Jap import coupes

I see a few Japanese import coupes cropping up on the market recently. With the climate in Japan and no salt being used on the roads I imagine these are going to be less affected by underbody corrosion than European market cars.

Looks like the only spec differences are larger wing repeater indicators and headlight washers. I wonder if they have the same factory underseal given the market they are made for?

Any thoughts on these imports? Anyone have one? Is insuring one of these going to cost more? No reason it should, but any excuse for insurers to slap on higher premiums.

Gary687 has one which has been "Downunder" for a number of years.

The differences are as what you indicated and they do have the same factory under seal. Almost all coupe scrappers that come into Malaysia for parts are from Japan and I concur that they are always in fantastic condition.

Not only the fact that there are no salts on the road over there, but the Japanese seem to take very good care of their cars with everything left as standard from the factory.

I think the speedo is in kmh as well, although I doubt that will bother anyone

I have the reverse here with my speedo in MPH and Australia uses metric.

Lucky I'm an old bloke and got my driver's licence before we changed over, so I remember how to do the conversion.

Interesting.

I once read on a forum that MX5s imported from Japan were more prone to rust once they got to the UK, because they were not under sealed as well as UK models, since Japan doesn't have snowy/salty road conditions.

So while they are in Japan, these Japanese MX5s are probably fine. But once they get here, unlike the UK models, they aren't able to properly face the tougher weather/road conditions.

Who knows, maybe other Japanese make import cars face this problem too?

Thankfully, it seems that Fiat under sealed all Coops consistently, irrespective of where they were headed.

The service manual shows a Jap specific emission control system with its own ECU and different exhaust with extra sensors, but like the more advanced ABS brake bias distribution system (that the service manual shows as a late replacement for the manual brake bias valve) I don't remember it ever being spotted on an actual car.

These imports look quite good in the ads, but the vendors appear to be 'pushing it' price wise and a lot of them have been available for weeks if not months.

Certainly seems to be the case that Japanese manufactured cars for the Japanese market do not have much in the way of protection on the underside. Why would they when the road conditions don't demand it? This of course causes problems when importing to the UK and using on salty winter roads.

From what has been suggested though it may be that Fiat didn't vary the standard of underbody protection for different markets.

As for the speedo in KMH, is there not a conversion that can done? Maybe not, as I guess the demand is not there. A different story with MX-5's, as there has long been a regular supply of imported cars, so the demand is there for MPH conversions.

Can anyone confirm the lack of rear foglight for the coupe?

We have a Mazda Bongo, which are all Jap imports, since they were never made for the UK market. So aftermarket fog lamp required. They were not under sealed either, so most get them done as soon as they arrive in the UK. I love the indecipherable Japanese instruction labels in the cabin.

As for rust, the Bongo forum advises that cars from the North of Japan tended to suffer more, as the climate is colder and wetter. In fact, some north Jap Bongo's were fitted with twin starter batteries for cold weather cranking. Of course, many Japanese towns are close the the coast, so there will be salt around.

So, I'd still want to know the cars history and where in Japan it was from. Undoubtedly, they will still be in better condition than a UK one. There were also unverified claims that some tsunami damaged vehicles were being flogged cheap too, but not sure how true this is.

I saw a couple of pearl white 20vt on a site, the price was a bit eyewatering until i realised there are about 6.5k Yen to the pound making them around £6.5K.
I had a 'grey import' Toyota and all the UK requirements were done by the importer as part of the deal.

Would be quite novel taking a Geiger counter to a viewing

I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing quite a few in the next few years. The biggest factor with jap imports is that it is illegal in Japan to sell second hand car parts. So when cars get to that age (like the coupe is now) where new parts become unavailable, they have 2 choices. Weigh them in for scrap or export.