Key vocab:  中古車 / chukosha - used car.

Let’s be clear from the get go; this expat is knows as much about cars as Jeremy Clarkson knows about when to hold his tongue.  To this effect, consider what follows very much a layman’s experience of the used-car market and purchasing procedures in Japan.

The process of acquiring any car here in Japan can be quite the challenge.  It should be noted then that there are two factors that will make any forays into the market considerably easier; owning a car already, and having a Japanese partner who will become the legal owner of the new (used) one.  More on these later.

Research

There are a number of options available from which one can buy a used car in Japan, both online and off.  We (that’s the Japanese partner and I) kicked off our research through online ‘marts’ in order to do a bit of window shopping and get price comparisons before actually heading to a dealer.  A popular online resource here in Japan is car portal site Goonet (クルマ ポータルサイト).  They have an English-language page which is easy enough to navigate, but as is often the case, if you can handle the language, the Japanese pages offer more detail.  We used this portal to set engine size, budget, and find dealers close by.

Dealers and dealerships

You can do anything online these day; even buy a car.  Quite how one is expected to settle on a new motor by flicking through a gallery of thumbnails however, is beyond this expat.  I at least want to sit in the thing and play with the cup holders first.  Still, this is the situation we faced at some dealerships, where we were drip fed coffee and expected make out minor scratches and scrapes by squinting at stamp-size images.  We moved on.

It’s in visits to dealers that already having a car comes in handy, particularly if you’re out in the suburbs (where cars tend to be sold at a cheaper price).  Most dealerships are located some distance from train stations, so having access to a motor is going to make this part of the process much easier.  

There are two kinds of dealer to be aware of in Japan …

Manufacturer specialists ...

- Expensive but generally considered to be more reliable / trustworthy

- Better support / coverage for when things go wrong

- Repairs can be done at any branch garage, nationwide

Dealers in cars picked up at auction ...

- Considerably cheaper

- Have a wider range of motors to select from, and more likely to have that which says, ‘Yes, this is the one I was looking for.’.  Be careful though, early appearances can be deceptive in these places

- More likely to ‘stretch’ the truth in order to make a sale

- Risk of the cars having been involved in more serious RTAs and / or having undergone extensive repair work

Forums in Japan are often host to locals venting their frustration about motors purchased at the latter.

Contrary to the image of the used-car sales types back home, the Japanese dealers we met with were all pretty easy going, and applied little pressure on us to make up our minds.

For more about the used-car experiencem including considerations, required documents and costs, read the full article at www.city-cost.com