Here is my experience trying out one Japanese company that helps you obtain Yahoo Auctions Japan items.
BACKGROUNDThis all started because, like countless others, I the odometer was out on my FD. I tried new caps but this did not end up working for me. Time for a new cluster.
My car is a JDM built in 92 and with around 80,000 km on the clock. I wanted a JDM cluster and the ideal replacement would have similar mileage, to save from having to transfer the 93c56en chip.
These do come up for sale on eBay and various forums, but most I found were on the order of $150 to $250, plus another $50 to $100 in shipping. I wanted to see if I could get something decent for less.
I knew Yahoo Auctions Japan would have tons of goodies, including the cluster I wanted. The problem of course is that I don't read Japanese and I found out most sellers in YAJ will not ship outside of Japan.
I was pretty weary of giving money to a third party service, for a part halfway around the world, that might not even work. But I figured if I could limit my risk to about $100, I would go for it.
THE PROCESSThere are many other sites like this. Most of them work the same way and I have no idea which is the best. I am not affiliated with Jauce in any way whatsoever. Just a happy customer sharing this one single experience with this one provider.
The whole process went very smoothly and surprisingly quickly too. From winning the auction to having the part in my hands, took less than 2 weeks.
Basic process goes like this:
Sign up for account, pay deposit, place bid (and hopefully win), pay the balance owing, wait for part.
You bid on the item through the company, the seller ships to a warehouse in Japan, then the company forwards the package to your North American address.
COSTSQuite a few costs associated with this, plus the cost of double shipping whatever the item is. You have to really do your homework to see if using this makes sense.
Here is a breakdown of the costs:
Deposit fee: 3.9% + 40JPY of the deposit amount (I deposited 6000 JPY up front, and then the remaining balance in a second deposit)
Service fee: 8% + 800JPY of the winning auction price (I won my cluster for 3100JPY)
Bank fee: 300 JPY
Domestic shipping: varies (my cluster was 1700JPY)
Int'l shipping: varies (my cluster was 3600JPY)
The exchange rate was about 90JPY to the (CAD) dollar.
All in, the whole thing cost me $110. About 70% of that was fees and shipping. Obviously as the item goes up in price, the relative price of fees goes down.
My cluster was cheap because it didn't have a tach. I removed the speedometer from the new cluster and swapped it into my old one. Tested it yesterday and it worked!
Needless to say, I've been very happy with the whole deal. (Until the odo goes out again.....)
PICS
New speedometer on the right:
