Life is short

I have never been much for blogging in fact I have no clue why I bothered to make this this one in the first place. Maybe it had something to do with with fact I already had the Opera account.

Regardless I fell like adding to the mayhem that no one will ready anyway. After all isn't that the point of these things anyway?

So recently I came across Goggle wave and fell in love with the idea. I presently do not like it for many reasons I did not like the Gmail beta such as Opera is not supported and when I load it in Safari or Firefox it uses up so much resources my old beloved PC crashes repeatedly. But that never stopped me form using Gmail so bring it on. After all this month I had to collate a document with some people and it turned out to be a gong show and it would have been much easier with Google Wave. Not to mention the number of time I have had to correct spelling mistakes in this post alone well has been huge (Half the document no joke!) I just can't spell and Operas spell checker is not that good for my busted up English and bad typing skills. Needless to say I have emailed my friends and asked them to join in trying out Google Wave.

Anther concern thing about Google wave is it does not seam to be backwards compatible with email. Meaning all the people that took 20 years to be convinced to use email will take another 20 years before they will switch over to the wave system. On the bright side it is open source like email. So anyone can make there own client for it.

Check it out here https://wave.google.com/wave/

So what's your thoughts on Google Wave? Do you think it will replace email or end up as anther app we have to load up when we open our web browsers just like face book?

I went out and bought another Sorer this time it was a 1991 model with the inline 6 twin turbo.

Yes I am truly a glutton for punishment but what can I say I love the Soarer’s

I have been driving it since February of this year and I must say it reminds me a lot of my old car and not just because of the waiting for thing like uh parts this one has the same kick to it, ok it has a little more.

It tool 3 months to get legal after getting a laundry lists of things fixed on it and shortly after I got it all legal and on the road the water pump died. No big deal I though. I will just find a comparable local engine and use it’s one. Well not so much… The Supra’s 3l inline 6 had a slightly different one where the bolt did not line up by about a 3 millimeters. The worst part it I couldn’t jerry rig that.

So I called Japan and sheer enough there like yup we can send you one but it will take 2 weeks. “Ok, no big deal” I said and then the waiting begun. Two weeks past and it came in all its glory in on freaking huge box. I’m like what gives!? I eagerly open it only to discover it’s the wrong one… So I sit there wondering how that was possible seeing as how he said he matched it up to the serial number of my car.

So I call him back and say what gives? He goes whops I will send you another but you have to pay for the return of the first one. An additional $90 and 2 weeks later it’s back in there hands and the right one is in mine. When all was said and done, had to wait 4 weeks and pay $190 more then if I would have got the part locally.

But much to my delight that’s the biggest misadventure I have had the rest are just side notes it the joys of owing an import.

But the big question was it worth it? Yup, I must be crazy. Oh wait I am.

Well my car finely bit the bullet. My dad recommended buying a 1990 Corsica and it was a grate car that I only intended to keep for 6 months and it lasted me about 2 years before the transmission started to act up. So my brother purposed an interesting idea to import a 1988 Toyota Soarer. A what? Yes I said the same thing. See my brother had imported a nice Nissan Skyline and everything went smoothly for him… well almost but that’s a story for another time.

Some where in-between looking at this boxy car and wondering what’s so grate about the thing and loving the car I decided I wanted to get one. So I asked my day who’s a mechanic and always seams to know if a car is to be good to get or something to avoid. Now much to my surprise he refuses to give me a direct answer something I totally didn’t expect but I got an underling feeling that he felt it was a bad idea. Needless to say I got captured by the moment and slapped down my down payment anyway. Ah yes you know where this is going and I should have too.

After eagerly waiting for what seamed like forever my car still hadn’t arrived. Ok it was only 2 weeks but I was told that’s how long it takes for thing to get here by shipping. I start to pester my brother to find out what’s the hold. After a few days of playing phone tag he finds out that the importer can’t find a boat to put the thing on. So it looks like I was back to waiting oh joy, but it will be worth it….

So 3 months goes by and my lovely car rolls into the dock at New Westminster and its time to go pick this thing up. So we take my brothers Skyline all the way down there from Abbotsford on a hot summer’s day with the windows rolled down enjoying the ride. After we arrive I eagerly wait around as they pull my car around the corner out of the lot where it was being stored. As soon as they pulled it up there was grate joy and excitement the long wait was finally over. I climbed into the beauty that was my new Err… old car. I beamed with excitement. We drove down the road a bit and into a parking lot and slapped on the plats from my old car. Come on like you have never done anything illegal in your life. Anyhow I got to drive it home and oh what a joy it was. We took First Avenue along the boarder to avoided traffic and attention. There is nothing quite like it flying down the road at double the speed limit with the wind blowing in your face. That is when I discovered something about cars that I never new was possible. I finally realised what a joy they could be and for the first time ever I had fun driving a car.

Finlay the car was home and the paper work to make it legal started. After a few weeks of boring read tap that I will spare you from reading my car became legal to drive in Canada. The first thing I did with my car was take it to my fiends wedding and show the thing off. This car had everything from a digital dash board to an air purifier. It was a blast everyone liked the car and it was a source of mischievous fun. As I was driving it my passenger decided to stick his upper body and both arms out the window and wave them around as I drove around a corner. The lady driving behind us went white and slammed on her brakes. Now for those of you who don’t know the driver sits on the right in a Japanese imported car.

Around six months later my brother came into my room and asked me if he could borrow my car. After all his car was undergoing upgrades and he did not want to drive the parents Corsica. Yes they had one too even before I got mine. By this time my Corsica would have been rusting in a junk yard. So I said to him “You know where my keys are”. He tanked me and ran out the door only to come back a few hours later all shaken up. “Your car was hit, don’t weary about it I will look after it and call ICBC you won’t have to do a thing” he said. This begun my long road of misery. I went out side and had a look only to see the drivers front end all managed up. She still drove but the fender was rubbing the tire and the light was busted so it was not worth driving. When I asked what happened he told me a lady in a blue van was backing out of a drive way and bashed it.

Thankfully I had a car pool and they agreed to pick up the slack until the clam was all sorted out. The adjuster looked at the car and said the value was $6k Canadian and they would fix it but I need to find a certified place to get it repaired. We took the car to Flag Chevolds the place my dad worked. After all Toyota told me they can’t fix it and no certified places could get parts. They told us what parts they needed and we gave them the number to the broker in Calgary that we had gotten the car from. After a few weeks goes by I begin to wonder what is happening. So we ask the body shop and they told us they couldn’t get a hold of the guy.

So after searching around I discover a place that can get parts Japan Auto. The only problem is they want a $1500 down payment before he even begins and he can does not know what the total cost will come to. I pass the information off the to body shop and they tell me they can’t do that because they need an exact quote to give to ICBC and ICBC says that they wont do anything and the body shop has to deal with it. Two weeks of this ‘pass the buck’ game goes on for and no one wants to take responsibility for anything. Finally we get a response from the broker and he says he will get the parts. Relief at last or so I think.

Another game of cat and mouse goes on for 6 months with the broker. I never get to talk to the guy have to go through other people like my brother or cousin. Now my brother can be lazy at times and my cousin is the laziest person I know. So getting info from them is hard and getting info from the broker is even harder. Every two weeks I get a different answer everything from ‘The parts are ordered and on there way‘ to ‘They don’t even know what parts they need to order so I sent them the list again’.

Well eventually my car pool dies as people move away or decide to drive there motor cycle now that its summer. So my other brother bangs the car out and installs a head light from a different car. It is truly the ugliest thing I have ever seen but it’s now driveable. I would have done it sooner but the ‘parts will be here shortly’ answer I kept hearing and the fact I could drive my parents Corsica stopped prevent me for so long. Oh what a mixed feeling it was to drive my car again. Both joy and disappointment began to stir up in me. I was motivated to get to the bottom of this and talk to the broker my self. So I tried to fire off an email to him only to have a failure to deliver message come right back in my face. I called his number but like every other time I had tried the only thing that picked up was an answering machine.
So I sent an email to the other broker and called ICBC again something I had done several times but received no success. This time I finally was able to get a hold of adjuster at ICBC he had just came back from a long vacation. Gee what a surprise. After briefly explaining my situation he offers to write the car off. The only thing is he does not know the value of the car. I informed him of the only place in the lower mainland that has one on there lot ‘Japan Auto’ and of another importer in Abbotsford ‘SCI’. Both companies way over charge for the cars they import such as Japan Auto that wanted $8K for a 1989 Toyota Soarer almost identical to my 1988. The only different is I paid $4K. I gave him all this info. The adjuster said he would call me back next Thursday and if he didn’t I would have to call him Monday. Surprise, surprise I received no phone call. Then to top it off the other broker forwarded a message from the one that’s getting parts for me.

The email explained that they had all the parts but the front bummer. Some of them were shipped by boat and the others waiting in Japan until the bummer is received. One of the many thing told to me was that they would be air shipped to speed up things due to all the needless delays caused by misunderstandings but that’s just the tip of the ice berg. The parts are being shipped to Calgary. So they will drive by my house all the way to Alberta only to come all the way back. What morons! Then they show me there source for getting parts yahoo actions Japan. That’s a co.jp site meaning everything is in Japanese. All along I thought they had a real contact in Japan getting the parts. Then the final blow they tell me this is a favour and they don’t normally do this sort of thing unless people have no where else to turn. So they will give you a car that they know you will have no way of getting parts for and tell that you’re on your own. Ouch that hurts!

So here I am. Sitting my room on a tremendously hot summer’s day waiting and wondering what I will do tomorrow. What will ICBC tell me when I call them? What will I do about the parts that are coming? So many questions and I haven’t got a clue anymore.

Would I recommend buying a JDM car to anyone in North America? Yes but only if it would be a secondary car and/or have a North American counterpart so you can get parts easily. With the exception of the Skyline if you live in the lower mainland of B.C. because the owner of the Nissan dealership here likes Skylines and has gone out of his way to ensure that it is possible for people to order any stock parts from him. With this I also offer a word of caution to anyone wanting to import. Remember this if you want one you better be willing to spend most of your time waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting because after all when the thing belongs on the other side of the world getting them and parts won’t be easy. Also pick the company you get the car from very carefully because some will rip you off like SCI and others like Import concern (The broker I used) are just people hopping on the band wagon of importing and don’t know what they are doing.

Thank you for spending the time to go over this long article. I hope you learned something about the joys and dark sides of importing cars.