Wednesday 25th July 2001

Watchdog Tonight

Special report will put you off buying a grey import

---

[andyf]

If you buy an import car which happens to turn out to be stolen, you aren''t allowed to keep it. What about trying to get your money back off the guys who sold it you or is that a slim chance (i.e. they''ve legged it)?

[bafurness]

Where do HPI stand on this and why, if the police know they're stolen, don't HPI know.

[pikey]

HPI won't know about it as there won't be any record of the vehicle in the UK. If the plates are changed before they get here, I wonder where the (Japanese) insurance company start.

[Markus_Warren]

I'm an owner of a grey import impreza turbo, so the programe was a little worrying for me. My car came direct from japan to ireland, and the three parties involved all still exist and seem to be kosher, so I think I'm safe. However, one would like to get the car checked out, just to be sure, the problem being that if you ask plod to check it, and it is stolen then you're stuffed, they'll impound it. interesting non? What I wil say is that if you want a grey import, and it's a kosher one, then you're laughing as the prices are going to go through the flaw as everyone will start thinking they are nicked.

[Horse]

Why the hell are the Police spending all that time and money depriving innocent Brits of their vehicles for the benefit of Japanese Insurance companies? Once again they've got their priorities all wrong!! Cars stolen in Japan are a problem for the Japanese police!

[nmilton]

Oh, that's simple !! Money !!! If they take the car away then they get to sell it and (some of) the proceeds go back to the Japanese insurance companies. Maybe. If they're lucky. And they're feeling generous. Or if they haven't got any Gatsos to buy that month. I still think it sucks that someone who buys a car in good faith can get ripped off and left with nothing, particularly when the seller / original owner aren't even in the UK !! Maybe if the police were seen to be concentrating a bit more on clearing up UK car crime and burglaries then last night's programme might have been a bit easier to swallow. Frankly it just came across as, once again, Plod going for the easy target. If they're so f*****g good at finding stolen Japanese cars, why are they next to useless when it comes to UK ones ??

[nmilton]

Oh yes, and it totally failed to show how the cars were leaving Japan. OK, so a lot may go out in containers but a few raids by the Japanese police should go some way to clamping down on that. By the sound of it thousands of cars are leaving the country each year and they're not exactly small things to hide !! If the Japanese police could do something about the problem it wouldn't waste our police time and resources. (Rant over !!)

[lestag]

Sh*t there are 100's of thousands of jap imports in NZ. Can't tell me 90% of them are stolen. In NZ if you buy the jappa through a licenced motor vehicle dealer then you are protected from loosign your money if it is subsequently found to be stolen It is a lot of FUD. You have more to worry about with clocked speedos. Recently here the crims have been caught bringing in wrecks from japan, cutting out the ID plates and rewelding them in stolen NZ cars.

[MattC]

quote:... You have more to worry about with clocked speedos....

So you're already familiar with Quentin Wilson's work...

[mel]

If I remember rightly NZ has got its legal system sussed for protecting people on all car related things. Isn't there some odd system where you can't sue anyone for personal injuries after a shunt but get a standard pay out from the Gov'(Paid for from GATSO revenue maybe ???) dependant on whats wrong. Cracking scheme that keeps insuramce premiums under control by stopping all the tosser "whiplash" claims etc that push up what we pay !!! If they've sussed the grey import thing maybe we ought to look closer at how !!

[mel]

NZ's not perfect though they've only got about half a dozen tiv's between them !!!! and they were all personal imports......poor souls

[nmilton]

And with more sheep than people in NZ you'd have to wonder what model Flossy decided to import to get herself to and from the market !!