It's not uncommon to buy used car like newer than 10yo in Japan now. I can see many such cars at the road side used car shop. Because Japanese people especially in rural area (who need car) getting poor relatively, newer cars getting expensive thanks to safety and comfortable equipment, and reliability is improved, used cars getting more reasonable. After 13yo, vehicle tax increases so it's not popular but still sold, especially kei-cars are sold well because it's cheap for tax.
Still, according to this popular used car site, vehicle made in 2002-2011 is listed 109k, 2012-2021 is 319k so newer cars are more sold well. https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/index.html
There have been used car market like now at least for 25 years, but I believe acceptable car age getting wider. 8yo car should be fine to buy also in 2012.
I read that something like 60% of cars registered in NZ are Japanese imports.
IMHO Japanese used car exports have a lot of the characteristics of "dumping" (in trade terms) but because there is no local vehicle manufacturing in most of the places they end up, nobody complains.
Yep, a huge number of our cars are Japanese imports. It means we can get a 5 year old Toyota/Mazda for the equivalent of about $6-7000 USD (or cheaper imported privately), which will run for another 150,000km with little difficulty.
We mostly don't have snow and I don't think any region salts their roads, so rust isn't much of an issue with something that new.
Dumping is when a country is subsidizing domestic production and selling a good internationally below cost. Japan isn't dumping because they don't subsidize the manufacturer. Instead they just have onerous regulations that make private parties sell their cars. They artificially stimulated local demand
I feel like that is a self-perpetuating cycle. Japanese carmakers build cars to rust out in half a decade and thus nobody wants to buy old rustbuckets thus the carmakers don't bother to build them to last.
It is a actually a legal and insurance issue in Japan. The costs are not tied to the quality of the vehicle. If it costs more to recertify a perfectly functional used vehicle than lease a brand new one, it makes sense to opt for new one.
A HUGE reform to our “throw-away 1 ton of iron” culture of ecology in Europe would be to rewrite the insurance estimates of cars.
The fact that insurances value a car of 35k€ at, I’m guessing, 25k€ at the exit of the garage, then 18, 12, 7, 4, 2k€ the following years, means that people see no value in used cars.
Whereas the real value of a car is certainly 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20k€ along the years, and when one recycles it, it’s actually a huge new cost for the household, for a car that could last 20 years. It breaks after 7 years? “Yeah buying a differential costs more than the entire price of the car, sir.”
But it isn't the insurance that defines the price,it is the sales market. It doesn't matter if insurance says it is worth 20k if people will only pay 2k
This was true in the 60s and 70s for Jap cars, they didnt make them to rust, they just didnt rust prevent like they do now. Go watch youtube and watch some rust belt mechanics like south main auto and u will see what what cars rust and what cars last now (hint, US made cars dont even last 10yrs with salt)
I personally drive a jap car from the 90s and 400+k on the clock. I can fix everything myself including rebuilding anything i need. My wipers arnt controlled by a CANN BUS, they use a simple mechanical switch. There is a new killer on the block that makes corrision look like childs play - its called computers. Cars these days are literly THROW away with the amount of electronics on them. Replacing the guage cluster on a new econo-car like a hyuandi can cost upwards of 8k. Instance write-off, doesnt matter that the engines wont lost 150k, because the electronics that manage it are discontinued way before that. Got a broken wire in your loom? thats 5k to replace.
Still, according to this popular used car site, vehicle made in 2002-2011 is listed 109k, 2012-2021 is 319k so newer cars are more sold well. https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/index.html