Recently, several people have contacted us looking for JDM engines for German vehicles. This disturbs me for a few reasons that I’ll share. First, I’ll go into detail about JDM engines and why legitimate JDM engines (actual engines imported from Japan) can be of tremendous value to you, our reader. You’ll see why people hear about JDM’s and get excited about them – and are thus susceptible to shysters who lie to them and engines they claim to be JDM’s which are not actual JDM engines.
The reason people get so excited about JDM engines is that by and large they typically have much less wear on them than their US counterparts. Many years ago, Japan passed laws called “Shaken” laws, which affect vehicle warranties and inspections. After 3-5 years, it becomes prohibitively expensive to keep vehicles that would be sought after in the US due to heavy taxes and inspection fees. Japanese drivers pay private companies to dispose of their vehicles. For several years, these vehicles were recycled completely for their metal only.
So, 30+ years ago Japanese business men realized that when they crushed these vehicles, they crushed money. Japanese auto makers were expanding into international markets and selling vehicles with identical drive trains in each of these markets. Laws made it very difficult to import used vehicles into the US, but parts vehicles were another matter entirely. Even with high tariffs, the market was profitable enough for several companies to enjoy modest success exporting Japanese Domestic Market engines (JDM) into the United States for resale.
In the 1980′s, the US and Japan signed special treaties which lowered the tariff on JDM’s to a point that allowed much greater profit in the industry. The late 90′s and early 00′s were the golden age of JDM’s, with good availability and fantastic pricing. To this day, JDM’s represent the best deal available on engine replacement for many vehicle models.
There have been some setbacks in the industry that have lead to lower profit and availability.
The first setback is the increase in the number of vehicles that are exported from Japan to non-US countries as drivers. China absorbs a tremendous amount of these complete non-parts vehicles and New Zealand has been called the Island Subarus go to when they want to die in peace. Many go to South Africa. Many consumer groups oppose the import of complete vehicles as drivers claiming there both safety and environmental impacts not accounted for. They are concerned that the older vehicles are not as safe as newer vehicles and that keeping older vehicles on the road increases the amount of pollution released into the environment. Manufacturing new vehicles releases much more pollution than continuing to use older, existing vehicles! I guess newer vehicles are just prettier.
The second setback has been loss in profitability in the last decade. Exchange rates and regulatory environments have changed, and many of my sources in the JDM world claim they prefer to export to South Africa, Israel, New Zealand, and Australia over the US and Canada. This has served to raise the price of JDM’s in the US and lower the overall availability.
The third setback has been the manufacturers themselves. Japanese auto makers are well aware of JDM imports into the US, and have actually taken steps to limit this as a repair option by by selling different displacement engines and using different fuel delivery systems on otherwise identical engines. A prime example of this is the 2AZF engine manufactured by Toyota. When it came out in the US and Japan, the US version used fuel injection, while the Japanese versions used direct injection. Only in the last several years have the US versions begun to use direct injection. Thus, there is a year range of Camry engines with no JDM available. There is a similar situation with Nissan Altima 2.5L QR25DE engines. Interestingly enough, these engines are also among the pricier engines from wrecked US market vehicles vehicles.
I wrote this blog because of “German JDM’s” and now that I’ve done a broad overview of JDM’s, I’m ready to come back to that. German JDM’s are rare. It is possible to get them, but highly unlikely. Where a Toyota or Nissan are a throwaway car in Japan, imported cars are not. When I look at JDM options in Japan, the German engines we see are much higher mile than their Japanese counterparts and thus don’t test out as well. German vehicles retain their value in Japan unlike Japanese vehicles, and are thus driven longer. JDM suppliers simply don’t represent a good, consistent source of German engines.
If you find yourself in need of any type of recent model German or Japanese engine, please contact us at 800-709-9233, or fill out our request form so we can contact you back.
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