Its just that in Japanese mind we feel that German cars are safe when you crash. And US car is big so we just feel that its safe. Im not saying that Japanese cars are bad but if you compare to German in driving also you just cant win. For example there was a video with proffesional racing drivers testing Lexus IS F, AMG C63 and BMW M3. Lexus cant come close to these other cars.Handling on the track was really bad. But transmission was great. Japanese car company is always tring to fallow German cars try to copy them but cant beat them. GTR may be really fast on the track but in Japan you get this limit of Top Speed of 180km (This is law for Japanese car in Japan). 180km on free way any German car, US car can beat GTR on free way for sure. C180 can beat it for sure. So this is another reason that I dont like buying Japanese car in Japan becasue even your car is over 500 hp when you buy it top speed limit is 180km. I really think this law is no fun for people who loves cars. For import cars this law does not matter so that is why I like it.

Plus driving import cars people think that you are cool. Not domestic cars.

But I if I live in US or Germany I might buy Japanese cars.

 

I have a question since you know about the top speed law in Japan. How about if they take of the "governor". For example with German cars you can tune the ECU and you car (for example my C Class) will not top out at 130mph.

Do people in Japan do this? Or is this such a big fine that it's not worth the trouble?

Thanks

 

they do it in japan too...but japanese ecu's require more work to crack then the german ones. For example honda ecu's are locked and can't be tuned..unless you buy a stand alone ecu like a AEM EMS or if you modify your ecu with a kpro.

There already japanese tuners can that remove the speed limiter on the gtr. Nissan said it was uncrackable and japanese tuners were able to crack after 3wks.

Anything is possible with enough demand and money.

 

Thanks for the response. Just like Vista, It was suppose to be uncrackable but it was cracked before the release date (RTM).

Now are evos like that as well? I know over at OpenECU they have ECU flashes open to the public. Do they do this by buying a stand alone ECU? Or is Mitsubishi/Subaru different?

 

Yes you can take top speed off with tunning with computer. What we call Full computer. Like HKS, Blitz, Mines, etc they all can do it.

In Japan power there was law also. No car can go over 280hp. But that is gone in Japan.

For GTR yes it was really hard but best place was Mines really did it great job. But as soon as you do this your warrnety at the dealer is all gone. So people waited after they owned the car for 1 year. But still people really dont do it becasue you cant take to dealer anymore.

Nissan is saying that do not touch GTR. Its good as it is. But if you do tune up with Factory tune up shop NISMO then its ok but its expensive. Its way to make money. Nissan helps NISMO to come to them for tune up.
Oh! NISMO is like AMG, for Nissan.

 

For Evo and STi its the same use what we call "Full Computer" you can make things happen. Gain power, no speed limiter, etc. Again HKS, Blitz, Mines, etc they all have it.

 

Yes - Hiro - your Japanese laws have made it difficult for people who like speed & power You even had a law at one time that restricted the maximum width of a car - don't know if you still have.

I like Japan!

 

Hiro-I remember once our team was going to go to Japan for a Judo tournament and I didn't end up going but a lot of people (our judo team say after 60K miles you must swap engine) say Japan has also a law for engines. If engines have certain miles on them that you have to change your engine is this true?

Arigatou gozaimasu

 

i believe evo's and sti's are retuneable. I remember my friend gained 30awhp just from retuning his evo 9.

 

& wish I could attach the Clarkson clip of the F250 test to the forum - he got it right


Yeah - Benz own the global 12 tonne & above truck market. "Some" are surprised at the vast number of them on the road in Europe, Africa, ME & Australasia.

If Jurgen Schremp had not been hamstrung by his board & had pulled off the FAW deal with China, I believe that the global no 1 position would have been insurmountable in perpetuity.

 

I dont know I never heard of this before. There is a lot of car with high millage. Sorry that I could not answer this.

 

Japan do have stick laws. I dont know about maximum width of car but like you can have tire sticking out, cant be too low, etc.

But really good part driving none domestic car is that sometime police catch you but you can tell them that this is normal from deler. Police would not know and they let you go but if you do tune up with Japanese car they know 100% of the car so you cant tell them its normal so you can get a ticket. That is another reason that I like driving none domestic cars.

Japan is great place but I like US. I live there for 10 years.

 

Yeah - I also lived in the US for many years - great country - at one time there was width law. You had Camry & rest of world had the wide body Camry as an example.

 

The engine part was a myth.

I had read somewhere a few years ago about a supposed law in Japan that requires engine replacement at 30,000 miles. I did some research on the Internet to see if there was some truth to the story, and Cheston with Soko America told me this:

 

i think it has more to do with emission standards. Just a quick read of the wiki, it doesn't look like they have a sliding scale for emission standards based on model and age of the vehicle. Seems like all vehicles needs to meet the 1998 standard regardless of the age of the car.

Basically if you fail, you either have to buy a new car or retrofit emission devices. So if you car is really old, it's probably cheaper just to buy a new car then to spend money on installing new emission devices.

Japan
Background

In 1992, to cope with NOx pollution problems from existing vehicle fleets in highly populated metropolitan areas, the Ministry of the Environment adopted the “Law Concerning Special Measures to Reduce the Total Amount of Nitrogen Oxides Emitted from Motor Vehicles in Specified Areas”, called in short The Motor Vehicle NOx Law. The regulation designated a total of 196 communities in the Tokyo, Saitama, Kanagawa, Osaka and Hyogo Prefectures as areas with significant air pollution due to nitrogen oxides emitted from motor vehicles. Under the Law, several measures had to be taken to control NOx from in-use vehicles, including enforcing emission standards for specified vehicle categories.

The regulation was amended in June 2001 to tighten the existing NOx requirements and to add PM control provisions. The amended rule is called the “Law Concerning Special Measures to Reduce the Total Amount of Nitrogen Oxides and Particulate Matter Emitted from Motor Vehicles in Specified Areas”, or in short the Automotive NOx and PM Law.

The amended regulation became effective starting in October 2002. Emission Standards

The NOx and PM Law introduces emission standards for specified categories of in-use highway vehicles including commercial goods (cargo) vehicles such as trucks and vans, buses, and special purpose motor vehicles, irrespective of the fuel type. The regulation also applies to diesel powered passenger cars (but not to gasoline cars).

In-use vehicles in the specified categories must meet 1997/98 emission standards for the respective new vehicle type (in the case of heavy duty engines NOx = 4.5 g/kWh, PM = 0.25 g/kWh).
In other words, the 1997/98 new vehicle standards are retroactively applied to older vehicles already on the road.

Vehicle owners have two methods to comply:
Replace old vehicles with newer, cleaner models
Retrofit old vehicles with approved NOx and PM control devices

 

You also have to consider japan and Europe are smaller in size compared to the US and there populations tend to be grouped in more dense locations where you don't need to drive very far. So they don't drive as much in terms of distance. You can find a bunch of 4-5yr cars that only have 30-40k on them if you checked the Euro and Japan. Those cars are considered high mileage, compared to the US. Its considered low mileage.

 

The trade in secondhand vehicles & engines from Japan is huge. They do just sell/scap a hell of a lot of vehicles due to the above & the fact that they are an affluent society that like new things & RHD countries like New Zealand soak them up. They sell a lot to Africa. Just popped a low mileage secondhand engine from Japan into my sister's Toyota. She ran a bearing & a whole new engine was half the price of a rebuild & it's perfect. SA bans the import of complete vehicles from Japan to protect our local industry. The entire Jeepney industry in the Philippines survives on secondhand diesel engines from Japan & so it goes across Asia. The average age of the carpool in Japan is low by world standards.

 

yeah...i know honda and toyota engines are cheap. My friend just blew his civic engine. It was gonna cost him $2k to rebuild it, he just bought a low mileage 40k engine for $250.

There was this one guy on the civic forums that turboed his civic to 400whp on stock internals. He drove it for 6months before it blew, then he just bought another one for $200 and turboed it again to 400whp..lol.

 

Thank you all for voting and yours comments. Feel free to add more if you want to.

 

Send all the management to decent business schools outside America & turn them into global thinkers by mandatory international assignments to places not of their choosing. No substantial international experience - NO senior job - simple.

 

Anymore?

 

Mercedes Benz owns Freightliner trucks in the USA. Therefore they would be competing with themselves if they offered trucks branded Mercedes.

Freightliner is a major player in the US medium-duty and heavy-duty truck markets. Most models have Mercedes drivetrains as standard or optional.

Some Freightliner models (e.g. Sprinter) are Mercedes with a new grille and badge on the front.

Heavy trucks are more US-market specific, with more axles, wheels, and tires than European market models. US models also tend to have different style cabs than the Euros.

 

+1 - and many heavy duty trucks in the US market by whatever name with the exception of Mack run fairly standardised configurations of Eaton/Rockwell axles, Eaton Fuller MT/Allison Powershift transmissions & Cummins & a few other power plants/engines. US trucks also seldom use Michelin Super Single tyres which were built specifically to meet European road legislation.

 

interesting statement recently by the ceo of honda. He said "Hyundai is Awesome". Basically implying the automaker that Honda and Toyota fear the most is Hyundai.

There some interesting comparisons how samsung rose and eventually over shadowed sony.

Since the auto industry moves a lot slower then electronics industry...will we see something similar happen in lets say 10yrs - 20yrs?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...hA7ibvx5a8gYvQ

 

Hyundai is indeed a major threat & the way Korea is able to reorganise it's Cherbols makes them such strong players.

We will ultimately see the rise of China - FAW & Dongfeng (First Auto Works & Second Auto Works) are already formidable truck builders - they just consume most of the product in their own market but that is changing. That's why Schremp was so keen on the Benz/FAW Joint Venture.

China is now where Korea was & Japan before them. Everybody says they make junk - well that's not 100% true even now & will change with time. People who write off China do so at their peril. They are a highly intelligent hard working nation. One only has to look at the academic results in American colleges. Most Chinese students go home after their studies around the world.

Whenever I took American business colleagues on tours of Chinese plants they were amazed. They used to say to me " Wow - that Chinese engineer went to the same school as I did."