Fixing your car with second-hand parts

When there was something wrong with their cars, most Japanese drivers take the cars to the dealer’s maintenance shops to get them fixed at dealers such as Toyota and Nissan. When a mechanic gives them a quote, most people just accept it without even a glance and book their cars in. In this case, the parts they use at dealer’s shops are usually brand new.

However, recently, some dealers started recommending the change to second-hand (recycled) parts. Recycle parts are taken out of deregistered cars and stocked by recycle parts traders. They have a wide range of parts from exterior parts such as door mirrors and doors to machinery parts like drive shafts. For dealers, selling new parts is definitely more profitable and better financially. So, I was wondering why they recommend using second-hand parts to their customers.

I found the answer the other day when I visited a car dealer near our office. Inside, I saw quite a few brochures recommending parts change with used parts, clearly in display. So when I found a mechanic who I sometimes do business with, I asked him the reason behind this sudden change. According to him, among the people who bring their cars in to his shop, more of them tell him that they want to reduce their maintenance cost. After checking the quote, they specify the parts they want him to fix. From the dealer’s stance, when he writes up the quote, he does not add any unnecessary services on it; thinking about safe driving in the future, he recommends the parts changes or the services. So when there are so many bits overlooked by the customer, it means that it will not be safe for the car going back on the road. However his customers only want him to fix the urgent problems and now more cars are brought in straight after the service with other problems where he knew would be the problem sooner or later. Even if it was his customer’s decision, dealers want to avoid big accidents later on because of that. That is why he recommends them not new parts but reasonably priced second-hand parts to save the cost so that all the problems would be fixed altogether. Dealers also think that even if they cannot make much money from parts, they can make profit from their maintenance services, so it is still profitable.

Lately, some large insurance companies gives their customers 5% discount in their car insurance premium under the condition that they preferentially chose used parts for maintenance.
Using recycled parts means using our resources again. It is good for our environment and for our wallet. At JPC, for customers from certain countries, we started selling “half-cuts” by cutting cars in half to send in a container from the dash board to front bumper only. In this way, you can use many more parts as parts, such as the engine and other front parts. If you are interested, please send an enquiry to our staff.



★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955

Summer holiday 2009: Day 5

After driving a total of 600km drive within three days to yesterday, we were a bit tired so decided on an easy sightseeing day in Hakodate. Thinking about the location, we booked a city hotel near the Hakodate railway station as it has easy access to most places.

After a buffet style breakfast, we checked the morning market in front of the station. Here, we saw people selling fish and other seafood, fruit & vegetables, dried food, confectioneries, etc. About 450 stall holders were crushed together from early morning and yelling to tourists in brisk voices. I felt like eating Sushi there but I was still full from my breakfast, so we were just walking around, enjoying the atmosphere.

Straight from there, a walk along the port took us to the waterfront warehouses, one of the famous tourist attractions. The red brick warehouses were making the port attractive. They are now used as bars & restaurants and a shopping mall. Shops of different sizes were attracting the tourists. Among the shops, there was a musical box museum and my daughter spent a great time making her own music box.

After wandering around the shops, it was almost lunch time. We decided to go to the original “Lucky Pierrot” hamburger shop to try their hamburgers. The “Lucky Pierrot” has 14 shops in Hakodate. They boast that all the ingredients are from Hokkaido. They do not stock their food: they cook it after each order. They are famous as a place you can get hot-from-the-oven hamburgers. I had a “Chinese chicken burger”, the most popular on the menu. It was very nice with the combination of slightly sweet fried chicken and thick bun.

Hakodate is also well-known for slopes. From the centre of the city, they had about 18 slopes towards Mt Hakodate. To do some exercise after lunch, we walked up the famous “Hachiman-saka” which was used in a TV ad. At the top, there was a high school. It was supposed to be a great panorama overseeing the whole port but it was raining all morning, it was blurry unfortunately.

Within a short walk from there, we saw the Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward, the Old British Consulate building and other historic buildings of Meiji era. We were impressed with their great architectural skills.
After sightseeing of the port area, we went back to the railway station. Luckily it was time for a bus leaving for Mt Hakodate. Because the rain had stopped, we decided to jump on the bus and headed toward the mountain. It is a small mountain with a height of only 334m but is famous for its breathtaking night view which is said to be one of the three best in the world with Naples in Italy and Hong Kong.

When we got there, the sun had not yet set and it was too early to see the night views but with the evening sun peeking through the cloud, we enjoyed the fantastic scenery of the city illuminated by the setting sun.

As the sun went down, the city was lit up; there appeared beautiful scenery right in front of us. You know, I was expecting much because a night view is not anything new for us who live in a big city watching it every night. However, I was taken aback with the unimaginable beauty and the scale of the view. Unknown to us, it was the anniversary day called “Night View Day” and to celebrate 150 years after their opening of the port after the period of national isolation of Edo era, there was an event in which fireworks were set off from 15 different places around the city. This made our visit there more exciting. We felt really lucky with this whole trip. Thank you, Hokkaido!

Starting from Hakodate, everything in our trip was 100% satisfaction. A summer trip in Hokkaido, it is a bit far from Tokyo but I would recommend it to everyone.



★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955