Okay, /o/, I'm moving to Japan in two months, and I'm

Quit trying to be a weeb. Get the largest v8 powered vehicle you can get.

https://youtu.be/h-j29ozp_yM

>>14160427
Gas was $4/gal last time I was over there. I'm not up to $80 fill ups every week.

>>14160352
Long term Japanfag here working for a parts export company and have owned 8 cars over 10 years period (exported 4 of them).

You will need about double your budget to get a shitty NA on the road. However, shitty by Japanese standards is probably good where you come from so not a big deal.

I would budget 1 million yen to get a proper car on the road, that is worth taking back with you. That is for an ordinary car. For a performance car, or anything even remotely popular, I'd add another 500,000 yen to you 1 mil budget.

Trust me on this, it is so easy to go wrong here with dud cars it's unbeliveable (mainly because most cars look good on the outside and have odometers that read half their actual mileage).

>>14160536
Just to add to this, that 1.5 mil yen budget would be for a pristine low km FD RX7 that *would be worth taking back with you*. I want to stress that point as what I think would be worth taking back might be way too good for what you have in mind.

If that's over budget then I'd stick with the NA Roadster plan and look around until you can decide on something decent you can afford.

>>14160536
Are there a lot of odometer rollbacks? I hear people online talking all the time about "zomg the kms are so low, I can get this :::insert jay-dee-ehm meme car here::: and it's in superb condition." I assume that these people are full of shit.

I also hear about deals at auto auctions. I suppose those aren't viable, either. I've seen Demios about seven to eight years old go for about 10 man, as least on export company sites. I'm not looking for show quality, just something with a stick and decent MPGs.

>>14160583
I'm not into the rotaries. I'm not good enough with a wrench to touch them. I was considering taking the Roadster back with me, because I figured that with GT-Rs and ZXs now approaching new car pricing before the barge, I'd have my own little piece of the jay-dee-ehm experience, except with a better chance of getting working parts stateside.

>>14160589
it's the cost to get them up to spec to drive on the roads in Japan. It's cheaper to just get rid of the car than to do all the repairs and inspections and shit. that's what I understand. But maybe the jap dude above will chime in.

>>14160589
>Are there a lot of odometer rollbacks?
Yes there are. Digital odos made no difference, which for the era of car you are looking at, they don't have them anyway.

>I also hear about deals at auto auctions. I suppose those aren't viable, either. I've seen Demios about seven to eight years old go for about 10 man
That 10 man is the 'hontai' 本体 price only, the actual money they want for the car itself. Then theres the auction fees on top of that. Then you need to register it and get a roadworthy cert... a 10 man car could end up being 50 man by the time it's all done.

>>14160629
All good. Honestly I'd stick to that plan (no rotors) and the Roadster is about the best bang for buck used sports car simply because they made a zillion of them.

>>14160643
In terms of inspections, I was planning on doing it myself. I heard that doing so saves a lot of the cost. I found this link:

http://usershaken.weebly.com/maintenance.html

And thought to myself, "well, maybe this won't be so bad after all." Again, the car does not have to be perfect or fancy.

>>14160698
Thanks for your input. What do you think about user shaken? I found this link: http://usershaken.weebly.com/maintenance.html

>>14160730
Just briefly looked through it now.
Honestly I always had shaken done by a garage and just paid them to do it. It usually cost about 10 - 15 man depending on how bad the car was.

If you can do it yourself then have a crack at it, but be warned you will spend the most part of a day for a single test and paperwork submit waiting around in a crowded Japanese style DMV. I would definitely go with paying someone to do it for the pain free experience.

>>14160758
I'll keep that in mind. I'm trying to keep a buffer in my budget for shaken, too. Worst case scenario, it goes to the shop if I'm in over my head, but I'll at least be learning about fixing cars in the process. Thanks.