Frequently Asked Questions About Purchasing From Japanese Car Auctions Through Provide Cars

Buying direct from car auctions in Japan is a new experience for many customers. We have put together a collection of questions and answers to help you understand more about how the process works from the bidding at auction to the final delivery. If you cannot find the answer to your questions here, please contact us and one of our experienced customer service people will get back to you as soon as possible.

Can I have a password to see the cars at auction please?

Our online car auction acess is password protected. Now, we understand that you want to see what kinds of cars are available at auctions here before you sign up with us, which is why we have created a 14-day free trial log in. Sign up here, receive your user name and password by email, and log in to check out the cars at auction in minutes.

The free trial log in is perfect to see what is available and decide whether sourcing cars from the Japanese auto auctions is going to be right for you. However, when you decide to start buying, then you need to follow this simple process to get a full customer log in:

1. Complete an application form.
2. Scan this form and email it to us, or fax it to +81 798 75 0314
3. Once we have reviewed your application form, we will send you the bank account details for our account to send the surety deposit of 100,000 Yen to.
4. As soon as the deposit arrives, we will send you your log in information as well as details about how to use the system.
5. You start bidding and we will guide you through the process, giving you advice along the way as needed.

You can read more about the surety deposit below.

<< back

Who can buy through Provide Cars' Japanese car auction access?

The vast majority of Provide Cars' customers around the world are car dealers or other business that are looking to buy in bulk. You do not have to be an officially registered car dealer to start buying from us.

Since the buying, export and import process is much more involved than simply going to the local car dealership, this is not suitable for most individuals looking for a single car for their own personal use.

If you are an individual, please contact us directly rather than completing an application form.

If you are looking to buy a number of vehicles, please take a look at our car auction access, and then complete an application form to get started. 

<< back

Does it cost anything to start buying from car auctions through Provide Cars?

We do not charge a fee for signing up. Our business is selling cars, not memberships!

However, we obviously cannot bid on cars which we will have to pay the auction for within a few days unless we know that we are dealing with a serious customer. This is why we require potential buyers to complete and application form and send us a deposit of 100,000 Yen before we can start bidding and buying.

This 100,000 Yen is not a membership fee, nor is it a per-car deposit. Basically, we will retain this deposit here for the whole period you are buying from us. If at some point in the future you decide not to buy cars from Japan anymore, you can ask us to close your account and we will refund this deposit to you, minus only the cost of the bank transfer charges, and any money you still owe us for previous purchases (if any).

<< back

How much do particular vehicles sell for at auction?

Whether you are trying to decide whether to buy from the Japanese car auctions or not, or whether you are already a customer but you are trying to decide what would be a sensible level to bid on a particular car, we understand you need to have some idea of the market prices.

If you sign up for the 14-day free trial, clicking on the start price of any car in the auction will show you the average price that similar cars have sold for recently. 

Of course, the fact that this is the "average price" does not mean that this particular car at this particular auction will definitely sell for this exact price. It may sell for more or less depending on its particular condition, the competition between bidders and other factors.

To help our customers get a more detailed idea of recent car auction prices, accessing our online auction system using a full customer log in will mean that you are not only shown the average price of similar cars in the recent auction history, but also the exact prices that each one of these sold for.

What this means is that you will then not only know the average auction price for this model, age, grade and mileage car, but you will also know the range of typical prices.

Say, for example, cars like the one you are looking at have been selling at auction recently for an average price of 200,000 Yen, with the highest price being 350,000 Yen, and the lowest 95,000 Yen. Looking closer, you notice that out of these 25 cars that are very similar to the one coming up at the auction, 10 of these sold for 150,000 Yen or less.

With this in mind, you realize that:

• If you set your maximum bid at 150,000 Yen, you will stand about a 40% chance of us successfully getting this car for you in the car auction for 150,000 Yen - or less if you get lucky.
• You should not bid lower than 95,000 Yen, as this is the bottom end of the market price range.

Remember that you are not limited to bidding on just one vehicle. You can enter bids on a number of similar cars, but ask us to stop bidding after getting, say, one of them.

So, knowing the car auction price history can help you "skim off" the best deals by helping you to know what level to place your bids.

<< back

What is the final cost of the car to me?

The final cost of the car to you is more than the basic auction price. The cost of the car at auction is obviously a major component, but it also needs to be exported to you.

The charges payable to Provide Cars for a typical, basic purchase are as follows:

• The auction price of the car. (Note that if you bid 300,000 Yen, but we get it at auction for 278,000 Yen, we will charge you 278,000 Yen - not 300,000 Yen).
• The cost of moving the car from the auction to the port. (For car auctions on the Japanese mainland, this can vary from 5,000 Yen to 35,000 Yen. You can see this cost on your screen prior to bidding.)
• Provide Cars' commission **
• Pre-Pay (pay in advance):
  (Auction price of car * 2%) + 70,000 Yen
  
• Regular:
  (Auction price of car * 5%) + 70,000 Yen

** This includes customs clearance fees, deregistration fees and documentation fees that we do not bill to you separately.

On top of what you pay us, you will also need to pay the shipping company and any taxes and fees that are required at your end when importing and registering a car.

Now, for some countries, additional work is required on the Japan-side. In the case of any work that is not included in the above basic car export, we will arrange it and bill you for it accordingly. Please contact us for more details about your country if this applies to you.

Please refer to the terms of trade for more details.

<< back

Does Provide Cars bid live at the car auctions in Japan?

We do not physically attend the auctions we bid on cars at, for the very simple reason that there are over 90 every week all around the country, and the bidding machines at the auction site work the same as the ones in our office. 
There is no point adding huge staff costs by actually visitng all the auctions when we can bid remotely just as easily.

For most cars we bid live. What this means is that we click a button on our computer to increase our bid until we either get the car, or it goes over our customer's budget, so that we stop bidding.

Now, since we are dealing with fractions of a second, there is a risk that when we get close to the customers budget, a single click on our side could be preceded by other bidders clicking their buttons, resulting in a jump in the price taking, taking it a little over the customers' maximum bid.

We have two choices about how we approach this: First of all, most of our customers realize that, since they are winning cars at auction for less than their budget most of the time, the occasional car bought a little over is not a problem. 

For a minority of customers, their maximum bid price is a hard and fast limit. Unfortunately, what this means in practice is that we have to stop bidding a little below their maximum bid price to avoid the risk of a single click pushing the final price over the customer's maximum bid. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that there are cars which would have been buyable within the customer's budget that end up being won act auction by other bidders.

We adjust our bidding style in consultation with each customer.

<< back

When do the auctions start in Japan?

You can see the cars coming up for auction today or tomorrow in our online system. Most auctions will start around 9am.

If you are thinking of bidding on cars, it is best to get your bids in several hours prior to this so that we have time to provide you with a translation of the Japanese auction inspector's report, and you have time to give us your final go ahead or cancelation. 

If you enter bids after 9am Japan time, there is a real chance that the auction for that car will have already finished by the time your bid was entered. 

After 12 noon Japan time, it is a better idea to start looking through the following day's vehicles and entering bids on them.

The auctions generally continue into the early evening, although in the Spring, which tends to be the busiest time of year, the larger auctions can continue into the late night, or even the early hours of the morning.

<< back

When is the car data for the following day's auctions finalized?

You will start to see car data for a particular day's auctions available in our online system from a day or two before the auction day itself. 

This data is basically complete around midnight Japan time at the start of the auction day. However, some auctions add cars at the last minute, so there will be a few later additions in the morning when the auctions are due to be held.

<< back

If it costs more to transport the car from a far-off auction, what is the point of buying cars from there?

This is a good question. Why would you be interested in cars from these countryside and regional auctions if the cost of transportation is going to be higher?

On the face of it, it seems like the answer is that you should stick to the auctions in the big cities that are close to the ports from where it is cheaper to get the car moved to the port. 

But if you think like this, you will be missing some great bargains! The reason is that the competition for cars in the big metropolitan areas of Japan, like Osaka and Tokyo, is much greater than at car auctions out in the countryside.

If you think about it, it may cost, say, 20,000 Yen more to get the car to the port, but if you end up winning it at auction for 55,000 Yen less, then you have saved money overall.

This is why we recommend that you do not limit yourself to buying only from auctions where the transportation cost is low. The best strategy is to bid at the more remote auctions as well, but with lower maximum bid prices.

<< back

How can you know whether the car in the auction is any good or not?

Cars are inspected at every auction and given an overall grading. Although the auctions are run by different auction houses, the grading system is pretty similar across the board and you can read more details below.

In addition to the overall auction grade, the inspectors also complete a detailed sheet showing the problems and sales points of each car. 

Obviously, the auction inspectors do not strip each vehicle down and examine every part in detail. This would be impossible. As a result, occasionally the inspectors will miss something. However, in general we find their inspections to be very thorough.

This is why we do not send our own staff to the auctions to look at the cars. The reality is that with the 90+ car auctions we buy from all over Japan every week the extra cost would be prohibitive.

Now, if you have been looking around at other Japanese car exporters you will have noticed that there are companies that have their own staff visit the auctions and look at the cars directly. However, there are good reasons why we do not do this:

1. First of all, there would be no way we could cover over 90 car auctions in every corner of Japan every week if we had to send staff people to each one. The cost would be prohibitive and our customers would not tolerate it. The only other option would be to drastically slash the numbers of auctions we could offer, which would massively reduce the numbers of vehicles our customers could bid on.
   
2. The reality of these companies who do provide a checking service at the auction is often not as thorough as it seems to be.
   
   Imagine a huge parking lot containing thousands or even over ten thousand cars. A cell phone rings. The car exporter's staff person has a car to check. He runs round the auction looking for the car. Maybe he finds it in a few minutes, or maybe it takes 15 mintues to get to it. He pauses, panting. He then has a minute or so to look it over before the next call comes in. He gives it a cursory glance, "It's OK. Go ahead with the bid." His phone rings again and he is off to "check" another car.
   
   How can his quick glace over the car give the customer a true picture of whether the car is OK or not? So, in practice, this kind of service is more about giving the customer the feeling of security without really providing much benefit.

After considering the serious disadvantages and the lack of real benefits, we have decided that the best compromise is to have the biggest spread of auctions with the largest number of vehicles, and to rely on the auction inspectors' reports.

<< back

Do some days have more car auctions than others?

The auctions in Japan run six days per week from Monday to Saturday. Out of these days, Monday tends to have the smallest number of vehicles (7,000 to 9,000 or so), and Thursday tends to have the most (38,000 to 53,000 or so).

The number of vehicles available at auction tends to have a seasonal high every Spring and then be fairly flat the rest of the year.

<< back

How long will it take to get my cars to me?

Our goal at Provide Cars is to try to get the cars to you as quickly as possible. We have every incentive to do this: The quicker you get the cars, the happier you are, and the quicker you will be able to sell them to your customers, make profit on them and come back to buy more cars at the Japanese car auctions through us.

To give you an idea of what happens from when you buy a car from the auction to when our involvement ends, have a look at these steps:

1. We buy the car at auction.
2. We pay for the car within a couple of days.
3. The documents are sent from the seller to the auction. (The original seller usually will do this in a day or so, but the auction rules allow him to take up to two weeks.)
4. The documents are sent from the auction to us.
5. The registration of the vehicle for use on the Japanese roads is cancelled.
6. At the same time that the documents are being processed for the car export, we start to try to get a booking on the fastest, best value ship to your port.
   
7. Vehicle documents are sent to the customs brokers.
8. Documents are taken to the Japanese customs for export approval.
9. Documents are sent back to us.
10. The car leaves on a ship bound for your country.
11. BL (Bill of Lading) is issued a few days after the ship has left.
12. We send the BL and other documents (including the Export Certificate, also called the De-Registration Certificate) to you.

<< back

The import taxes in my country are very high. Could you change the amounts on your invoices so that I won't have to pay so much tax?

Of course we want to help you minimize your costs as much as possible. With that in mind we are happy to make invoices with the figures arranged in a way which would be most tax-efficient to you.

However, in making invoices, we will only use real figure. If the car auction price was 550,000 Yen, we will not make an invoice for you which says that the full price including all Japan-side costs was 550,000 Yen.

There are a number of reasons why we will not falsify figures on invoices, but the main one is that we will not do anything that will compromise our integrity. Clearly, if you deal with a car exporter who will put false figures on invoices, how could you ever trust this person that they were not tricking you in another way?

Our customers work with us because they trust us and know that we work with 100% integrity, and we will do nothing which could lose this trust.

<< back

Can I get LHD cars from the Japanese car auctions - and what about trucks and buses?

Although Japan is a RHD country, there is a surprisingly large number of LHD cars here. Almost all of these cars are imported brands, such as BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Ford etc. If you are looking for LHD Japanese brands such as Toyota or Nissan, unfortunately you will not be able to get these at the Japanese car auctions.

In terms of trucks, buses and other vehicles, most Japanese car auctions will have a variety of these in addition to the cars. We are also a member of specialist truck auctions where you can get larger vehicles like trucks and buses.

When buying these larger vehicles, you have to keep in mind that the transportation costs in Japan (from the auction to the port) are higher than for cars, and with some shipping lines, space for these kinds of vehicles can also be limited.

So, we are called "Provide Cars", but that does not mean we cannot get other vehicles for you as well.

<< back

I see each car has an overall grade. What do these grade numbers mean?

The grade is the overall assessment of the car given to it by the auction house's assessors. There are usually two grades - exterior + mechanical condition (usually a number), and interior condition (usually a letter - A, B or C).

OVERALL GRADE (almost all auctions)

Grade 6, 7, 8, 9 or S is given to a new car that is being sold in an auction.
Grade 5 to a car with less than 10,000kms and less than 3 years old in perfect condtion.
Grade 4.5 is in excellent condition.
Grade 4 is good but may need some paint or panel.
Grade 3.5 is similar but may need even more paint and panel, or it has high kms, very few cars are given grade 4 if they are over 100,000kms.
Grade 3 has either serious paint and panel or it has had a panel replacement somewhere. If it is the latter, it is often a good buy.
Grade A, R, RA Are repair history cars. The auctions definition of "repair history" is a car that has had an inside panel repaired in some way. This can range from extremely minor to major.
Grade 1 Can be one of the following
1). Flood history (rare)
2). After market turbo / engine (some sort of serious modification to the original vehicle)
3). Transmission changed from auto to manual.
Grade ??? are write off cars which may not move at all. Auctions provide NO information about these cars on the auction sheets. If the cars are drivable, no extra costs occur. If the motor does not start, extra transportation costs occur. If the engine does not start and is not steerable, transportation and port costs skyrocket.

EXTERIOR & INTERIOR GRADING (On some auctions)

Some auctions have a letter, A, B or C to denote the exterior and interior grade separately. These letters can be seen near the overall grading number. A is excellent, B average and C below average.

CAR MAP

This is in the bottom right corner of the auction sheet. On the map, the number after the letter denotes the severity of the damage. 1 = light, 2 = moderate, 3 = significant , 4 = major

    A Scratch
    U Dent
    B Dent with scratch
    W Wave, or repaired area
    S Rust (orange discoloration on the surface)
    C Corrosion (rust has progressed so that now the original metal is now flaking away)
    P Paint
    H Paint faded
    XX Replaced panel
    X Needs replacing
    G Stone chip on glass
    Y Crack
    E Dimple

If you are thinking about bidding on a car but are unsure because there are some Japanese notes, you can place a bid just over the start price and request a translation. Once the translation comes back, you can then decide whether to increase your bid to a sensible level, or to cancel the bid based on the translated information you receive.

Please note that, unlike some of our competitors, we do not charge for a translation of the auction sheet. As long as you have placed a bid on the vehicle and just need to know the details in order to make your final decision about whether to proceed or not, we are happy to give you a translation. Our goal is to give you the best information so that you can make a good, informed decision about whether to get the car or not.

Our customer service staff are both fluent in Japanese and English, as well as being experienced in reading these auction inspection reports. 

Of course, we can provide you with some advice as well, if we think a car is not a good idea to bid on, although the final decision to bid or not bid is up to you.

<< back

Can I cancel a car purchased at auction?

You can cancel a bid at any time up to when the car comes up in the live car auction. However, we strongly recommend that you make your final decisions to go ahead  with or cancel bids by 9am Japan Time on the morning of the auction.

After the car is bought at auction, we are contractually obliged to pay the auction for it. An order for a vehicle can be cancelled at any time between the moment it is bought at auction and the moment it is booked on a ship for transportation from Japan.

In the event of cancellation during this time, a cancellation fee of 100,000 Yen + 20% of the auction price of the car must be paid within 14 days, otherwise the cancellation will fail and the full value must be paid. We will then try to dispose of the car.

Once the car has been booked on a ship, the order cannot be cancelled and the full value of the car must be paid.

See our Terms of Trade for more details.

<< back

How do I pay for cars bought through you at the Japanese car auctions?

Payment for cars must be remitted by an Internation Bank Telegraphic Transfer (Bank TT) in Japanese Yen or major non-Japanese currencies.

However, if you send money in a non-Japanese currency, you may find that when it arrives and is converted into Yen, it is not enough to cover the Yen amount you owe us.

For example, when you send the money on Monday, the exchange rate on that day is such that you calculate that $10,000 USD is enough to cover the 1,100,000 Yen amount you owe to us. However, by the time the payment arrives at our bank in Japan on the Friday, the rate has changed, and your $10,000 USD at that time then only buys you 1,050,000 Yen - 50,000 Yen short.

This is why we recommend remitting money in Japanese Yen from your end so that you can be sure that the right amount will arrive.

Please also note that you should inform your bank that all charges should be deducted at your end, as we will only attribute your account with us with the amount of money we actually finally receive from the bank.

To ensure that payments are attributed quickly and accurately to the right customers, each customer is given their own personal bank account number. Each of these starts with 739, and each feeds into our main account.

The advantage of this is that when we say payment arriving in a particular 739**** account, we immediately know exactly who it is from.

See our Terms of Trade for more details.

<< back

What is this deposit of 100,000 Yen you ask for, and why do you need it?

First of all, we should be clear that this 100,000 Yen deposit is not some sort of membership fee. It is a deposit that is held here for the duration of your business with us.

Compared with the value of vehicles we will be buying for you, 100,000 Yen (which is about $950 USD) is really quite a small amount. The reason we require it is that it shows that you are a serious customer who is not going to walk away after having us buy a car from the car auctions for you.

If at some point in the future you decide not to get cars from the Japanese car auctions anymore, we will be happy to refund this deposit to you, minus only any remaining payments you still owe us for previous cars, plus the cost of the bank charges to send it to you.

<< back

Do you have cars in stock that I can buy instead of getting them from the Japanese car auctions?

The only cars we have are those that we have bought in the car auctions for our present customers. We have no cars just sitting around in a yard waiting for a customer.

The reason we do not hold stock is that we bid at the auctions on the instructions of our customers.

If you think about it, a big exporter might have a couple of hundred cars in their stock, but at the auctions every day there are tens of thousands of cars. If you buy from an exporter's stock, the selection is extremely poor.

On top of this, whenever you get a car from someone's stock, you are almost always getting a car that was originally bought at auction and then had extra margin added on. So, if you buy from stock, you are buying an auction car for a higher price.

To summarize:

• Buying from stock limits you to hundreds of vehicles at the most, when buying from auctions gives you access to tens of thousands of different vehicles each day.
• Stock cars are more expensive than their auction equivalents.

None of our current customers want to buy from stock for the above two reasons. It just does not make sense.

<< back

How long has Provide Cars been in the car exporting business?

Provide Cars is owned by a New Zealander who is married to a Japanese. We have a mixture of nationalities on staff, although the majority are Japanese people.

We have been in existence since 1998 (and have been members of the Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association since that time - Cert. No. JMVA-151) and have been buying cars from the Japanese car auctions and shipping them overseas from the beginning.

At the very start we really were a two-person operation, but since we were one of the first companies to really embrace the Internet, we have seen rapid growth and are now doing a turnover in the tens of millions of dollars per annum range and we are shipping thousands of cars per year.

Although we have grown a lot, the fact that we have many car dealers who have bought from us for years is an indication of the good relationships we have cultivated.

<< back