Wednesday 10th

Having looked at several import sites and viewed what was available at auction, mainly on the Bonsai Cars site, I decided to register with Autoadvan. Once registered I was able to view cars coming up at auction on the ASNET website. This allowed me to look further in advance at what cars were coming up at auction than on the Bonsai site. I had decided that other than being automatic, it must be an ST model, and ruled silver out as a colour as we already have a silver car, besides which this seems to be a fairly common colour and wanted something a bit more unusual. It would have to be pretty standard so as to not have too many issues with SVA and with no major dints or scratches. I wasn't bothered about satnav as I have future plans for the ICE.

Friday 12th

I didn't expect to find a car that matched my criteria so quickly, but I spotted a car which was to be entered into auction on the following day. I e-mailed Autoadvan to find out how much they expected the car to go for and within half an hour I had a response back saying that they would expect me to pay between £14000 and £15000 all in to get that particular car back to the UK. Autoadvan have a strange pricing strategy whereby you tell them what you are prepared to pay for the car, excluding SVA and registration costs and they work out what to bid at auction. In one way this takes the hassle out of working out what to bid, but then you don't know how much you are actually bidding and therefore don't know if there is something fishy going on!

I had to place a deposit before I could get an auction sheet translation or place a bid, so paid £1000 via Paypal. The auction sheet translation was e-mailed to me later in the day, and I decided that this was the car I wanted to bid on. It was the spec and colour I wanted, and despite a lower grading than I had wanted (Grade 4) it was reasonably new and only had 4000km on the clock. I was slightly hesitant about the spec as  I couldn't make out if it had the Brembo brakes from the photos which would given away whether it was an ST or just a T model.

I advised Autoadvan that I would be prepared to pay upto £15200 for an all-in price and sat back and waited. I later did a search for the same car on the Bonsai car website only to find their translation. It was exactly the same apart from it mentioned a scratch on the windscreen and ripples in the leather on one of the seats. I am dubious as to why this was missed off the Autoadvan translation. It may have been an oversight, or they just wanted to let me know about the good points.

Saturday 13th

I received an e-mail late Saturday afternoon saying that I had been successful at the auction and the UK landed price would be £14875.00. Now the worrying bit, I was required to transfer £12,160 into a Japanese bank account. Having done a search around on the internet I haven't come across anything adverse about the agent I had chosen, and given the fact that they had been trading for about 10 years gave me the confidence that everything should be ok. I must point out that I am not associated in any way with Autoadvan, and one of the reasons for documenting my experience is to demonstrate to others warts and all how good, bad or worthwhile it would be to use them.

Monday 15th

Went to my bank to sort out the international bank transfer. This cost £20 to process and I was advised that it would take upto 14 days for the funds to reach the Japanese bank which was far longer than I was expecting.

The £1260 paid includes an £85 fee for marine insurance. Taking into account the deposit already paid I have been advised that I will have approximately £1800 to pay directly to the shipping agents to cover VAT and import duty, but this won't be required until just before the car arrives at the docks

I had also been asked by Autoadvan to consider which port I would prefer the car to be shipped to, from a choice of Southampton, Bristol, Liverpool, Newcastle or Dublin. Either Liverpool or Newcastle are closest to Wakefield but as there seems to be more chance of having the car shipped to Southampton, then Bristol sooner I will probably choose these as my preferred port.

I decided to check with a couple of SVA preparation companies to see how much it would cost and so that I could check which port my preferred preparation company was near. I had spoken to someone over the weekend who had also just imported a 350Z and his experience was that some of the larger companies in Southampton were only interested in traders bringing in larger numbers of cars and in the end he went to BMSESVA Ltd near Bristol who he would recommend so I gave them a call.

The person I spoke to at BMSESVA Ltd was quite knowledgeable about 350Z's and the process involved and gave me some confidence that they knew what they were doing. They gave a budget price of £550+VAT for preparation and SVA plus the cost of hiring the model report (about £100 + VAT) and the cost of either an immobiliser (£135 + VAT) or CAT1 alarm (£321 + VAT).

Autoadvan recommend Central Auto Logistics, formally Charlesworths SVA at Donnington. I was reassured when I spoke to them and they said that they had been dealing with Autoadvan for years. They quoted £580 + VAT for preparation, included speed deristriction, £200 for ESVA plus £100+VAT for a technician to present during SVA / MOT and £65 + VAT for admin. An immobiliser would be £122 +VAT or a Toad CAT 1 alarm £289+VAT. There would also be a cost of £149 for registration plus £30 + VAT admin and £18 for number plates.

They did ask if new the date of manufacture as they were just in the process of preparing a late 2005 model 350 Z and it wasn't exactly like the model report, as it was the facelift model. They did say there was probably a way round it but that it may cost extra !

I haven't decided at the moment which company to use but had confidence in both that I had spoken to. I will discuss in more detail with them nearer the time and depending on which port the car finally ends up at will probably end up hiring a trailer and transporting it myself. I had thought about preparing it myself, after all I have already built a kitcar and put it through a similar test, but dealing with the likes of the HID lights and the issue with the model report are putting me off. Plus taking into account lost income from not working while taking it through the test makes it more sensible to pay someone else for the hassle.

Friday 19th

Received a phone call from my bank advising me that someone had applied for a bank transfer to a Japanese bank account and was I aware if it and that it could be a fraud transaction ! Obviously thanked them for their vigilance and reminded them that it was me that had been into the bank to fill out the form in the first place and that I was happy for the transaction to take place. Just hope I'm doing the right thing !

Tuesday 23rd

E-mail received from Autoadvan confirming that they had received the payment for the vehicle along with details of the shipping agent.

E-mail received from Barratt Shipping Ltd confirming their appointment as shipping agent and requesting confirmation of my preferred port, which I immediately replied to.

November

Thursday 1st

Having not heard anything for a week, I e-mailed Autoadvan to ask how long it normally takes for the shippers to confirm that a place on a ship is available. I also asked when I would be able to get more photos of the car. They responded back straight away saying that I would have to deal with the shippers directly, but they would sort photo's out.

I sent an e-mail to Barratt Shipping asking the same question. They responded back within minutes saying that they were experiencing delays with shipments at the moment due to lack of space on the vessels and so couldn't give any indication on when there would be space available on a ship. They advised I checked back with them in another week.

Friday 2nd

Pictures received. Certainly response from Autoadvan has been quicker than expected. I'm also pleasantly surprised to find that it is the facelift model (2006). I just hope this isn't going to cause any problems at SVA stage with the model report. Everything looks ok except the front bumper looks a bit out of alignment with the bonnet but this should be a straight forward fix.

Monday 19th

E-mail received from Barratt Shipping confirming that the car (cargo) is on the vessel ' Morning Courier' and due for arrival 31/12/07 at Southampton.

January 2008

Friday 4th

E-mail received from Barratt Shipping confirming that the car was at Southampton docks, and that the import duty and VAT were due in order to release the car. The final figure came to £1806 which was close to Autoadvans original estimate of £1800.

I placed an order with SVA (UK) ltd to carry out the ESVA preparation & testing, along with registration

Tuesday 8th

E-mail received from Barratt Shipping containing a 'Release Order' confirming the car could be collected, which SVA (UK) ltd would do as they are based at Southampton docks

Thurday 9th

After a few days ringing round for insurance, I finally found the cheapest quote at just under £800 from Sky Insurance. This was fully comprehensive with 6 years NCB, and twice the price of insuring an equivalent UK model - one of the downfalls of import. It didn't help that I had my previous car stolen, and although recovered and I didn't loose my NCB, I was told that this affected the price. This did include a discount from being a member of the 350Z-UK owners club

Friday 11th

Although its 220miles away, being at a loose end for a couple of days we decided to have a weekend trip to Southampton to see the car and check that all of the paperwork was in place. SVA (UK) Ltd seemed to be organised and had already swapped over the HID lights for the ESVA test. The car was exactly as expected, although covered in quite a bit of grime from its journey from Japan. Much to my relief there were no signs of damage on the outside and it looked pretty clean on the inside.