New Restrictiond on car Imports

[d i c k i e s]

Import Video (http://video.stuff.co.nz/assets/stuff_150557_New_56k.wmv)

Whats your view on this?

[KiwiTT]

Good move.

[jaimz]

They already have a 1996 cut off because of safety standards yeah..?

It depends a fair bit on the age restriction they choose. 10 years sounds fair... 5 years would be a little harder to cope with.

[Rossco Type-S]

They already have a 1996 cut off because of safety standards yeah..?

It depends a fair bit on the age restriction they choose. 10 years sounds fair... 5 years would be a little harder to cope with.

The year they have picked is based on when Japan introduced emissions standards. Like the 1996 rule is when Japan introduced safety standards.

[bradc]

It seems a little strange to me, use the VR-4 as an example, it was made both before and after that date, Mitsi did nothing to change it's emissions.

[Pete M]

It's just the last gasp of influence from the New Car dealers trying to force people out of imports. I'm afraid the genie is out of the bottle, and the days of high price cars, huge dealer margins and an ageing vehicle fleet are gone. They want to take us back to when they made huge profits out of government regulations that restricted car imports. They fought tooth and nail against used imports, and many of them went out of business. Now, they think that by dressing it up with pseudo-environmental rubbish about emissions and vehicle safety, they can turn the clock back.

They are saying that cars earlier than 1995 are rubbish? I think a car earlier than 1965 may be rubbish by now, but a 1995 car seems just fine to me. From my profile, you can see that only one of my vehicles is later than 1986. I can remember in 1985, having to pay $10,000 for a 1977 Galant GE with 100,000 miles on it. People were still using their Austin 1100s and Morris Minors, because the price of new cars was too high.

[Rossco Type-S]

They are saying that cars earlier than 1995 are rubbish? I think a car earlier than 1965 may be rubbish by now, but a 1995 car seems just fine to me.

Its not a hard and fast rule that only 1996 and on can be imported.

Most pre-96 Jap cars don't have side intrusion beams or driver's and passanger's airbags and usually don't meet frontal impact minimum standards. Those that do can be imported. Generaly the bigger luxury cars like diamantes, glorias, celsiors pass.

Same for eurpoean cars any Porsche from about 88 can be imported any german built BMW or Benzs from about 1992 can be imported.

I assume the emissions would be the same. Vr4s have always had catalytic comverters so I wonder if they would all be fine?