Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Here we go again………

I received a copy of a letter from DOTARS (Department of Transport) today, asking for expressions of interest in changing of the rules for 15 year old imports as of the 1st of January 2005.

DOTARS main concerns are:

• The sharp increase in 15 year old import approvals

• Businesses that are establishing/trading in 15 year old imports

• Safety and emission concerns where these vehicles don’t meet Australian Standards, with a special mention about Japanese Imports.

• The impact on the new SEVS/RAWS scheme.

DOTARS remedy is for us to tick one of three choices.

1/ Leave it as it is

2/ “Cap” the system to 01-01-1989 so no vehicles after this date are eligible (NO R32)

3/ Change the rule to 30 years or older.

I would suggest that the sharp increase is because the vehicles eligible as of 2004 are more commonly desirable, R32, Z32 300ZX, Q45 Infinity, MX5, Series 5 RX7, Celsior (LS400) etc.

If these vehicles were not in the Australian Market under full volume (Poverty Pack), they were here under the old CPA scheme. All vehicles (with the exception of the “Aussie Icons??”) are modified to meet Australian Standards, regardless if new or second hand imports and all must have an SAE Engineers endorsement.

Secondly, I dare say that the majority of RAWS have already bought 15 year old imports.

If this letter is anything like the previous correspondence regarding the transition from CPA to RAWS/SEVS, the decision has been made in our interest…NOT!

If you guys feel the same way I do I can put the email address up on the board so you can forward your views directly to the person instigating this discussion?

Velcome to Australia Comrade

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/32403-15-year-old-imports-review/
Share on other sites

i think the 15 year rule is dumb...even NZ have tightend up their rules.....and we just allowed them.

I have a 88 VR4 Galant that had 54k on the clock. The interior looks like it is about that milage, but the car looks like it has been auto washed 100,000 times. The compliance is a joke. the intrusion bars are badley welded and the fuel filler is not ulp.

I bought this car for $9k as a thrasher for 6 months and i have seen several 15 year cars.....they should not be here. it has killed the second hand market and they are dangerous.

sorry for the rant

Mal

I do not know why people think this 15 year rule is good. yes you can get some unusual cars and some really hot cars, but most have little or no service for 2 years and only get done shen shekken (sic?) is needed, and I am sure there are dodgy places over there like there is here......The japs must think we are stupid.....most of the cars that will come here will cost less than the shipping.....we are getting trash, they should limit the numbers or it WILL kill our local 2nd hand market. This is why you can get skylines r33's in nz for under $8k. All your cars will be harder to sell because the insurance and easy availability will reduce their market appeal. before skylines were rare, gtr's even more so, but now they are everywhere. I hope the gov realises how dumb this idea was and close it down.

ta

mal

culling the rule

you people are furked !!!!!!!!

going to kill the price of your r32 and 33 skylines..... all the people who have a cry about that why dont you go and ask the people who bought australian r32 gtr's what happened to the price of there cars when you brought in your import

if they can the 15 year rule you wont be able to bring in all the classics like the old r31 gts ect

everyone needs to get of there arse to keep the 15 year rule

pete

Go the Gloria too ! yeah baby 15 year old, but goes good ! 45,000 original kms ! The motor has just been run in ! (yes log books and service records too)

If they change the 15 YO rule in Jan 2005 - I'm gonna buy me a 32 GTR this year ! Pay half now (cost of the car) and half later (cost to ship).

Then I'll have 3 turbo Nissans ! Yeah !

I believe the only changes to the 15 year rule should be to allow only cars that are between 10-15 years in a rolling window, are inspected and meet roadworthy and have a specific minimum power to weight ratio or unique nature .

perhaps we could use this thread to get together solid ideas DOTARS may listen to....then we can get as many ppl to make these arguaments as possible.

No point saying "DOTARS is fcuked" We all know that (they took 6 weeks to process my application the bastards). I don't think telling them this will change their mind!

So.....who's got good solid reasons not to change the rule?

ok, on an actual logical level/lets keep everybody happy who make bucks out there it doesn't make sense.. as you're right, it could hurt the 2nd hand market, provide kids with cars too fast for them at too cheap a price, and possibly pollution although i think that is the very last of the "real" reasons for the changes.

What needs to be done is a more stringent control on what cars can actually be brought in, rather than such draconian measures listed. It won't have a huge effect as long as their are controls over what the cars that can be imported, and it should be tightened up. If you can bring in ancient n/a lancers, old 4WD or whatever, or cars that were sold here to some extent it will kill the market BUT for those cars that WEREN'T available here its not gonna make a lick of difference.

Its hard to argue that a car with an RB26DETT in a 15 years old car that it wasn't designed for sounds like a scary thought.. but that doesn't mean that me, other people out there, or whoever wouldn't be after them.

Ag ! anyhow, i can't think now, I want to write a letter and put my views forward at some point and have a say. Its a losing battle I think, but one that needs to be fought. Even not for this issue, just to give a wider insight in the "owners " and enthusiasts view of the *entire* import issue.

4doorGTR: you mention this on your car, but have you driven any aussie car that is 15 years lately? Not accusing, just asking... A lot of the time the people going "they are rubbish, they're deathtraps" are driving brand new cars or cars less than 10 years old. For those that AREN'T are they any worse than what is available here?? that is the question..

  • 2 weeks later...

Keep the 15 year old rule cause I want to be able to buy parts and upgrade/fix my car as it gets older. Cheap OLD imports are a good thing, cause I might like a model that only becomes affordable to me under this scheme.

Most cars depreciate, you pay a heap already for maintaining your import, so its not cheap to own cars. Don't buy a car if you don't want it to depreciate.

If you want to maintain your high priced car you can keep upgrading to a newer model and should because you don't mind paying more for a car and for compliance and the fact that it is rarer because nobody can afford i t.

Just worry about the fact that the next car which could be a replacement after you smash it will cost more! If you want to spend more just buy a newer model. It isn't fair to say to people that you can't bring it in.

The price of repair parts goes up too!

As for paying the gov't more money for compliance fees, ARE YOU JOKING - they already rip us off with speed cameras. Most people are buying 15yo imports because they represent higher technology for lower price.

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

    • See if you can thermal epoxy a heatsink or two onto it?
    • The other problem was one of those "oh shit we are going to die moments". Basically the high spec Q50s have a full electric steering rack, and the povo ones had a regular hydraulic rack with an electric pump.  So couple of laps into session 5 as I came into turn 2 (big run off now, happily), the dash turned into a christmas tree and the steering became super heavy and I went well off. I assumed it was a tyre failure so limped to the pits, but everything was OK. But....the master warning light was still on so I checked the DTCs and saw – C13E6 “Heat Protection”. Yes, that bloody steering rack computer sitting where the oil cooler should be has its own sensors and error logic, and decided I was using the steering wheel too much. I really appreciated the helpful information in the manual (my bold) POSSIBLE CAUSE • Continuing the overloading steering (Sports driving in the circuit etc,) “DATA MONITOR” >> “C/M TEMPERATURE”. The rise of steering force motor internal temperature caused the protection function to operate. This is not a system malfunction. INSPECTION END So, basically the electric motor in the steering rack got to 150c, and it decided to shut down without warning for my safety. Didn't feel safe. Short term I'll see if I can duct some air to that motor (the engine bay is sealed pretty tight). Long term, depending on how often this happens, I'll look into swapping the povo spec electric/hydraulic rack in. While the rack should be fine the power supply to the pump will be a pain and might be best to deal with it when I add a PDM.
    • And finally, 2 problems I really need to sort.  Firstly as Matt said the auto trans is not happy as it gets hot - I couldn't log the temps but the gauge showed 90o. On the first day I took it out back in Feb, because the coolant was getting hot I never got to any auto trans issues; but on this day by late session 3 and then really clearly in 4 and 5 as it got hotter it just would not shift up. You can hear the issue really clearly at 12:55 and 16:20 on the vid. So the good news is, literally this week Ecutek finally released tuning for the jatco 7 speed. I'll have a chat to Racebox and see what they can do electrically to keep it cooler and to get the gears, if anything. That will likely take some R&D and can only really happen on track as it never gets even warm with road use. I've also picked up some eye wateringly expensive Redline D6 ATF to try, it had the highest viscosity I could find at 100o so we will see if that helps (just waiting for some oil pan gaskets so I can change it properly). If neither of those work I need to remove the coolant/trans interwarmer and the radiator cooler and go to an external cooler....somewhere.....(goodbye washer reservoir?), and if that fails give up on this mad idea and wait for Nissan to release the manual 400R
    • So, what else.... Power. I don't know what it is making because I haven't done a post tune dyno run yet; I will when I get a chance. It was 240rwkw dead stock. Conclusion from the day....it does not need a single kw more until I sort some other stuff. It comes on so hard that I could hear the twin N1 turbos on the R32 crying, and I just can't use what it has around a tight track with the current setup. Brakes. They are perfect. Hit them hard all day and they never felt like having an issue; you can see in the video we were making ground on much lighter cars on better tyres under brakes. They are standard (red sport) calipers, standard size discs in DBA5000 2 piece, Winmax pads and Motul RBF600 fluid, all from Matty at Racebrakes Sydney. Keeping in mind the car is more powerful than my R32 and weighs 1780, he clearly knows his shit. Suspension. This is one of the first areas I need to change. It has electronically controlled dampers from factory, but everything is just way too soft for track work even on the hardest setting (it is nice when hustling on country roads though). In particular it rolls into oversteer mid corner and pitches too much under hard braking so it becomes unstable eg in the turn 1 kink I need to brake early, turn through the kink then brake again so I don't pirouette like an AE86. I need to get some decent shocks with matched springs and sway bars ASAP, even if it is just a v1 setup until I work out a proper race/rally setup later. Tyres. I am running Yoko A052 in 235/45/18 all round, because that was what I could get in approximately the right height on wheels I had in the shed (Rays/Nismo 18x8 off the old Leaf actually!). As track tyres they are pretty poor; I note GTSBoy recently posted a porker comparo video including them where they were about the same as AD09.....that is nothing like a top line track tyre. I'll start getting that sorted but realistically I should get proper sized wheels first (likely 9.5 +38 front and 11 +55 at the rear, so a custom order, and I can't rotate them like the R32), then work out what the best tyre option is. BTW on that, Targa Tas had gone to road tyres instead of semi slicks now so that is a whole other world of choices to sort. Diff. This is the other thing that urgently needs to be addressed. It left massive 1s out of the fish hook all day, even when I was trying not too (you can also hear it reving on the video, and see the RPM rising too fast compared to speed in the data). It has an open diff that Infiniti optimistically called a B-LSD for "Brake Limited Slip Diff". It does good straight line standing start 11s but it is woeful on the track. Nismo seem to make a 2 way for it.
    • Also, I logged some data from the ECU for each session (mostly oil pressures and various temps, but also speed, revs etc, can't believe I forgot accelerator position). The Ecutek data loads nicely to datazap, I got good data from sessions 2, 3 and 4: https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-2?log=0&data=7 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-3?log=0&data=6 https://datazap.me/u/duncanhandleyhgeconsultingcomau/250813-wakefield-session-4?log=0&data=6 Each session is cut into 3 files but loaded together, you can change between them in the top left. As the test sessions are mostly about the car, not me, I basically start by checking the oil pressure (good, or at least consistent all day). These have an electrically controlled oil pump which targets 25psi(!) at low load and 50 at high. I'm running a much thicker oil than recommended by nissan (they said 0w20, I'm running 10w40) so its a little higher. The main thing is that it doesn't drop too far, eg in the long left hand fish hook, or under brakes so I know I'm not getting oil surge. Good start. Then Oil and Coolant temp, plus intercooler and intake temps, like this: Keeping in mind ambient was about 5o at session 2, I'd say the oil temp is good. The coolant temp as OK but a big worry for hot days (it was getting to 110 back in Feb when it was 35o) so I need to keep addressing that. The water to air intercooler is working totally backwards where we get 5o air in the intake, squish/warm it in the turbos (unknown temp) then run it through the intercoolers which are say 65o max in this case, then the result is 20o air into the engine......the day was too atypical to draw a conclusion on that I think, in the united states of freedom they do a lot of upsizing the intercooler and heat exchanger cores to get those temps down but they were OK this time. The other interesting (but not concerning) part for me was the turbo speed vs boost graph: I circled an example from the main straight. With the tune boost peaks at around 18psi but it deliberately drops to about 14psi at redline because the turbos are tiny - they choke at high revs and just create more heat than power if you run them hard all the way. But you can also see the turbo speed at the same time; it raises from about 180,000rpm to 210,000rpm which the boost falls....imagine the turbine speed if they held 18psi to redline. The wastegates are electrically controlled so there is a heap of logic about boost target, actual boost, delta etc etc but it all seems to work well
×
×
  • Create New...