Dealer Caution

[bighorn]

This is a heads up based on my personal experience with VI Custom Car Imports on Vancouver Island. I've been trying to buy a car from them for a couple weeks, but have finally given up.

After test driving one of their cars (which was tough: after a 2 hour drive there the sales-boy forgot my appointment) I asked to review the Japanese paperwork.

The first red flag was that the mileage on the Japanese paperwork didn't match the mileage on the vehicle. It was only out by about 20,000kms, but that's still odd, and their excuse was that their mechanic has copied the mileage numbers incorrectly (which made no sense, as the numbers on the car itself were different).

Another red flag came up when I asked for a list of the work their mechanic performed on the vehicle, since they claimed it had "a lot of work" done to it. They couldn't provide a list either, again blaming one of their mechanics who supposedly wrote things down on a piece of paper sloppily (?). They weren't sure if the timing belt had been changed or not, and couldn't give me a definitive answer.

After sending a couple faxes I followed up by phone, but even then they couldn't answer my questions. I was told they'd call me back the next day with some answers, but they never did--that was almost a week ago and I still haven't heard from them.

Draw your own conclusions.

The vehicle I was looking at may indeed be a perfect specimen, in great shape and at a fair price. But I'm not willing to buy from a place that can't answer the most basic questions about the cars they sell.

They won't get a red cent from me.

BH

[Green1]

at least they were willing to talk to you... I tried several times and got no response....

[Fanny Bay Delica]

Bighorn,

If the vehicle is good, get the original paperwork from Japan and assume they did nothing. Then take it to CC auto and get the proper work done. That's what I did and got a great Deli, that said I've still not seen any copy of the promised warrantee. If I need something fixed I'm taking it to a proper mechanic and sending them the bill!!

Note: they were supposed to be sending a guy to the Deli meet, that should be fun!!!

[bighorn]

It took a while, but I finally received a fax from VICCI. It was a sheet in Japanese showing two side photos of the car with some info next to the photos. There was a 3.5 on the sheet, which was circled, and the vehicle mileage, which still doesn't match the car but is at least closer, and lower.

But I can barely read the English on the page, and the Japanese writing is totally blurry as well. A fax of a fax of a fax, and no way of knowing if this is the same vehicle.

Anyway, I've decided not to proceed at this point. The only proof of repairs they could give me was a note scribbled on the fax. This may be totally true and accurate, but I'm going to hold off for now.

Also, I did some basic calculations: the cost of buying the JDM I wanted less the amount I'd get for selling my current rig works out to about $4000. So although the diesel would get better mileage, it would take about 5 years to make up the difference, 6 if I calculate in the higher potential cost of JDM parts and insurance.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the whole JDM import industry right now, I figured I'll keep my current rig for a couple more years and see what happens. If all works out, I'll pick up a L400 in a couple years...

BH

[terrain]

that could apply to a number of dealers. Hopefully the numerous comments here will be an incentive for dealers to improve. The markup on the vehicles is enough to provide dealers with the ability to do decent work to the vehicles and provide better communication to would be owners.

I wanted to buy a vehicle through a dealer but was not willing to work through vi for some of the reasons given and a few more. Still had problems but not with the vehicle itself. It was everything that was promised and I remain pleased. Now that I have done that and have some experience with the vehicle - I feel confident about the potential of bringing a vehicle over directly.

An l300 is not fuel effiecient vehicle (better than a vw). It is an excellent island vehicle for certain purposes. Our other vehicle gets 50mgp.

[surferboy]

well,well well, sounds like my experiences with V.I custom are being repeated ... they once had the balls to ask me why i was giving them a bad report on this site, i guess they read my posts about them and e-mailed me to ask me why and took the occasion to ask me what i thought about my van...like four months after i drove away from their lot with it! UNREAL !! wow that's customer service ma'am! maybe they should read the rest of the posts about the kind of "professionalism" that people are experiencing with them, unfortunatelly i don't think that they care much.... oh well, its a small world and word gets around about them......

[docsavage]

I must say I bought from VI and had a good experience in the end. I put the down payment on my van and flew down to get it a few weeks later. I arived to find there had been and error in the paper work - some number in the VIN wrong - and ICBC wouldn't give it a new VIN. VI tried to contact me, but I was already on the plane Also, the alterntor had packed it in and killed the batteries so I couldn't drive it with dealer plates to my sisters in Black Creek for the night. :( :(

So that night they lent me a Toyota Landcruise VX to drive. 8) The next morning I returned to Parksville and we decided to get home I would buy a Toyota Hi-Ace for $1000 less than the Delica. I drove home and waited for the paper work to straighten out. Home is Williams Lake - about 800 and a ferry. When the paperwork was right, the van was right we arranged to meet in Richmond to swap vehicles and finish the transfers - Toyota to them, Mitsubishi to me and home I went with a straight across trade :D :D . There were also 2 new batteries and rebuilt alternator installed.

The amount I saved on the van easily compensated my plane ticket, ferry rides, fuel, and the day off.

So they went out of their way to help me out in a tough situation.

James