Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

This info should be condensed, and this thread stickyed, and renamed somrthing like: important: read before importing m35, or some such. This info is too valuable to lose, especially for any visitors considering an m35.

  • Replies 69
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Yes - well if you are going to sticky my misfortune, let's add this pearl of wisdom from the SEVS website...

"The register of Specialist and Enthusiast Vehicles is a list of vehicles that are eligible to be imported by a Registered Automotive Workshop(RAW) or by a company applying for a New Low Volume Compliance Plate Approval. It does not infer that there is a current approval for that particular vehicle."

Read carefully all ye Thrill Seekers out there in Importland.

My lawyer's advice is as follows:-

"Prior to the purchase of this particular vehicle you sought the advice of a person who held himself out to be an expert in the field and you sought from that person an indication as to whether or not, were you to purchase and import this vehicle, it could receive, without undue delay or complication, a certificate of compliance enabling you to register and use the vehicle in this country. You were given that assurance by that person and under the civil law both in New South Wales and in Queensland you had a legitimate expectation that the advice that you would have been given was correct, the person who having given it was amply aware that you would be relying upon that advice in making the decision to purchase and import the vehicle.

It now appears that that advice was wrong and negligently wrong at that. The vehicle in question cannot be easily complianced in this country, if at all, and that has been confirmed by the delays in expense and time that have been experienced by Mr XXX in respect of the car which he purchased, apparently on receipt of similar negligent advice from another professional in the field.

Your position at law is that you are entitled now to commence proceedings against the person who provided you with that negligent advice and to seek from them reimbursement of all of your losses occasioned as a consequence of your reliance upon that negligent advice. Those losses, or damages as they are called, would include the purchase price of the vehicle, all the shipping and other costs associated with transporting the vehicle from its origin in Japan to your door, any ancillary costs as you have been obliged to incur since the vehicle has arrived, and any further costs that you have incurred as a direct result of your inability to have this vehicle complianced and registered and available for your use now.

Such additional expenses would include the costs of repairing, re-registering or re-insuring your current vehicle, assuming that you intended to replace it with the subject vehicle, discounted or set off against the costs that you would otherwise have had to incur in any event in registering and insuring the Nissan M35 Stagea in Queensland. These additional, second car costs, would be calculated on a pro rata basis, depending upon how long it took to resolve this matter generally and hence dispose of your current registered motor vehicle and replace it with another.

Motor engineers of the type that you have consulted, and from whom you have on this occasion received negligent advice, are normally required to carry professional indemnity insurance so it would be wise to present a claim to this person soon and to invite them to notify their professional indemnity insurer of the claim so that it can be adequately and promptly assessed and paid. Such a claim would, of course, involve you handing over this vehicle in exchange for being fully reimbursed all of your costs or damages, but given that the vehicle is now of no worth to you as a motor vehicle, I assume that that would not pose a problem."

All I can hope is that placing the bunsen-burner of my lawyer under the backsides of the persons responsible for giving me the faulty advice encourages them to A/ produce the emissions evidence, or B/ recompense me for ALL the expense incurred so far. I sincerely hope that no-one else on this board ever has the misfortune to be in this position in the future.

Edited by autech_axis

man this is a pretty stuffed up situation hey?

so the question I have is .. what then happens to the car if you CANT get it on the road?

does it get parted out etc?

it seems insane that its ONLY the startup emissions that are causing a problem here. and once the cat is up to temp it would be ok .

To be honest.. I dont think your going to have any problems being recompensed.

Bad situation to be in for the importer though. one hell of a mess

keep us informed as to how this all rolls out ! oh and keep a log of your lawers expenses ;)

man this is a pretty stuffed up situation hey?

so the question I have is .. what then happens to the car if you CANT get it on the road?

d

Not my problem. I love this car, but it's completely useless to me as it is.

The compliancer can take it away and do what he likes with it when I get my money.

who was the import agent if you dont mind me asking?

becuase clearly they should have advised you whether it was eligible or not?

Can't say publicly. This matter will shortly be sub judice.

And they did. They were wrong.

The time frame a workshop has to comply a vehicle is 12 months which has been extended before but when you pay a $1,000 to a 3 party importer the advice is suppose to be correct and up to date since they say they are the experts in the field.

Below is a bit of standard wording used in some Import Agreements with dealers which covers a RAW if something goes wrong as they don't do work for brokers.

1. XXXXXXXX is not responsible for any delays in work being carried out and/or unexpected delays in processing required paperwork with DOTARS.

2. XXXXXXXX is not responsible for any delays due to changes in legislation and or processes required under RAWS.

3. XXXXXXXX is not responsible for any delays due to any third party company's supplying documents required under RAWS stating vehicles compliance of ADR's.

Certain business are desperate for work and they will tell you what you want to hear and worry about the problems later which is another reason that problems like this arise or they just don't give a shit.

I would say to the Broker "Well you own an M35 Stagea that might get complied one day so take responsibility" if you give bad advice don't blame someone else.

A sticky should be of problems importing be it which ever method with out naming names but again some people wont like it.

Matthew PM me if I can ever shed some light on a question you might have but it looks like you have it all covered.

Thanks Nigel - I appreciate your offer of help. Unless you know any other RAW who is currently attempting to get emissions on 2004+ M35 with VQ25DET then there's not much to be done.

For the record I don't deal with brokers, and I don't deal with dealers. I have a buyer in Kobe and deal direct with the RAWS shop. I sent them full details of the car, including the auction house sheet prior to purchase, and relied on their advice about compliance. I have several emails from them stating that the car could be complied, and it was only Chris Rogers who alerted me to the potential problem. Unfortunately at this stage the car was already on a ship...

I hate emissions for this matter!

The annoying thing for you is the fact that emissions go based on the year of the vehicle.

For example, I want to put a 4g63t out of an Evo 8 into a 1990 Silvia. I went and spoke to an engineer about it and he said the car only needs to pass 1990 emissions standards. The fact that I am using a 05 motor means that I wont have a worry in the world. For this reason, I am going aftermarket turbo and motec from the start as I know even like this, I will pass emissions for engineering..

Messed up situation mate, I hate to hear about it :laugh:

OK a few people have asked but i havent read a reply as yet... I still dont understand how M35's 2003 or early are being complied fine and registered with exactly the same VQ25DET engine as the one you have which isnt passing emissions?? Did something else beside the engine channge that means the 2001-2003 meet emissions but not 2004, or do the new emission standards only apply to cars produced after the change effect date?

Cheers

OK a few people have asked but i havent read a reply as yet... I still dont understand how M35's 2003 or early are being complied fine and registered with exactly the same VQ25DET engine as the one you have which isnt passing emissions?? Did something else beside the engine channge that means the 2001-2003 meet emissions but not 2004, or do the new emission standards only apply to cars produced after the change effect date?

Cheers

\/ what he said. I am pretty sure emissions laws changed at the start of 2004, and they are gonna do it again in 2008.

I hate emissions for this matter!.....

....The annoying thing for you is the fact that emissions go based on the year of the vehicle.....

OK a few people have asked but i havent read a reply as yet... I still dont understand how M35's 2003 or early are being complied fine and registered with exactly the same VQ25DET engine as the one you have which isnt passing emissions?? Did something else beside the engine channge that means the 2001-2003 meet emissions but not 2004, or do the new emission standards only apply to cars produced after the change effect date?

Cheers

In line with a cleaner greener world, DOTARS made an arbitrary decision that as at a certain date, ADR 79 would come into being. Same engine now has to pass tougher emissions tests. There is only cosmetic difference between 2003 and later.

cheers

Muz

just a wild suggestion here, and feel free to bash the crap out of it all of you.

why not put the car on dedicated LPG such as an injected system like the new falcon system they are doing in adelaide?

would this not get around the emissions problem???

just a thought is all

cheers oxford

and to be honest its the principal of it all you know? the poor guy got given bum info so why should he go lpg? I mean dont take my tone in the wrong way its a good suggestion .. but yeah.. wont work unfortunately as pointed out earlier

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
    • Yea - I mean I've seen my fuel pump which is decades old and uh, while I'm not saying this with real knowledge... but I sure get the ick at using anything in the fuel system that produced the state of that pump. Many years ago I went through multiple pumps (and strainers) before I dropped the tank to clean it out with extreme violence. I'm talking the car would do maybe 50km before coming to a halt, which resulted in me cleaning out the filter with some brake cleaner and going on my way. None of my stuff ever looked like what came out of your fuel tank. I don't think I'd be happy with it unless every single component was replaced (or at least checked/cleaned/confirmed to be clean here).
    • I'm not going to recommend an EBC pad. I don't like them. Just about anything else would suit me better. I've been using Intima pads for a while now.
×
×
  • Create New...