Hello, I have two car questions for you fine people!
First, I'm looking to get a new vehicle, and a friend clued me into importing a car from Japan. Basically, you pay a firm to inspect, test, purchase and import a vehicle from Japan. Due to how Japanese insurance works, nice vehicles can be purchased for quite cheap through auction. You can search through the auction houses yourself and choose a car, or just give the company some specifications, and they will look for you, alert you to vehicles they think you may be interested in. Looking through the auctions, you can have, for example, a 1998 Subaru legacy outback, good body condition, manual, A/C, with only
70,000 km on it, imported for about 5k CAD.
Here's a forester with similar specs (I wouldn't get a Forester, but for example.)
The downsides are that they are almost all right-hand-drive which I assume hurts resale and can be a problem with insurance in some provinces (not in mine). You don't get to testdrive it yourself. And, in Canada, the car
must be at least 15 years old, which means 1998 or earlier. No mid 2000s vehicles from JDM, unfortunately.
So does anyone have experience with JDM cars? My friend said he had no problem, no hidden fees, everything was exactly as it was explained to him. Do things like the RHD and 1998 or older rule it out?
My second question is just about my plans for my next car. Most of my driving is highway, as I work in a logging camp and have to commute a 400km round trip every 2 weeks. Right now, I drive a 2002 Cavalier, which I bought before I started taking frugality seriously, it's a little bit heavy on the gas, is automatic, and doesn't accommodate something my next vehicle I think ought to, which is my hobbies.
I like to hunt deer, and I like to pick mushrooms. Right now, when hunting season starts and the chanterelles and matsutakes start sprouting up, I usually borrow a truck from family or friends in order to access logging roads and have the space to hold a carcass and/or buckets full of mushrooms, maybe the occasional oyster mushroom-laden alder snag I take out of the bush. But I feel like I'm imposing, especially if I am going out on successive days, commandeering a vehicle for an entire weekend. I want to do it on my own.
So do you folks think that a Subaru Outback is a good vehicle for that sort of thing? Doesn't give up too much in terms of fuel economy? What other AWD or 4WD options do I have to accommodate my hunting and foraging? Or, should I just continue to borrow trucks and spend my money on a 1999 Honda Insight when they become importable next year?
Thanks for any suggestions, warnings or help!
Gordon