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BUYING A CAR....A NUMBERS GAME?

If you live in Auckland owning a car is just about unavoidable. With next to no convienent, safe and reliable public transport available, its a fact of life that you will have to use a car sometime. Fortunately Aucklanders have a huge selection of cars and dealers to choose from when the time comes to buy a car. The availability of affordable imported used Japanese cars has transformed the motor industry in this country, making late model, high spec cars available to everyone at a fraction of the cost of new vehicle prices

Largo Enterprises LMVD specialises in Importing and selling Japanese cars to the NZ Public. Our focus is on quality and value for money, unlike some of the "bigger" dealers in the area who concentrate on quantity over everything else. A big yard with hundreds of cars might look impressive but does not neccessarily mean a better deal for you. With less space on the yard to fill, we can be more selective about what we buy, and are not under pressure to "make up the numbers". This means we can spend more time checking over the cars at the buying stage, and preparing them for sale once thay arrive in Auckland. It also means we can avoid stocking what we regard as inferior quality vehicles such as, Stripped down Base models, ex- Rental cars, Repossesd cars and worst of all, Accident damaged cars. We normally have approximately 70 vehicles in stock with up to another 30 in transit from Japan. We believe that having this stock level provides a good deal of choice for our customers without lowering our quality control standards. All vehicles are personally selected and bought by our in- house buyer who travels to Japan every month. We do not engage in the practice of buying cars over the internet or fax which tends to involve decisions made solely on price and rarely turn out to be what they were advertised as.

The bottom line is..if its not a good car, we don't buy it!

We have a small and friendly sales team as we know people dislike having hordes of salespeople descend on them. We operate a low pressure Sales approach and aim to create a relaxed and enjoyable buying experience. We can field sales enquiries in Japanese, Chinese and Sri Lankan. We don't operate sales targets or quotas for our salespeople so they are'nt under the huge pressure salespeople at some of the bigger companies tend to be. Our salespeople all work together as a team and will help each other in helping you find the right car!

At Largo Enterprises you can be sure of finding good quality cars at very competitive prices... because we believe buying a car is more than just a numbers game!

THE IMPORT PROCESS

The most important thing about buying a car is choosing the right one. This is just as true for dealers as for the buying public. A good car will always attract buyers, while a not so good one won't.

Our buyer, John Griffin, travels to Osaka every month to source stock for the company's yard in Henderson. Spending a week there he attends up to 6 auctions in that time. The auctions are all electronic and the pace is very fast, quite unlike auctions in NZ where there is an Auctioneer and bidders wave their hands about. A car is sold approximately every 10 seconds. Added to this is the fact that its all in Japanese. John starts each day by checking all the cars up for auction that day. This involves walking past and looking at hundreds of cars. Its a lot of walking but he believes that is preferable to simply reading the catalog and choosing which cars to check from that.

"Some cars look great on paper but when you get to see them its a different story"

After identifing which cars may be suitable for our yard he then spends some time checking the condition. Each car has an Auction report which is a limited inspection of that cars condition. Its all in Japanese so we rely a lot on our Japanese Agent, Mr. Kensaku Honda. With Honda-san on hand we get accurate translations on the spot. Cars that dont measure up to our standards or have had major accident damage are dismissed from the list.

If we are successful in bidding for a car, the next step is to inspect the odometer. Milage fraud used to be a big problem, but in recent years it has become rare. John uses a Magnifying glass and flashlight to carefully inspect the tumblers and cogs on the analogue odometers. This is the same inspection carried out by NZ Customs on the cars arrival in New Zealand. Any marks or scratches on the speedo or odometer mean that the car will be returned to the auction and will not be imported.

After passing this test the car is photographed. We use a digital camera and display the photos under the "arriving soon" portion of our website. Here you can see the car in the condition we bought it in.

From the Auction the car is transported to Sakai Port. Here, at the Shipping company's terminal the car is inspected by the NZ MAF quarantine service. Any material such as insects and soil is removed and the car is cleaned prior to shipping.

Once loaded on to a dedicated Roll On - Roll Off car carrier ship, the car will take approximately 2 weeks to arrive in Auckland.

After the ship arrives in Auckland, it is unloaded and the cars parked on the Auckland wharves. After clearing them through customs and paying for the ocean freight and GST, we are then free to uplift them. We have our own car transporter and so we are able to deliver the cars to the yard very quickly. Not having to wait for space on the commercial operators trucks can mean we recieve our cars up to 2 days earlier. It also allows us to minimise damage to cars during loading/unloading.

Once a car arrives at the yard our reconditioning technician Anthony Antonovich surveys it. Each car has a check sheet noting any defects. Anthonys job is to arrange any repairs or paint touch ups to be done.

From there the car is taken to be inspected for compliance to NZ safety standards. Its like a super W.o.F. All safety items are thoroughly checked including Tyres, lights,brakes and seatbelts. The car is checked for any previous repairs and if these are evident an engineer is called in to check and certify the repair. Repair certs are a rare occurance for us as we dont buy Accident damaged cars. On passing the inspection the car is issued with a VIN number and a new W.o.F.

The car arrives back at our yard after being checked and is now ready for grooming. After that photos are taken for advertisng and the car is displayed for sale.

The japanese motor industry is huge, producing millions of cars every year. There's a bewildering array of models available some of which have never been seen here in New Zealand.There are no private car sales in Japan, all vehicle transactions being done through dealers. In order to support this system an extensive Dealer Auction industry has sprung up which serves both the domestic and export markets. Its to these Auctions that most NZ buyers go, joining others from places like Australia, Russia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Peru, Cyprus, Ireland ,the UK, in fact anywhere that they use right hand drive vehicles. Every week thousands of vehicles pass through these auctions with up to 3000 cars being auctioned in one day being a common size auction. Some of the big Tokyo Auctions can feature up to 8000 cars!! At current levels the NZ Dollar does not provide much purchasing power when compared with the UK pound or Japanese Yen. This means that some models are simply too expensive for the NZ buyer. For example Mazda MX5's are worth much more in Britian than NZ so the British buyers can easily outspend Kiwi buyers. Near new, low KM cars are sought after by Japanese domestic dealers who can pay far more for them than we can. The 660cc minicars are hugely popular in Japan are are worth a lot more than bigger, better equipped cars. Toyota 4Wheel Drive Utes are highly prized in places like Africa and Central Asia where they are often fitted with things such as machine gun mounts . As you can imagine, these buyers are'nt as worried about mileage, paint scratches and interior condition as the average kiwi buyer is, and so, dont factor them into their purchase prices. New rules imposed by the NZ government last year have imposed restrictions on which cars can be imported. The frontal impact rule has significantly changed the market and limited the choice the buying public has. So, despite there being a huge amount of cars for sale every week, only a small percentage are suitable for the NZ market.

Spec Sheet

1970 Rs Chevrolet Camaro. Engine 383 Cubic Inch, 580 Hp, Gearbox 5spd Richman, Tyres good year Eagles. Driver Shane Blind.

As well as leading the way as West Auckland's best value wholesaler our cars also have led the way on the track.

Circuit racing achievments

1993/94 North Island Mazda Rx7 Champion
1994/95 New Zealand Holden HQ Champion
1996/97 Sport and Gt Champion, Pre 75 non-turbo class

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