Integra SiR

Welp, 18 year old Justin would be proud of me. I finally bought a right hand drive sports car in Japan. It took 15 years, but the last month was the longest wait. It was a painful process. But it was fun to do it one time because I learned a lot.

I actually bought the car back on May 1st. But I didn’t get the car until June 6 because of all the paperwork. And I didn’t know it would take that long when I first started the process. It was 43万円, which is about $4,000. I paid for it with a credit card and was like, “ok can I drive it home now?”. The salesman was like, “This is Japan! There are a million applications, approvals, stamps, urine samples, carrier pigeons, morse codes, and smoke signals to get this transaction finalized”. But honestly, the salesman was very nice and patient with my limited Japanese skills. His English skills were completely zero.

Once I looked the car over and decided to buy it, we went into the office and he served me coffee and we went over the paperwork.

The main task was getting the car inspected and in condition to pass the inspection test (its called shaken 車検). That was the dealership’s responsibility. He told me it would be a few weeks to complete that. But in the mean time I had my own homework to do. First I had to officially register my inkan(印鑑), which is my name stamp.

I went to our local city hall to get my inkan registered. It feels like a marriage certificate. You have to get this document and present it any time you stamp something official.

My next task was to get a proof of parking sticker. In Japan, you aren’t allowed to buy a car unless you prove you have a parking space for it. (its called shakoshoumei 車庫証明). So I went to the police station to get this process started.

I had to fill out some paperwork and they scheduled to have a police officer come over and verify the parking space actually existed. Once the officer verified it, then I had to go back to the station to pick up the official parking sticker. I think this whole parking verification process took 5 days overall.

Once I got the stamp registered and parking verified, I mailed all the documents to the dealership and they proceeded to finish the vehicle inspection process. In the meantime, the dealer emailed me his recommendation for 3rd party car insurance (任意保険). I learned that the vehicle inspection includes a basic form of insurance. And its not required to carry any more than that. But I also learned that it only covers bodily injury and not vehicle repair. And also there is rarely one person at fault in an accident. If someone cuts into your lane and hits you, its up to the investigation, but that would probably be 80% the other person’s fault 20% your fault. 20% for riding in their blind spot, or for not reacting quick enough, other excuses, etc. So with this type of ruling, its guaranteed you are going to have to pay something even if its not your fault. So I decided to get 3rd party insurance. Luckily I communicated directly with the insurance agent through email. My Japanese writing skills are way better than my speaking skills, so I could negotiate pretty effectively.

Finally on June 1st, the dealership contacted me and said I could come pick up the car on June 6th. They had finished the vehicle inspection process and got all the paperwork back.

The whole family drove down to Saitama, almost 2 hours away, to pick up my car. The kids would not ride back with Heather. They had to ride in the Integra!

We took the opportunity while we were in Saitama to hit up a national park, Chichibu. I had to make my first fill-up on the way.

I gotta get that yellow gas. Its labeled Hi Oc – short for High Octane. I’m not sure exactly what the octane rating is though since it just says high octane. I do know that this Integra runs a higher compression ratio than comparable cars in America, so I am afraid of possible pre-ignition using American gas when I bring this back to America. That will be the next adventure in paperwork!

I special ordered the plates too. They are my birth year. I really want to take them back to America as a souvenir, but I heard when you transfer a car you have to de-register it and relinquish the plates. In America, you would just tell the BMV or whoever that you lost the plates and then steal them. (probably you don’t even have to do that. I think you just keep them regardless.) But I don’t know about that in Japan. There’s probably tons of police report papers to fill out stating you lost the plates and then a nationwide search will be started to find my plates.

A little more about the car though. Its a 1996 Honda Integra SiR. They don’t sell them in America. They sell an Acura Integra GSR, but it has 10 less horsepower and a different (uglier) headlight design. The best Integra is the Type R, but I couldn’t afford that. So I went with the SiR. It only has 75k kilometers on the odometer, which is less than 50k miles. That’s actually 20k miles less than my 2015 Toyota back home. This is a 1996 car, but it feels new. The engine is super strong and there are no oil leaks at all. All of my previous 90’s Honda’s had oil leaks. Its like I bought a time capsule from 1996. I’m very happy with it.