Has anyone had experience with the companies selling the used Japanese engines? Apparently Japan requires the replacement of car engines every six years and the old engines are sent overseas to be sold. I’m considering buying one.
I have a friend that has a mechanics shop and he does that with the customers that do requiere and engine replacement. From what he has informed me, there has been no porblems to date.
If you are going to do it yourself, vacuum hoses and some other things will not line up with your car, therefore you will have to do some small but time consuming modifications.
Japan does not require the replacement of engines over 6 years old. Cars in Japan spend a lot of time idling in traffic and after a few years, are pretty well worn out. I lived in Japan for a few years and by the time my car was 6 years old and had about 60k miles, the engine was shot.
My son and I installed a JDM engine and transaxle in his 1992 Honda Accord. It is the H22A Vtec engine with the LS 5 speed transAxle. It was the best engine for the swap he wanted to do. He also got the wireing harness and ECM. He hasn’t had any troubles with it in almost 2 years.
You just need to make sure you buy from a reputable sellers. We bought ours out of Richardson Texas. This is their website:
I’m courious what car and engine setup are you looking at?
The required junking story is a myth, but there are many factors that lead to cars in Japan having much shorter service lives. The cost of ownership of a car is much higher there, due to higher fuel costs, fees, and very expensive safety inspections. This, along with a high cost-of-living and a low cost of consumer goods (including cars) causes it to make a lot more economic sense for a Japanese person to buy a new car car after only a few years. Most of the used cars get sold in other Asian countries, but due to the high price of Asian car parts, a great deal of them get chopped for parts even if they’re still perfectly servicable vehicles. Hence the relatively cheap, low-mileage used engines we get over here.
If you got the “required replacement” story from the people you’re thinking about buying the engine from, forget about it-- that’s a blatant lie and you shouldn’t trust them. Otherwise there are plenty of reputable places selling them and, though they’re not the pristine engines they’re sometimes implied to be, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that they can be a pretty good deal.