On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 18:41:05 +0100, "Alexander S. Wood"
<alec_wood@dont.spam.me.ntlworld.com> wrote:

>
>"George Macdonald" <fammacd=!SPAM^nothanks@tellurian.com> wrote in message
>news:3ef54766.71255491@news.tellurian.com...
>
>>
>> What? You're saying the build quality of the JP cars was inferior to the
>> UK built? That'd be a supreme irony, considering what happened to the
>> indigenous UK auto industry and the reasons thereof. Ohh... and which
>"big
>> Hondas"? Does Honda make any big cars in the U.K.? In the U.S. we get
>> both JP and UK builds of the CR-V - I haven't compared personally but I
>> haven't heard anything in the Honda NG to indicate a preference for the UK
>> one.
>>
>
>No, what I'm saying is that the cars built for export by the Jap auto
>industry are of superior build quality to those supplied to their domestic
>market, I don't know where each and every one has been built. I see lots of
>imports, not nearly as many UK cars. My mate Dave runs an import business
>dealing in low-mileage second hand Jap cars. As a sort of second job, I do
>any electrics and other remedial work required before sale. The 4x4's all
>seem like top quality cars, but the "car" cars seem much less well screwed
>together, less well aligned etc. Those I have seen sold new in this country
>all seem to be of exemplary build quality.

Interesting info - I hope all the potential grey import buyers in the UK
are reading your post.:-) I've seen where Honda UK was warning that many
of those were actually stolen, in Japan, for the "purpose".

>There may be a good reason for this. Of the cars brought in as second-hand
>imports here, the average mileage is less than 10,000Km (7,000 miles approx)
>per year.Average mileage in the UK is about 12k/year, in the US probably
>higher still. Maybe the cars in Japan lead a gentler life and don't need to
>be so tightly screwed together. Maybe not, who knows?

I wonder if it could be that the cars which make it to the grey export from
Japan are "damaged goods" for whatever reason: refurbished salvage jobs,
owner-abused/fixed-up or as someone else suggested the odd lemon - IOW the
JP owner dumped it because he was pissed with it. Doesn't explain, of
course, why the SUVs seem to have better quality and possibly Dave would be
able to recognize a salvage job???

>Agree or not is up to you, I just say what I see, which at the moment is
>only about a dozen "new" Jap imports a week. Maybe Dave's unlucky and just
>buys the rubbish ones.

I hear there's lots of this importing of JP 2nd hand cars to Australia and
especialy New Zealand. It'd be interesting to hear if they see a similar
pattern.

>The big Honda here is the Legend, dunno what it's sold as in the US. "Big"
>is a relative term you understand - here a 1600cc engine is pretty average,
>which makes the Legend's 3L V6 pretty "big", over there you would probably
>laugh if your lawnmower salesman offered you less than 2L (with a turbo).

The Legend used to be sold here as the Acura Legend and is now called the
Acura TL IIRC. More recently (1994 ?) Honda sells Accords with 3L V6s...
but we're not all grunt fans here.:-) Personally I preferred the 2.3L
4-cyl Accords and detest auto-trans. I even prefer push lawnmowers over
the self-propelled jobs - then again, manicured lawns don't interest me
either.:-)

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??