Don't Overpay for your Delica

[jessef]

Copied this from an online buy&sell website this evening.

I think this deserves a good, healthy discussion.

I omitted the dealer name so we can chat about the written context and not about the dealer.

Dealers around Canada have been overcharging for too long now on these amazing vehicles and we're here to offer you an alternative.

*dealer name omitted* is a licensed Canadian agent / broker who has the contacts and the know-how to locate, export, and import your dream vehicle even cheaper than you could do on your own without paying our fee! We get dealer rates on vehicle, export fees, shipping fees, customs charges, compliance parts, service, etc. that the discounts we pass along to the customer will make up our service fee and more!

Average price on a clean Delica when importing with our services is $6000.00 - $7500.00 for either a L300 or the new and improved L400 model with around 80,000 - 120,000 Km's ready for pick up in Vancouver port or further shipping into Canada. Similar vehicles to what dealers around Canada are charging are going as high as $15,000.00 ! These are the exact same vehicles we are selling for thousands less! Japanese vehicles do not come over needing thousands of dollars worth of work right away, don't be fooled by claims of this by these dealers! They have to justify the 5-8K mark-up somehow...!

If your not familiar with these vehicles, here is a quick reference:

Mitsubishi Delica: The legendary turbo-diesel 4x4 Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) Mitsubishi Canada never got to drive... Until recently!.

The Delica L300 (Mitsubishi Delica Starwagon) is Canada's most common Delica model. Mitsubishi Delica L300 vans came with several trims, including the Mitsubishi Delica Exceed, the Mitsubishi Delica Super Exceed, and the Mitsubishi Delica Chamonix. As with other Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) cars, Mitsubishi Delicas are Right Hand Drive (RHD). Today, Mitsubishi Delica clubs exist in numerous countries including the UK, Australia, Philippines, and Canada!

Under Canadian vehicle import laws, Mitsubishi Delicas first became eligible for import in 2000. With luxury features, waste vegetable oil (WVO) conversion potential, and 4x4 offroad capabilities, the turbo-diesel Delica could be the most practical JDM Mitsubishi Canada has seen yet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you had an inquiry about a particular vehicle or wanted to know about the process, feel free to contact and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Cheers,

*dealer name omitted*

Our web address is http://*dealer name omitted*
Contact Telephone number*dealer name omitted*

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I particularly found these points exaggerated :

are charging are going as high as $15,000.00

Japanese vehicles do not come over needing thousands of dollars worth of work right away

have to justify the 5-8K mark-up

All I can say is, WOW

I haven't seen a Delica go for $15,000. In fact, I think the highest price for one was mine and I sure as heck was not making any money on it let alone cheating someone.

I haven't seen one that did not need tires/headlights/brakes/suspension/engine work+labour which I'm sure costs more than a dollar.

And after dipping in the importing area myself, I can honestly say that it's impossible to make a 5-8k profit or markup unless some cheating or lying is involved, which I believe is not right.

I just had to post this. It's all in the writing. Made my day

[BCDelica]

Blimey what a sales bullpoop in order to grab the uneducated purchasers. Would wager a bet that a 40 mpg claim has been used by the same dealer in ads from years past. Unfortunately wording like that does of course fit the occasional perceptions from those new to JDM vehicles; common over the years whilst inquiring about your Delica.

Think most everybody would agree there are $5500 Delicas and there are $15000 Delicas, that seems a no brainer.

I'd pay $5500 for the one pictured; even if it needed 5K worth of gear to ensure it was reliable,



Constant diligence, thanks for posting Jeese

[jessef]

The whole ad doesn't make sense other than the overblown comments I picked out.

Maybe someone can shine some more light on this and enlighten me

[jwfchase]

So just think how much of a rip-off it must be for a private seller to ask 9-10k for a van they've been driving around racking up the kms already...

[jessef]

Ya think ?

I was eating Oreo's and drinking milk when I read that ad. Milk shot out my nose.

Just kidding. But I did laugh out loud and had a few odd glances for people around me.

[mararmeisto]

From the sounds of the advert, and the inference therein, it would seem this dealer is only making about 50-100$ on a vehicle sale. Doesn't seem like much of a business at only one percent profit...

And doesn't the opening line of the "reference" pitch read an awful lot like like this forum's front page? Unless you deleted the acknowledgement to this site jfarsang, I think their "borrowing" might not be quite aboveboard. I mean, it's word-for-word, and although maybe not copyright, it's still ours isn't it? Mark? Especially when being used in a commercial manner such as this advert so obviously is?

As an aside, it's one of the more genteel slam-the-other-dealer-ads I've seen in a while. Just my thoughts.

EDIT: I've got more now that I've found their site...

Interesting how none of their advertised L300 Delicas are in excellent condition (only "fair" and "good"); the "loaded" ones seem to have everything but leather??? (was that ever an option?); and they are only bringing in the "rare manuals", not the common ones, or the ones that were made in fewer numbers, but being "rare" they are probably the faster-than-automatic ones.

I guess it's all in the wording. Semantics, as it were. You know: how one says something.

[konadog]

I saw the clogged rad and the badly pitted brake rotors and a few other worn out bits and pieces that were switched out of mine when it first came from Japan... Maybe some people wouldn't think they needed changing, but I'm sure glad I spent the extra couple of G's on the refit... I wager the cost of a new deli I wouldn't still be driving a happy bus if I had run it as it was...

[jrman]

Tks for posting this Jesse. Someone seriously is working the "angle" the best they can to caputure the uninitiated so to speak, and certainly hope potential buyers will check here first to avoid the trap. On the other hand, it doesn't take much real homework to figure out reality these days....so anyone "sucked in" by this type of snake oil salesman has to take a degree of responsibility as well.
Cheers,
SS

[mararmeisto]

Tks for posting this Jesse. Someone seriously is working the "angle" the best they can to caputure the uninitiated so to speak, and certainly hope potential buyers will check here first to avoid the trap. On the other hand, it doesn't take much real homework to figure out reality these days....so anyone "sucked in" by this type of snake oil salesman has to take a degree of responsibility as well.
Cheers,
SS

Although I did A LOT of research before buying my first JDM, I would think the average Canadian would be just the slightest bit leery or at least have a few questions about buying a vehicle off-the-boat (as it were), considering our whole lives we are led to believe that dealers sell good cars, used lots beside the dealers sell reasonable cars, and you takes-your-chances when you buy from the lot down by the tracks next to the abandoned industrial buildings. Who buys a car from a guy who brings them in from Japan? Can you do that? Hell, this is what I originally thought until I learned that it is in fact legal to purchase vehicles from outside the country.

But then, there's that line in that movie: "Now there's a horse of a different colour!"

[tonydca]

Copied this from an online buy&sell website this evening.

If your not familiar with these vehicles, here is a quick reference:

Mitsubishi Delica: The legendary turbo-diesel 4x4 Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) Mitsubishi Canada never got to drive... Until recently!.

The Delica L300 (Mitsubishi Delica Starwagon) is Canada's most common Delica model. Mitsubishi Delica L300 vans came with several trims, including the Mitsubishi Delica Exceed, the Mitsubishi Delica Super Exceed, and the Mitsubishi Delica Chamonix. As with other Japanese Domestic Model (JDM) cars, Mitsubishi Delicas are Right Hand Drive (RHD). Today, Mitsubishi Delica clubs exist in numerous countries including the UK, Australia, Philippines, and Canada!

Under Canadian vehicle import laws, Mitsubishi Delicas first became eligible for import in 2000. With luxury features, waste vegetable oil (WVO) conversion potential, and 4x4 offroad capabilities, the turbo-diesel Delica could be the most practical JDM Mitsubishi Canada has seen yet.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look familiar? Nice that the guy did a cut-and-paste from the home page of the delica.ca website with no reference. ThankYa - ThankYaVerraMuch...

[loki]

not hard to find out who the dealer is if you want, just copy a large chunk of the test and search Google, it's not hard to make a connection to a JDM dealer.

[BCDelica]

Ya think ?

I was eating Oreo's and drinking milk when I read that ad. Milk shot out my nose.

Just kidding. But I did laugh out loud and had a few odd glances for people around me.

Delica surfing at work or the coffee shop? LOL

From the sounds of the advert, and the inference therein, it would seem this dealer is only making about 50-100$ on a vehicle sale. Doesn't seem like much of a business at only one percent profit...

If you never leave your computer in Edmonton (man if I lived there I'd never go outside in the winter anyways), $100 for selling Fairladies to highschoolers isn't that bad. Wording is right: the ad catches you with $5500 AND right away quote the low price of $6000 to $7500 landed, and their inventory there's one for $10,800. Ding, ding, ding, the alarm bells should be going off! And it's a base model from different shores, but it does have one cool feature.

Look familiar? Nice that the guy did a cut-and-paste from the home page of the delica.ca website with no reference. ThankYa - ThankYaVerraMuch...

Good eye, that's the only part of the ad that makes sense.

Diligence, I sleep well at nights knowing you guys are all on the ball and not letting this kind of malarky slip by unnoticed.

[Todd64]

Well if you Google some things of that ad you can find out who it is. That's if you wanted to know.

[pattonmaclean]

From a prospective Delica buyer, thank you very much.

[mararmeisto]

From a prospective Delica buyer, thank you very much.

While the ad may be factually correct - there are 'drivable' Delicas right off the boat - it is little different than saying that a 15-20 NAMPOS is drivable when purchased here. It may run, it may even run reasonably well, but that's not to say it doesn't actually need a few thousand dollars' worth of maintenance. What the advertiser is not saying (by omission) is that you can drive around your newly purchased Delica with nary a concern for potential maintenance issues.

What we're trying to say is that there are most definitely some things to look for on a 15+ year old vehicle being imported, some things especially on ones from Japan (radiator and cooling being the important one). Search this forum for "things to look for" to get a good idea of what to look for.

At the end, it's not to say you can't pick up a Delica for 5-7000$. We just got a Pajero for 7k$, but we put 4k$ into maintenance (and now it's cherry). Our Delica we bought for 12k$, but everything had been done (including things like motor mounts), so we were quite comfortable paying the 'extra'.