Japan’s Vehicle Inspection Is Too Expensive: Five-Year-Old Cars Scrapped and Shipped to Poorer Countries

A crane lowers the container from the truck in the dusty yard of a warehouse under the blazing sun of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Two workers, with no protection whatsoever, open the container doors with some difficulty. Inside, several Nissan and Toyota cars are cut into pieces so as to fill the container to the top.

“It’s junk,” I thought. But no, they are very recent cars, quite new and that most of them will circulate again in another country. As incredible as it may seem, most of those cars cut into crude jigsaw-like pieces will find buyers. Only a minority will stay in the Emirates, but rather in other parts of Asia and in Africa, mainly via Benin.

The UAE has become a nerve center for the world’s largest importers and exporters of used cars.

From Japan to the World

It is a little-known fact that the Japanese car market is sustained by the strict local vehicle inspection, known there as “Shaken.” Three years after purchase, all new cars must undergo a costly inspection, and when the car turns four it must pass every two years. In addition, vehicles over 10 years old must pass inspection annually.

The Shaken is quite expensive, around 100,000 yen, about €714 (we are far from Spain’s €40 average). That is if the car passes on the first try, of course. And any repairs made to bring the car into compliance are carried out directly by the inspection body, with its own fees. So the inspection usually lasts more than a day, and can cost far more than the initial €700.

As a result, most car owners in Japan sell their cars after only three or four years of use. And few keep their cars for more than 10 years. Most of them scrap them and prefer to buy new ones.

This practice helps keep demand for cars high, boosting car sales in Japan. Thus, at the same time hundreds of thousands of cars in perfect condition are exported either as used cars or as scrap.