How to use the auction grades
When the auction inspector looks a car over, he gives it an overall grade. This could be grade 4.5, 5 or 6 etc. if the car is in excellent shape, grade 4 or 3.5 if the car is fairly OK, or he could give it a lower grade such as grade 3 or R if it isn't.
So how do these auction grades help you?
Let’s pick a model and see how this works. On the day I am writing this, there are 19,664 vehicles at auction in Japan (a moderate number, that gets quite a bit higher when we get into Spring).
Out of these, there are…
- 148 Toyota Alphards
- 57 Alphards that are Grade 4
- 19 Alphards that are Grade 4 and first registered in 2003 or 2004
- 12 Alphards that are Grade 4 and first registered in 2003 or 2004 with between 60,000KM to 100,000KM on the odometer
So, you can see how we can use the overall grade, the year and the mileage to drill down from a large number of vehicles to a smaller group that you would be interested in bidding for.
Now, does that mean that you should enter bids on all 12 of these vehicles and just go ahead blindly relying on the fact that they are graded 4? At Integrity Exports the answer to that question is always no. Before you ever finalize any bid on a particular vehicle, you should always make sure you have read the details of the auction inspector’s report.
Don’t worry if you cannot read Japanese. We don’t expect you to. That is our job. Just ask us for a translation and we will translate the auction inspector’s comments into English for you.
Take a look at the above. Here I talk you through two auction sheets translating them into English as I go to show you how these cars seem like they would be good buys ... except for some major issues hidden in the auction inspector’s comments that you would never have found out about without a professional translation.
Remember this rule and stay safe: Never bid based on grade alone - only decide once you have read the translation of the full report.
