Question regarding used Japanese engine advertisement

I did this on one occasion. Bought the engine from a similar ad, in Houston. They explained to me that in Japan if a car is wrecked, even nearly new, that it is too expensive or legally difficult to get it back on the road. True or not, I don't know. The engine was, in this case, in good shape and I didnt have any problems. This is not a general endorsement however.

That is not quite the case. Although, you will not find it explicitly stated anywhere in the japanese vehicle traffic code (or whatever they call it), it is practically illegal to keep a car on the road after it is five years old. Given the limited space for scrapyards in Japan, they have to get rid of anything that they cannot immediately recycle. They would probably ship out the whole car, but I suspect that it is also illegal to export cars that are not "roadworthy".

The purpose of these laws is to force a large enough market for new cars to keep every manufacturer happy (not that it is completely successful).

Perversely, somewhere in japan, someone is laughing at the readiness of americans to pay good money for junk.

I've never seen them as low as $3-400, but there are several firms specializing in bringing in used engines. The smog and licensing laws in Japan make it pretty expensive to drive an engine beyond a few years. Cynics claim it is to ensure that everyone buys a new car every 4-5 years at most, particularly with modern engines easily able to pass even Kalifornia Smog with a coupla hundred K miles on them.

Our dealerships used several such engines we bought from a huge salvage yard here in SC. I know the owner of the yard personally, and he assures me they have NEVER had anything but good results using those engines. Our deal was that if an engine we bought proved below par--on any engine/car--they would exchange a good one for the defective one, and they supplied the labor. Needless to say, they don't wish to eat labor, either!!! And the only one they ever replaced for us was a v-8 Olds--evidently when car was hit head on, it broke the front main 'web', which ran well for several hundred miles. Impact must've set up a hairline crack, and it grew to where it needed a 'haircut'. HTH & good luck, sdlomi.

the cons are that all parts are not the same as us parts at times, and its might show later when trying to do a miner repair. New is best but the price makes it bad. for all quotes there is an equally opposite quote