My Importing Journey

[Iron Chef]

A customer's car - side skirts are 40mm off the ground. Copped a few scrapes along the way, but still went on the boat...

[Iron Chef]

Dont worry, I'm in the same boat (no pun intended)..

16th July - Found the car I wanted on a Thursday

17th July - Won the auction and made this thread

18th July - Paid deposit for plates + compliance

21st July - Paid for the car plus the fee of finding/inspecting the car

I was told the car might make it on this months (July) shipment.

..it didnt

4th August - still wondering, had a bit of a moan here

6th August - was told by email it might make it on the ship in the next 2 weeks. *crosses fingers*

(at this rate I might be lucky to see the car in October)

In fairness, you guys only get one boat a month, and the cut off dates are pretty early. It's not uncommon to miss boats to Freo. Looking at your dates, the explanation you've been given makes sense.

[AFTDRK]

waiting for a boat for my car to get onto hurts my feelings

[R33GTRKid]

cry me a river princess

try 2 months - bought 28 June, scheduled to ship 25 August... if it does not get on then, it is war! ill fly over to Japan and load the f**ker myself on to a floating baked bean can and paddle the f**ker back

[R33GTRKid]

forgot to add, BB pictures attached:

[hanyou]

cry me a river princess

try 2 months - bought 28 June, scheduled to ship 25 August... if it does not get on then, it is war! ill fly over to Japan and load the f**ker myself on to a floating baked bean can and paddle the f**ker back

i bought mine end of april and its still not ready

LOL, anyway sorted out all issues. compliance shop should be handing in the papers by tuesday next week from what im told. any idea on turna round time currently for the approval plate?

[Beer Baron]

should be about a week or so to get your plate.

[hanyou]

oh thats coool, ill be going on a work trip again and wont be back for about 2 weeks haha, it better be ready when i come back this time LOL

[hanyou]

well just got back from visiting my car, could anyone lend some suggestion? im new at this and not sure where i stand.

now compliance cost $2750, i've paid the $1000 deposit, obviously leaving $1750 left to pay + the $130 tow pickup from the depot. now i know this compliance did cost alot more then usual places, but i was highly recommended to go here and would like to state im pretty happy with the guy working on my car.

now problem is, his told me i should budget about $3500 (not including tyres) for the last payment which included the work he had done ontop. i really only budgeted about $500 ontop of the last $1750 & $130 payment as i assumed that some things needed to be fixed + aftermarket parts refitted (exhaust & air filter), but an extra $1620??.

i did run into problems as some of you's knew, which included:

#1: rear seat belt buckles were missing, i sourced these myself in about 4 hours in my first call to a wrecker once he had informed me he couldnt find any from wreckers and nissan didnt make them brand new anymore. he told me its costing me money for him to look for it so its best i tried and he left it with me. mind you these arent that hard to put on or take off lol, it took me about 2minutes.

#2: he couldnt find his stock r32 GTR exhaust, he tried to source one and spent sometime on it. he then found out his mate had his exhaust. during this time before he found it he said while he is looking for it, it does cost me money. this also isnt a time consuming exercise, i did it in 15minutes on my garage floor. air filter refit & removal isnt a hard task either - maybe 10min?

#3: stock r32 GTR rims dont fit with Brembo's. he had already replaced my brake fluid before finding that out as well. so the resolution is his going to take the stock callipers off another gtr and replace them with mine so that they will fit. then after rego im free to put the brembo's back with my 18" wheels. now he is charging me for this too; including the labour on removing and refitting on the other car too + bleeding of brakes on both cars.

#4: left headlight had some wiring issues - fair enough this is getting fixed.

so my thinking is that:

#1 if i ended sourced them, why do i have to pay ? If he did find them himself then yeah fair enough

#2 thats not my fault since you told me in the beginning you had all the parts you needed to make it stock.

#3 same goes with #2, why is that my problem?

#4 all good.

so approx cost of $1620 on top for that work? now he did carry out all the other things needed in compliance and has dropped all fluids too with the remaining $1750. so pretty much im assuming im just paying $1500 for mucking around with the brakes and maybe $50 of that went to the wiring on my headlight and $100 to removal/refit of aftermarket parts?

any comments/suggestions? for the record im not sledging the company i just want to know if this is how it really is or not and keeping in mind this was his estimated cost not fixed.

[UnCo]

Hey mate that sounds pretty tough. I don't have an answer sorry but I'd like to know what people suggest to you as my car is soon to be ready for compliancing too.

I was quoted $2500 + tyres but am a bit scared that this same situation might happen to me.

All the best, hope someone has some good info for you!

[hanyou]

thanks dude, well i just sent him an email last night to thoroughly explain incase i may have misunderstood. i also asked him to itemize what work (and products) was included in the compliance fee and exactly what he was charging ontop.

[Iron Chef]

My comments? I think you got shafted. If what you're saying is correct, then that's a bloody disgrace. Those who know me will know I'm generally very supportive of workshops, but when they pull stunts like this, they never get my business.

[carizma]

Too expensive.

Being a workshop ourselves, we charge $2500 plus GST (discount for cash or if you're gonna push numbers our way).

It sounds like he did some extra work, but didn't you let him know the condition of the car before (missing belts, aftermarket exhaust, Brembos) when you got the quote?

We usually have about 5 cars at the workshop for compliance, so if a customer hands us a car like yours, we usually say take it somewhere else to fix it up then bring it back (headlight, seatbelts, etc.), which you could have done a lot cheaper than that.

I'd definitely let whoever put you on to this guy know what's happening too.

And to be fair, let everyone know this workshop's response because there are always two sides to every story.

[Iron Chef]

Agreed on the last bit. I'd be curious to hear it.

[hanyou]

yep definitely! im waiting on his explanation towards the cost and will let you guys know. im going to let j-spec know about this too but ill speak to them once i have his side of the story too as i dont want to be falsely accusing lol.

yes he was informed by j-spec of all parts/mods that were on the car that needed to be replaced to standard. the seatbelt part he just found out when he pulled out the rear seats and noticed they wernt there which is fair enough. same goes with the headlight problem.

i feel pretty upset about this because when i talked to the compliance shop the first time they gave me great comfort that they had everything under control and he informed me all i had to do was wait 2 weeks max and it would be in my driveway ready to go.

yeah the total amount for compliance was $2500 + gst (excluding refit/removal of aftermarket parts) in which i've paid the initial $1000 deposit already. so leaving $1750 remaining balance + additional $130 tow; im curious as to know why his estimating that i should budget about $3500 for the remaining payment seeing as the only problems on my side is the seatbelts buckles (which i sorted out) & the headlight. $1620 extra for that?

If they told me from the beginning they had all the stock parts they needed, am i expected to pay for the mucking around that they have to go through to get it complied? I mean i would've went somewhere else if they told me otherwise - but its a little to late this far down the track for any other options. hopefully i get some answers soon.

[DRIFTT]

As Iron Chef knows last compliance job I got quoted up for him from a mate "included" quarantine cleaning and inspection (we have on site facility so straight off the docks), after market parts removed for compliance and replaced after registration, compliance, tyres and pit inspection, just plus OEM brake pads if required, we don't give spotters fees either so no need to allow for that.

If something else came up the customer would be informed before compliance started (ISO requirement) and they are given the option to sort them self but if not they have to authorise all work not listed so their is no argument when the car is ready to collect which keeps it simple, also helps when Iron Chef tells his customers the true cost of compliance.

[Iron Chef]

lol I thought you were having a crack at me for a second, Nigel!!

I learnt very quickly that, while some workshops appear very cheap on paper initially, there are plenty of ways they can hit your customers up for extra cash - the ones I regularly send cars to often charge more than others, but a price is a price, and at least you know exactly what you're up for in 95% of cases. The ones that seem cheap often end up being way more expensive by the end of the job.

[CL11QE]

i got quoted $3100 + gst + tyres, and when i got the invoice it was only $3210 including gst and including a blue slip...so yeh i was pretty stoked about that cos i was expecting to pay ALOT more....

[DRIFTT]

lol I thought you were having a crack at me for a second, Nigel!!

If you were taken off my christmas card list then you would need to be worried.

[Beer Baron]

sadly there isn't much we can do on the forum to help you. it's purely between you and the workshop.

from their point of view if they spend time sitting on the phone organising parts they will still charge you the same hourly rate as they would for working on a car. so you could be paying $100 an hour for him to ring around hunting out a stock 32 exhaust. from your point of view they should have just let you take care of that stuff and saved you money.

personally I agree on a cost of compliance that includes reverting back to standard (if required) and that's it. no surprises come bill time. if I need extra gear like a new battery or whatever I ask for it, or I supply it myself.

if you truly do need to allow $3500 for the last payment as the guy suggests then that puts your compliance cost at $4500 which to my mind is a bit over the odds. but again, if they have spent the hours on bits and pieces and can demonstrate that then it will be hard to dispute the bill. still not a pleasant surprise though.