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Surprising Effect of Vehicle Tax Rise in Japan?

Discussion in 'General Truck Info' started by Dave in Japan, Mar 30, 2014.

  1. Dave in Japan

    Dave in Japan Member

    On April 1st sales tax and various vehicle and road taxes are going to go up here in Japan, and I am wondering: Is this going to be good for overseas fans of mini trucks who are looking to import a mini truck from Japan, or is it going to be bad news?

    On Saturday I was visiting a dealer here from whom I sometimes buy cheap older mini trucks for our customers in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK where the governments do not allow the import of newer second hand vehicles.

    The day before, this dealer had sold a 1987 4WD Sambar for only JPY90,000 to a hunter who said that he “just wanted a cheap 4WD for bashing around off road in the hills.”

    The day before that she sold an old 1991 2WD Daihatsu Hi-Jet to a local farmer who said that he “just wanted something cheap to haul things on the farm.”

    I had previously inspected and test driven both of these vehicles and so I knew that they were good trucks.

    Both of these vehicles were over twenty years old. Time was in Japan when Japanese buyers wouldn’t even look at older mini trucks like these.

    I have to say that when I first came to Japan in 1994 I found that average people were more prosperous than they are today, but in these last two decades the government has hit the people with a number of tax rises and eco-regulation cash grabs, and although the government punishes people who can’t afford expensive new cars by making them pay extra taxes on the cheap old cars that they can afford, this had not made people buy more new cars. (And many of the new cars are crap designs with low build quality anyway.) As people here get poorer, cheap old mini trucks are becoming more attractive, I wonder, and many of these tough older vehicles are cheaper to run because they are simpler and more reliable than complex late model cars and even late model trucks. (I even sometimes find a surprising amount of rust on newer vehicles than I find on some of the old goats.)

    Will the tax increases on April 1st cause more older mini trucks to come available on the market, or will the result be fewer good old ones available?

    I’m just a boots on the ground in Japan mini truck hunting grunt. Is there anybody here at Mini Truck Talk who is tuned into the world of high economic understanding who can predict what’s going to happen in this market?

    Cheers,


    Dave in Japan

    My blog about great Japanese cars: http://amoderngoldenera.wordpress.com/

    Our inspected old mini trucks for sale page: http://www.japancardirect.com/jdm-vehicles/mini-trucks-for-sale

    My blog about life and laughs in Japan and elsewhere: http://pricelanguage.at.webry.info/
     
  2. Wedge

    Wedge Member

    Im no expert but here in Canada the import of JDM sports car like EVO Supra GTR's and the like are getting harder to find good clean models at a reasonnable price like before they are getting rare and a hell of alot more expensive. Seems to look like what your a re fearing is happening on this side to.
     
  3. Dave in Japan

    Dave in Japan Member

    Hi Wedge,

    Yeah, the days of the cheap Japanese supercars are coming to an end.

    I got my Celica GT-Four for cheap five years ago, and at that time there seemed to be lots of cheap fast cars around on dealers' lots. I think that at that time the Japanese guys were getting less interested in powerful turbo iron and going into family vans, and at the same time, all this eco anti-fun stuff was fashionable so that any guy who drove a man's powerful can was made to feel like an ape.

    But the world didn't come to an end and the gas didn't run out and I guess some guys said: "Why shouldn't I have some fun in my life?" and they started to hanker after the Evos and Supras and Skylines again. The manufacturers don't offer anything like these cars anymore, so people have woken up that if you want super performance for less that the cost of a Lamborghini, you'd better grab you '90s Jap spec super car now. And that's pushing up the prices.

    I get all frothy about this topic, too, and I'm full of prejudices.

    Cheers,


    Dave

    My blog about great Japanese ‘90s cars: http://amoderngoldenera.wordpress.com/

    Our old inspected mini trucks for sale page: http://www.japancardirect.com/jdm-vehicles/mini-trucks-for-sale

    My blog about life and laughs in Japan and elsewhere: http://pricelanguage.at.webry.info/
     
  4. Dave in Japan

    Dave in Japan Member

    It's now been a month since the sales tax went up here in Japan.

    In our business of selling second hand cars from Japan to overseas, an interesting problem came up for us this month: All the shippers' port lots have been quite full of cars and trucks waiting to be exported.

    I have heard that many sellers with overseas branches and connections decided to move a lot of their stock out of Japan because they think that, in future, these cars will not sell due to the sales tax rise. Interesting. As to what types and prices of cars these guys decided to shift out, I'm not really seeing any pattern, but I'm watching the cheapo market closely. Some of the cheap but good old minitrucks that I have inspected recently here have all been sold to customers inside Japan. So it may be that the cheap vehicle market gets a bit of a boost as people have to aim down and give up on more expensive cars and trucks.

    I'll be keeping an eye on this. Anybody else with experience or info on price changes in the minitruck market, tell us what you have found.

    Cheers,

    Dave

    My blog about great Japanese cars: http://amoderngoldenera.wordpress.com/

    Our old inspected mini trucks for sale page: http://www.japancardirect.com/jdm-vehicles/mini-trucks-for-sale

    My blog about life and laughs in Japan and elsewhere: http://pricelanguage.at.webry.info/
     

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