The following tips will be helpful for anyone wanting to buy a vehicle at. a Japanese auction and get the best from ovalconnect.com.

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1 EXPERT TIPS A D.I.Y. IMPORTER S GUIDE The following tips will be helpful for anyone wanting to buy a vehicle at a Japanese auction and get the best from ovalconnect.com. Our auction guides will oversee your final bids and make sure that everything is correct, but this manual will allow you to search the best places and know what to look for and what to avoid. Japanese cars sold at auction are exported to many countries and, at time of writing, less than 3% of cars sold through Japanese auctions end up in New Zealand. NZ is now one of the lesser players in the auction/export/import business and competition at auction is very fierce for these vehicles. The point is that vehicles at auction have many dealers bidding on them, not just we Kiwis buying whatever we like without any competition. ovalconnect.com

2 SHAKEN The Japanese have a combined WOF, Registration and compulsory 3rd party insurance called shaken. The amount of shaken on a vehicle at auction can impact on its value as it may still be desirable for the domestic market. Shaken is of no use to importers/exporters as the vehicles must be de registered before leaving Japan. On higher priced (600,000 yen plus) vehicles, shaken will have less impact, but on cars of a lesser value it can increase the value enough to make some cars uneconomical to export. Shaken current for 6 months or less are regarded as being the same as having none, so don t only search for vehicles with no shaken. The amount of shaken left on a vehicle is written on the auction inspection, however it s a bit tricky to interpret. The Japanese do not use the same system to identify years as we do in the west. Japanese count their years from when the current emperor was crowned (the current Emperor was crowned in 1988) so 2014 is 26 in the Japanese system (this may seem strange compared with our system, but imagine how the explanation of our system sounds to people who are unfamiliar with western beliefs). The shaken also shows the month of expiry and is indicated as in the west i.e. 3 = March. Do not be put off by a vehicle if it has shaken but, for lower priced vehicles, it is better to look for vehicles that are on auction in the low price corner, which normally means for export, having short or no shaken. Below are two examples of the most common inspection sheets, showing where to find the shaken on each. HANDWRITTEN SHAKEN EXPIRY DATE 27 = year = month June TYPEWRITTEN SHAKEN EXPIRY DATE 27 = year = month July PAGE 2

3 HANDWRITTEN NO SHAKEN TYPEWRITTEN NO SHAKEN PAGE 3

4 OUR RECOMMENDED AUCTION SCHEDULES In Northern and mountainous areas of Japan, the roads are salted when icey and this causes vehicles to rust, so we don t recommend bidding on cars from those areas. Auction houses in Sendai, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Nagano or Tohoku should be avoided for this reason. Unless you see something unique from somewhere other than the auctions below, you should limit your searches to the following. MONDAY AUCNET (internet auction with vehicles from various locations) HONDA Tokyo HONDA Kansai HONDA Nagoya JU Tokyo TUESDAY CAA Gifu CAA Tokyo USS Yokohama USSR Nagoya (mostly older cars but often worth looking through for cheaper cars) TAA Kinki TAA Hiroshima TAA Shikoku TAA Kyushu WEDNESDAY CAA Chubu JAA BAYAUC BCN USS Kobe (machinery and vehicles) THURSDAY TAA Chubu TAA Kanto USS Tokyo ZIP Osaka LAA Kansai HANATEN Osaka JU Aichi (machinery and vehicles) FRIDAY USS Nagoya ARAI Bayside USS Osaka SATURDAY USS Shizuoka USS Kyushu JU Gifu HAA Kobe TAA Yokohama ARAI Oyama (machinery, variable additional transport costs) The following diagram shows how to filter auctions. 1. Click here 2. Select auctions by clicking on them 3. Click SEARCH PAGE 4

5 PORTS AND PRICING O = OSAKA N = NAGOYA T = TOKYO MONDAY AUCNET T HONDA Tokyo O HONDA Kansai N HONDA Nagoya T JU Tokyo WEDNESDAY N CAA Chubu T JAA O BAYAUC T BCN O USS Kobe T JU Shizuoka yen FRIDAY N USS Nagoya T ARAI Bayside O USS Osaka T JU Chiba T NAA Tokyo O LAA Okayama yen TUESDAY N CAA Gifu T CAA Tokyo T USS Yokohama N USSR Nagoya O TAA Kinki O TAA Hiroshima O TAA Shikoku O TAA Kyushu yen THURSDAY N TAA Chubu T TAA Kanto T USS Tokyo O ZIP Osaka O LAA Kansai O HANATEN Osaka N JU Aichi SATURDAY N USS Shizuoka O USS Kyushu N JU Gifu O HAA Kobe T TAA Yokohama T ARAI Oyama O USS Okayama O JU Nara yen yen Please Note: All prices are based on a standard car All prices listed are in Japanese Yen TOYKO OSAKA NAGOYA PAGE 5

6 START PRICES All auctions are completely electronic and vendors decide at what price to start the auction. There is no connection between the reserve price and the start price. Some people misunderstand and think reserve and start are the same, they are not. The start price is just an arbitrary figure that bidding begins from. STATISTICS SALES This feature shows sales figures from the past 3 months from the auction sites themselves. Used properly you can get a good idea of sales prices and what to bid. You will see averages of cars with different grades and kms. Averages do not take into accoun shaken. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see the vehicles sold and their prices. If you see an example of a vehicle sold at a much lower price than similar vehicles, it is most likely there will have been something wrong with the vehicle (rust, engine issues etc). If you see a cheap vehicle in the statistics section, don t assume that is the standard price for that model, there will be a reason! Your membership on the website includes an average price feature that is turned off unless you request it to be activated. It can be a good guide for prices but we leave it turned off as it needs to be used along side the information in this guide. If you would like this feature turned on please info@ovalconnect.com with the request, please state your username. Bear in mind the figures can be inaccurate if there is little data from that auction house for that model/year and vehicles with valid shaken will affect figures. PAGE 6

7 RUST The most common issue we see on inspections is rust. Rust is less common on vehicles from the south, but if it is seen, we recommend that you do not bid on that vehicle. Sometimes it can be very minor (exhaust heat shields etc) but, with such a large selection of vehicles, bidding on cars with rust is unnecessary. It is harder to pick up on handwritten auction inspections as in the second example where the katakana symbols for rust are used, but once you start seeing it, it won't take long to recognise. In any case, don t worry, we will identify it and let you know in case you miss it. As you can see its pretty simple to spot on a typewritten sheet. Rust is easy to identify when it is written as S or C as in the auction sheet below. Checking for rust on the inspection sheet can make things quicker and you can discount vehicles before wasting your time sending for translations and working out bids. TYPEWRITTEN RUST 1st = Under 2nd/3rd = Around 4th = S (rust) HANDWRITTEN RUST 1st = Under 2nd/3rd = Around 4th/5th = Rust Please feel free to request any further info to this document as our objective is to try and help with DIY importing and provide as much information, as we can on the auction process. PAGE 7