What Auction Grades Are
Auction grades are a shorthand that the inspectors use to give an indication about the general quality of the car. There is an overall grade, interior grade, and sometimes exterior grade as well.
There are many other pages on this website that go into the detail of what each individual grade means, so I won't be talking about those kinds of details here. However, you should be aware that these grades are both relative and subjective.
What do I mean when I say that they are relative? Well, a car which is 20 years old with an interior grade of B, and a car which is two years old with an interior grade of B are not actually going to have the exact same level of quality in their interior. A grade of B simply means that the car is pretty average when compared with other cars of the same kind of age.
The overall grades are also subjective. An auction inspector in one auction may grade a car 3.5, whereas the same car in another auction may be graded R. The inspector is looking at all of the details he has written on his report, and is weighing them against each other to determine what he thinks would be a sensible overall grade.
Finally, the last thing to bear in mind is that these grades are broad bands of quality. So, you might have a grade 4 car which is actually at the upper end of the grade 4 spectrum, and which would even be graded as a 4.5 in another auction. Then again, you may have a grade 4 which is right at the lower end of the spectrum, which a different inspector, or an inspector at a different auction, would have graded as a 3.5.
So, as somebody bidding on cars at auction in Japan, what do you want to use auction grades for?
Well, the best use for auction grades is to eliminate cars which you would definitely not be interested in buying. Remember, that there are usually well over 100,000 vehicles passing through these auctions in Japan every single week. You need to have a tool to quickly sift through the cars -- and the auction grades are just that tool.
For example, when you are searching through the following day’s auctions, you may well decide that you only want to see cars which are graded 4 or 4.5. Why? Well, you know that the cars which are in the lower grades (3.5, 3, 2, 1, R etc) are going to be too rough for your market. On the other hand, you know that the cars which are above grade 4.5 by going to be too expensive for your market. So rather than ploughing through all the cars of the particular model which you are interested in, you narrow your search using the auction grade to make sure you are only seeing the ones which are likely to meet your requirements.
Of course, where your sweet-spot is, is entirely up to you. You might find that you get good results with cars which are grade 3.5 or R. Or, it may be cars that are great 4.5 and 5 which fit your requirements best. Only you can decide that.
What Auction Grades Are Not
Remember I said that auction grades are a powerful tool, but one that you have to be careful with? Well, let's now turn our attention to what auction grades are not and learn more about the dangers of their misuse.
Well, Japanese car auction grades should not be the primary factor in deciding whether to bid or not.
As I mentioned before, the auction grades are great at helping you eliminate the cars which you definitely do not want to buy (either because they quality will be too low, or because the price will be too high). In other words, they are great to tell you what not to bid on, but once you have narrowed down your potential target list, the grades do not help you at all to decide which ones to actually try to buy.
To make that decision, you need to know the details of what is written on the auction inspector's report. Unless you happen to be fluent in Japanese (which we do not expect you to be), then you will need an accurate, professional translation of the auction sheet. You don't need to worry about this, because we have you covered: We have a professional translation service available throughout the business day in Japan, and during the night Japan time on many days as well.
Once again, we have a lot more information about our auction sheet translations services on other parts of this website, so I won't go into this in detail here. But I wanted to make sure that you got this point -- the auction grade alone is not enough to decide whether to bid or not.
We find that the most successful importers really understand how it all works - from the auction to the ship and beyond. Don't get left behind!
