Hello everyone! I've been a lurker on and off for the past couple of years, and now feeling up to the challenge of importing my first mini truck on my own! Just a little bit of background info, I live in Virginia Beach, VA, and am going through Japan Car Direct. So far there are a couple of bids I lost, but that was mostly my fault for not really knowing the bidding system and searching pretty much at the last hours which makes it hard if I wanted to do a 3rd party inspection or simply the 13 hour time difference in Japan. When I do win on something, I'll have to drive up the Baltimore, MD and pick it up there as they have RORO services and the two ports (Newportnews, VA and Norfolk, VA) near me do not. However that is another story I'll have to look into. My question is about the USDA inspections at the port. I did a search and all the posts seems like they are 10+ years old. Has anyone got flagged about the USDA inspections (I guess for pest control) when your truck came into port? All the trucks I have been looking at have an interior rating of C or less which is the norm if these are work trucks 25+ years. I'm am finally in a position to import a truck, but if I get flagged for the truck not being "USDA Clean" I feel like it would really financially screw me over if I have to pay for all these unforeseen costs. I have a little bit of extra cash just in case if I go over my budget, but not in the sense if I have to pay to send the truck back to Japan only to have it cleaned and then sent back to the US. At that point I could have bought two trucks HAHA! I asked the people in Japan Car Direct about the washing services because on their website it stated that was 10,000 yen (roughly $100) but when I asked they said it went up to $250 USD at the port. Now that I think about it I need to clarify if that is including cleaning the interior or if that is an extra charge. FYI: If anyone is curious about Japan Car Direct, my dealings with them for the past week has been good and the whole team has been very helpful with any potential trucks I have found and sent them the links for translation.
I'm not an importer, but I bought my truck from Mitsui ltd. it was hit but it passed the USDA hold. .. but Mitsui is not an auction site...what you see is what you pay, at least I didn't haggle them on the $1620 I paid for my truck. When I was informed by my broker of the hold, I thought I might have to pay a bunch of money to some cleaning service. After doing a bunch of reading I found they will single out first-time importers and those who have not followed or have been cited for issues in the past for inspections. Only if you fail the inspection will you be required to do anything..... all in all... getting a hold seems to almost be normal, but failing that inspection is the real trouble. I imported through Savannah GA, as RORO
mine had dead bugs and rice stalks stuck between cab and bed. did not mine that,But did mine all the "field mods done on the truck" farmer use what they have and make it fit lots of parts and grinding and rewelding all good now.
I appreciate the replies! Yeah I was really worried about being stopped and any potential pitfalls with the USDA holds as I am trying to estimate the finances for everything from start to finish so that there would be no “surprises” during the whole process. I do want to say that I ended up buying a 94” Hijet Climber locally and got it titled and plated in my state. It’s not the exactly what I wanted, but not having to do the other stuff once it got here was nice. Also got to inspect it and drive it around for a little bit. I don’t have a trailer, as I planned on renting, and was thinking about adding a trailer to my 350 Transit van.
Haha I guess that’s an unwelcomed extra. After messing with my HiJet, it came with an after market radio, but it takes CD and Mini Disk
