allow me to retort You have your experience, I have mine, different circles different point in time, you don't do yourself any favours getting personal. FYI its 2016 not 1999. Done 4 cars in last 2 years, previous to that was a zed in 2005, the zed I bought in person while living in country. I don't know what the lay of the land was back in your day, there are controls in place now, which are being enhance next year I have been told (the Japanese Land Transport Department records will be including more detail over a longer period) There are companies now that do speedo checks and guarantee that if they say the kms are legit and you can prove they are not they will refund you the purchase price... now how can they do that if winding odometers is rife? My mate is a direct auction participant (family business been going for 20+ years now) I don't know how you got your cars back in 1999, I log onto the Auction house websites (members only, must be invited to join... guess who organizes my access?) see the auctions for that day and give my mate a max bid, if he wins he sends it to me, middle man hands between auction and me, one set. He's Japanese BTW so no help trying to do a dodge on a personal import, my cousin does live there and has offered to do that, but as you point out a lot of bullshit, depends how bad you want it I suppose. As you said on your previous post "aside from brilliant snow skiing - can't think of any reason I'd ever want to visit Japan", had you bothered to know the country, people, language, culture, mentality, business practices then you would know Japan, having face, being vouched for by your 'in' group is more important than your life, thus doing illegal things and defrauding ones customers would only result in you being black balled for all time and living your life in shame, as an outcast. When I married my wife (Japanese) I was told two things by father/brother in law. 1. You are with us now, don't embarrass us (guilt by association, ie bringing shame on your group/family) 2. If you do something to embarrass us, and no one knows about it or ever finds out, then all good. (if a tree falls in the forest no one is there to hear it, it doesn't make a sound) My point in mentioning this? You obviously were dealing with Cowboys, other foreigners in the business who were happy to wind odometers back in the good old days. I deal with Japanese straight to the horses mouth, I have personal relationships, I am vouched for by Japanese in the business, spent alot of effort, time cultivating relationships. This is how I can say without reservation that tampering in 2016 is many times more likely to occur once a car is in Australia than it is in Japan, based on the assumption you don't deal through cowboys because you have no other options because you don't have the contacts and don't speak the language or have any relevant street smarts for Japan.
