Used cars from Japan
 

Would be grateful if anyone could shed some light on the pros & cons of buying a used car from Japan and having it shipped to Kenya.

If anyone has used any of the myriad of websites that do this, any that are recommended would be appreciated.

Thanks
ubdai

I think your 1st problem is how kenya view this

is there an age limit on cars that can be imported, whats the tax structure in kenya for this (ie how much import tax to be paid)

The Japanese side is probabily easier once you've found yourself a trustworthy agent there

I did sort of look at this a while back to look for a mitsubishi cantor 4x4 or see if you could get a toyota light (above 3.5 tonnes) truck in 4x4 , costs seemed to add up quickly

Hi ubdai,

Here in Canada there are plenty of Japanese rhd vehicles around, shipped to Vancouver normally.

As Rich mentions, your first stumbling block is the Kenyan rules for importing and age limits and importation taxes.

Maybe there are ways as in much of Africa to import a vehicle and have some of the admin 'overlooked'.

Here they have to be 15 years old to import, I was looking at importing a rhd toyota hilux diesel crewcab a few years ago, but the added shipping costs would have made it expensive for a 15 + year old vehicle.

have a look at these guys for a rough idea of costs:

Japan Partner - Car Shipping Cost

the pros: cheaper, quite fast, >90% of all cars in E.Africa are arriving that way so it's a routine job to ship them to Mombasa.

the cons: you buy something you haven't seen, can't know whether the company you're using is genuine or not.

For what it's worth, I know a few car owners that bought their toyota's through [url=http://www.ibcjapan.co.jp]IBC Japan