Toyota Estima / Jap Imports - any experience

[scotlandtim]

Hi

Due to my last thread becoming a bit of a wife bashing I've started a new one

To summarise

We are looking at a Jap Import as the best option for a family car. Toyota Estima type vehicle.

When I last looked at Jap imports about 12 years ago - insurance was crazy and parts were hard to come by

Does anyone have experience of such a vehicle and running it in UL as a daily driver?

Thanks!

[snobetter]

Bit of info here: - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[TommoAE86]

I have a Toyota Crown which I used TorqueGT to import, the negatives are

• Can only be run on Vpower (or tesco momentum, basically the highest rating you can find locally).
• Insurance is higher, for me it's nearly triple the equivalent (& slower) Lexus GS.
• Model specific for me but having to learn the menu which is in Japanese took some time, all good now though.

Parts - I just take it to my local garage and rarely have problems and parts are shared across models, oddly had to get rear brake pads from Toyota. The biggest issue I have is grumpy tyre places not listening when I tell them to use the Lexus GS settings

But if those don't bother you then it's like any other car just better because Japanese > European cars I went from my awful Jag into a Skyline and was so blown away with how good it was when it came to change I bought the Crown without knowing anything about the model however I'm glad I did as it's been so good that now it's the longest I've ever owned a car and I'll only be changing it for another Crown.

[scotlandtim]

Thanks for that

USeful threads - and link s to other threads

Im more and more put off by the MPG TBH - i do 15-20K miles per year and just can't swallow that much petrol cost...

[5lab]

I'd take the reported milage of most of the cars available with a massive pinch of salt. They all seem to have tiny miles despite being oldish cars and looking extremely hard-worn inside. Its rare to have any history to back the milage up.

they also have a tendancy to drink petrol like its going out of fashion, a galaxy/sharan is much cheaper to run

[LactoseJoe]

Generally speaking Japanese cars will have lower mileage. They’re also pretty well looked after but absolutely not all of them, and as mentioned above: you’ll be lucky to get any service history on it. I’d be inclined to say a car like the above won’t have any mileage tampering - it’s just not worth it for them on what is essentially a junk car in Japan. You can validate this through some companies, they will show you historic auction rap sheets and you can figure out from there whether there are any discrepancies. Can you read the auction sheets? Because some cars have been used in the mountainous areas/the north and will have been subject to some seriously salty roads, this is where my main focus would be.

Would I bother buying a car like an Estima from Japan? It really depends what the UK alternatives are but probably no. Big SUV or sports car can be worth it.

[TommoAE86]

Definitely get it inspected by someone competent in Japan but that's just common sense, in terms of numbers of dodgy cars I'd say it's less than over here but people blow up the problems because they've bought & waited for something only to find it's a dud so they come out with how they're all dodgy etc etc. There are companies you can give you mileage checks and my Skyline came with service history but my Crown didn't, anything with a cambelt will have a sticker on the engine itself so you don't have to chase down a piece of paper.

MPG - Japan didn't go big on diesel so you're left with petrol's (what's the point with so many small journeys), Toyota's VVTi in my Crown is amazing for me and I can get from Southampton to Cornwall and back on a tank but then it'll kill me for doing town driving, I regularly beat the brochure combined figure with the on board computer.

[wolfie1978]

I had a Honda Elysion 3.5 for a while. Parts can be an issue but Cox's were generally pretty good as sourcing them. I wouldn't want to do 15 to 20k per year in it though, as comfortable and capable as it was the thirst would be a major pita. The interior space wasn't that versatile if I'm honest, seat don't fold flat or move in the correct way to create a large load space in the same way a VW Caravelle does for example.

[Jaaack]

CarVX check is worth doing! If nothing else it backs up the mileage, gives details of any repairs, previous auction photos etc.

That goes for anyone with a JDM import actually, unless the car was imported before the mid 2000s, there are often still records held