Between the lines: Car wars: return to the fight zone

By FIONA ROTHERHAM

Japanese second-hand car exporter Ron Komatsu feels ripped off.

It is an emotion shared by many Kiwi consumers upon discovering wound-back speedos in their cheap imports.

Mr Komatsu is wrangling with Auckland used car salesman Pip Rakana of Ultimo in Mt Wellington over $100,000 or so allegedly owed for a car consignment sent from Japan a year ago.

Mr Rakana has withheld payment for some vehicles he claims are "salesproof" -- car sales jargon for shoddy cars unable to be sold in New Zealand.

While Customs regularly picks up about 200 used imports with wound-back speedos in a year, exchange rate differences and increased buying competition from other countries mean Kiwi importers are also getting less for the same money.

Analysis of the latest figures, due out next week, is expected to show that used vehicle imports from Japan are significantly older than a few years ago. These older models became economic to import with the removal of the $1500 minimum tariff in May 1998. The result was a 30 per cent increase in used-car imports in 1999 to 131,118 from just under 100,000 in 1998.

Disputes between Japanese exporters and local dealers are also understood to be escalating.

The turmoil has brought about a three-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, attempts by two Customs Ministers to grapple with the problems since 1997 and several prosecutions.

A private prosecution brought by anti-clocking campaigner Dermot Nottingham is due to resume in the district court today.

Two years ago officials and importers were largely agreed that the problem was not one of border control but consumer protection. Legislation that the Government intended to introduce last year would have removed Customs' powers to seize clocked cars while still making it illegal for dealers to defraud buyers with incorrect odometer readings. A Land Transport Safety database would have tracked odometer readings.

Since the initial burst of enthusiasm, agreement has soured. Consumer groups and the motor trade no longer agree on measures that will give buyers confidence that their hard-earned dollars will not be spent on a heavily overvalued asset.

Technical difficulties have also arisen over detecting odometer tampering with sufficient certainty to satisfy legal scrutiny.

In the meantime, the business is expanding. A decade ago there were around 300 licensed importers. That number has now doubled.

The Imported Motor Vehicle Dealers Association says many Japanese agents are so greedy to do business that sound commercial sense goes out the window.

The Japanese view New Zealand as an easy dumping ground for cars no one else wants. The trouble is, Kiwis don't want them either.