Living with Imported Cars

Why did we buy?

We needed another MR2 after the first was stolen. A number of factors brought us to the imported option:

• We bought in summer of '98 when Sterling (£) was strong and the Yen (¥) weak.
• It was impossible to find a UK MR2 with Air-Con and T-Bar.
• We wanted a bright colour, and not red or black.
• About 95% of the market in MR2 at that time was imported cars (partly due to UK quotas)

Things to look out for

It was a bit tricky to find one without minor body damage, I guess that's due to shipping.

UK T-Bars always come with leather interior, Japanese models come with a cloth interior (no doubt, because of the heat in the mid-day sun in Japan).

As with any 2nd hand car car, make sure you see it before you buy it !!!!!

Spares support, see servicing. Also, is there an equivalent UK model. I specifically chose to avoid the MR2 Turbo as there is no equivalent UK model. This would have made the parts situation worse.

Servicing

This is a favourite topic for manufacturers, and there has been some confusion in the past. Different manufacturers deal with this differently, so take care and find out before you buy.

Toyota have made  public statement that they will endeavour to support imported cars, however, they do not necessarily carry the parts in stock. If you need, or insist, on Japanese parts it could take several weeks to deliver.

Toyota dealers don't carry the parts microfiche / CD etc for imported cars, so it typically takes a day to find the part number from Toyota UK.

We now take the plunge and order the equivalent UK part straight away to save time.

Being a '94 model, the service interval is 9000 miles (it was 6000 miles on the pre '94 models). With the mileage that I run, this means a service about every 4 months. So far, we have only ever fitted UK specification parts.

MR2's are a bit of a sod on the MOT emissions test, its easy to get the numbers in the right band, but not necessarily all at the same time !!!!! Don't forget to turn the air-con off.