Cost Cutting With Low Mileage Import Engines & Transmissions

It's natural wanting to cut corners when it comes to car repair. One way to cut corners is to buy a low mileage engine and transmission imported from Japan. Since I'm in the industry, I see them advertised all the time. They look like a great deal, but there are a number of things to consider before buying one.

1. 90% of the wear on an engine happens in the first 10 minutes while warming up. In a large country like the United States, we look at a car with 40,000 miles as barely being broke in. In Japan, that same engine is already worn out due to a life of short trips. The high number of short trips means the car is almost always in that 10 minute warm up period where most engine wear happens. Each trip also involves a cool down cycle where the engine and other hot components are actually shrinking back to the size they were when you started the car (this is the clicking/tinging sound you hear after you have turned your car off). Many cooling cycles will also cause damage over time. Short trips in Japan can be explained by the fact that they have over 10 times as many people per square mile than the United States.
   You may ask then why are there so many transmissions and engines on the market? The reason is that the Japanese government requires car engines in Japan to be replaced around 40,000 miles and this is because they are worn out and pollution is a serious problem in Japan.
2. Imported engines are not exact bolt in replacements. For instance, if your car has a 2000 c.c. (2 liter) motor the Japanese replacement will typically be 1900c.c. (1.9 liter). More often than not it will also be missing a hole in the motor where a U.S. smog device bolts up to. When or if you call your supplier about this problem, they will tell you to drill and tap the engine or don't plug it in, because it doesn't do anything. Once you perform either option, you are no longer smog legal and you cannot legally sell your car.
3. Typically, import transmissions are not identical. Imported transmissions are setup for cars with right hand drive. This means things are arranged slightly different. For example, the clutch fork is on the wrong side for a standard transmission. An importer will tell you that it is a simple fix, and that you just need to change the case half, but it's often not that simple as the following story explains.

Since Alliance has partnerships with other automotive shops in San Marcos, we sometimes receive cars that other shops decide just can’t be fixed. One such car was a Lexus rx300 that another shop (we'll call them Bob's Auto Repair) had installed an imported Japanese transmission in. We received this job because Bob's Auto had already replaced the transmission three times. Every time they finished installing everything and the transmission started leaking from the vent.
As soon as we saw the car, we knew there was a problem with the transmission and immediately called the importer. The importer then explained that, they had drilled a hole in the case, that was supposed to fix the vent leakage, and that the installer must have made a mistake. The only mistake anyone had made, was buying their transmission. In the end, after many extra hours of labor, the car was back on the road with a rebuilt domestic transmission and a hefty bill from Bob's auto for installing a faulty transmission, and another bill from us for performing the repairs and getting their car back on the road.

While the initial cost savings of buying a low mileage import unit may look tempting, its always a gamble. While there are stories of someone who installed an import unit without trouble, there are many more who have attempted to install an import only to replace it at full cost all the while they are left without their vehicle.