything good from them. I have never bought anything from them as a result, but I had contacted them about 3 years ago. I found them very pushy (and as you mentioned vague about some details) which put me off right away.

Use Pacific Coast or Brave Auto International. I would suggest JDM Connection as well, but I think they are more on the Canadian side of things however I could be wrong.

[Maverick]

Thanks for your reply Ryan.

I am already in touch with Derek. Let's see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

P.S. Explanations given by IBC Japan are always vague. They have never given a concrete answer to any of my queries.

[Mark]

I am in Pakistan, and the destination port would be Karachi in my case.

Yeah, the Trade Carview website seems to be not credible enough of a source, even though it lists the maximum number of Japanese cars.

What's your take on IBC Japan? Are they reliable and trustworthy?

HHHHHMMMMMM…….no comment……..but this might help.

http://forums.jdmvip.com/Thanks_to_B...Feedback-165-t

I am not saying they are doing this or not but it is common practice these days for agents (not all but some) to offer low agents fee to secure the business but in return they make it up on Ro/Ro shipping costs or other ways.

Maybe when I get time I will write out the "other ways" agents (not all but some) manage to get more money out of the customer over what they claim to charge as a buyers or agents fee.

Cheers

MB..

[jdmvip]

Welcome to the forums Maverick, I also had an experience with IBC Japan and chose them for the reasons you did. I made a huge mistake by choosing IBC Japan as my first Exporter. IBC Japan decided to either not ship vehicles to some of their customers or offer extremely expensive and inconvenient shipping options to the customer. Eventually I was able to fight IBC Japan with a lot of time and effort. I contacted nearly every organization in and out of Japan to put pressure on them and I did succeed in getting my vehicle. The shipping yard here in Canada was full of cars from IBC Japan and some vehicles were held for so long that IBC Japan couldn't locate the customers who owned them.

From my experience and also comments from other customers I've found of theirs, shipping is often an issue and they often misrepresent the condition of the vehicles in their stock. IBC Japan also primarily uses outsourced agents/call centers/Live Chat in the Philippines and it's nearly impossible to directly communicate with their actual staff (I don't believe I ever did speak to their real staff). I found they appeared very professional and helpful above other companies but once you deal with them, you'll find it's primarily lip service. One other thing is that it is widely believed that IBC Japan doesn't actually purchase the Insurance policies they claim or if they do, it's for total loss only (if your ship sinks). This is because no one I know with shipping damage was ever able to get IBC Japan to get the damage taken care of (normally they would just refer you to their Insurance Adjuster's local agent) and I also realized that you should get a certificate if such a policy was taken out on your car. There are other things I could mention but this will get even longer if I do

In all fairness they did eventually ship my car and I have been quite happy with my car.

I strongly suggest checking out this thread about my experience with IBC Japan.

http://forums.jdmvip.com/IBC_Japan_G..._Feedback-18-t

And this one for other complaints I found about them:

http://forums.jdmvip.com/IBC_Japan_G..._Feedback-18-t

Brave Auto Japan at the time was the only company that offered me assistance with my IBC Japan issue and I reached out to other Export companies. I don't blame the others for not helping,but it just so happened Brave Auto was thinking farther ahead than the others. One other company (I believe it was Feast Imports) did a 180 after seeing Mark from Brave Auto helping me out but I don't count that of course. I don't have regrets for choosing IBC Japan in the sense that I learned so much about cars, the Japan Export industry and made a lot of new friends

I bought my second car through Mark at Brave Auto because I never forgot how he helped me out when no other company would at the time and because he's got a great reputation. There was no issue with getting the car shipped although there were some hiccups with the buying process and some things I paid to have done weren't but I never worried about if my car would be shipped and in the end he made sure I got a fantastic car.

My advice is that if you stick with this forum or at least find a way to verify the company you're interested in is honest by asking about the company and seeing if there are any complaints. For the Exporters that our members try on these forums, it would become obvious right away if a company was not shipping vehicles. I see Derek from Pacific Coast Auto has chimed in here and I can say his customers are all happy with his service too and he definitely has a good reputation as well (as do most of the Exporters who post here). The rest is up to you to figure out what company suits you the best, Vendor reviews here are also fairly helpful but be warned that some reviewers leave out (usually minor) problems they had with their Exporter for some reason.

Sorry for the long post, but when you mentioned IBC Japan it brought back a lot of memories