Review of Vancouver Velocity Cars/EVO Garage part 2: Mechanical Condition/Repair

List of items done by EVO Garage:

1) Oil change(Motul 8100 5W30)
2) Battery Replacement(Bosch Battery #S5523B) with custom mod
3) Spark Plugs Replacement(Fixed the hesitation issues I had with the car)
4) Air Filter
5) Wheel Alignment
6) Car Deck Installation

Future Services/Upgrades:

1) Spacer for the rims
2) Upgrade brake pads
3) Replace the damaged bolt in the rear suspension(The damaged bolt caused the alignment to go off so need to redo alignment after the bolt replacement)
4) Keyless Entry System from Inc Ridez(Advanced Keys - AK-104B Smart Key with Push Start System)

Am I happy with the condition of the car? Yes
Am I happy with the repair cost after buying the car? Yes and expected!
Am I happy with the services being done by EVO Garage? Yes and I'm not going anywhere else unless I have to.

pics?

^ see original post :D

*UPDATE*

The S15 Silvia has arrived!

This deal is a little more work than a customer simply coming in and buying a car so I'll give you a bit of info on how this has gone down so far.

Timewav3zer0 came in a month or so ago and asked about a car that we had on our website. We told him is was in transit and would arrive in about 3 weeks. He was pretty certain this is the car he wanted so we told him we'd hold it for him with a deposit. He left us a fully refundable deposit so that he'd have the right of first refusal when the car came in. This is pretty typical with vehicles in transit.

There are 3 other factors involved in this deal - a trade, financing and a 3rd party inspection.

The trade: This customer decided he'd rather trade his vehicle than sell it himself. He'll save 12% on the taxes and no headaches. Would he have got more for it privately? Probably, but he chose not to deal with the trouble. We'll take pretty much any vehicle as a trade as long as we can agree on the numbers. We discovered that his vehicle has accident history over $2,000 but it's minor stuff and of course, when the time comes for us to sell this car this will be disclosed to the buyer.

Financing: He asked us if he can finance the difference. Absolutely. We provide the ability for our customers to finance our vehicles which is something that you can't do with a private sale. We often get our customers financed even after they have been declined by their own bank. Does it cost more to finance? Yup. You pay the fees and interest to borrow the money but hey, if you haven't got the cash it's nice to have this option. By the way, this isn't in-house financing (we don't offer that) and we as the dealer make no more if you finance than if you pay cash.

3rd party inspection: The customer asked us if he could take the car to his mechanic for an inspection. Absolutely. We encourage all of our customers to have our vehicle inspected by a 3rd party prior to purchase. As long as we know where the vehicle is going we'll even provide a plate for 3 hours for you to have this done. If issues are found we can discuss how to deal with these or you can choose not to buy the vehicle. We do require a deposit to do this but of course it is 100% refundable.

So, we're just waiting for financing approval at this point. Chances are, he'll be driving his Silvia within the next few days. I'll post again when it's all wrapped up.

Bruce

I'd also like to congratulate kfcheung on the purchase of his EVO VI. Nice car!

I appreciate the time he spent putting his review together and posting it here. As he mentioned, I did assist with the deal and was happy to help him and the salesman work everything out.

If you have any questions or feel like dropping by to see our dealership and check out our inventory, don't be afraid to ask for me personally. I'm very hands-on here and I like to meet our customers.

Bruce

Curious, do you guys deal with non JDM imports? I'm looking for someone who can source a car from europe for me in the future.

Driving by the other day and saw a grey S15 parked there. :drool

I'm interested in buying one of the black s15. I wasn't really sure about it at first since they're a newer company. After reading all the reviews when I go and choose to buy my s15 I will make sure to Bruce. He seems like he actually cares about his customers. If anyone else has bought, or knows anyone that has bought a car from them I would love to hear their experience. I would love to get that gtr they have up on their site.

westopher, we have a number of cars that, although they have been imported from Japan, are not what you'd typically call a JDM vehicle. These include Porsches, BMW's and Benz's. As long as we can find a vehicle at auction in Japan, we can import it.

BrownBear, thanks for the kind words. I do care about my customers and I do care about making Velocity Cars the go-to place for JDM cars. We're a young company but growing fast and the word is getting out. We're not perfect and neither are our cars, but we do our best to make things the best they can be.

I can tell you that we have customers from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland (our 2nd S15 was shipped out to NFLD a month ago) and a ton of our customers come from Alberta. We are the largest JDM dealer in the country by inventory and volume and we have plans to expand. Our Facebook page is a good place to start to see what our customers think and the inventory on our website is always changing.

Is every customer 100% satisfied? I hope so but I know the used car business and I know that things don't always go the way we'd like. I also know that I bust my butt to make things right when they're not and my team here is committed to making the whole experience excellent from start to finish and even after the sale.

The V-Spec GT-R on the site is an example only of what we can bring in. That vehicle was sold a while back but I am currently in the process of ordering 2 GT-R's for a customer. We can get you what you want and if we can't find it, it's not there to be found. BTW, we currently have 3 S15's on the lot so if you've never seen or been inside one, come on by any time.

Bruce

How are the laws on importing from the philippines?

Might poke around a LHD evo 5. but no idea if importing from the Philippines is viable

The more I look at your site the more I want to come and buy a new car. I would love to buy your civic type r, one of the s15s, and a gtr, I wouldn't mind picking up a supra while I'm at it. My dream car has always been a midnight purple 3 gtr r34. If you ever get one just drop me a pm on rev scene. I wish I had the money for one right now, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Sorry TjAlmeida, I can't help you with that question. We only import from Japan or the US.

Bruce

Glad to see such activity and personability from a JDM dealer close to home. I just had a question about this R34 listed here. From what I've been told, imported cars need to pass OOP (out of province) inspection to be registered/insured in BC. Part of the inspection is that the car must have red reflectors near the rear and on the side if the brake lights dont wrap around to the side of the chassis.

Used 1998 Nissan Skyline R34 GT-T Turbo, $13,899 - Burnaby | Vancouver Velocity Cars

This GT-T does not, however. Was I misinformed, are you guys still in the progress of installing reflectors, or something else?

Thanks!

Hi Ash Eater. We actually have a few items to correct on this car, including changing the rear differential. The vehicle has not been through the OPI yet (you'll notice that the green inspection sticker is missing from the windshield) but once the rear diff is installed and we correct any other deficiencies (including marker reflectors) we'll take it to the inspection.

We post images of our vehicles as soon as we buy them, even if the only images we have are the crappy auction photos. Once the vehicle hits the lot, we begin work (mechanical, reconditioning, safety, etc.) and after a full detail we take more photos and upload them to the website.

Good catch Ash Eater. It's nice to see that people are having a good, close look at our vehicles. By the way, we just received the rear diff for this Skyline so if anyone is wondering, it will be ready to roll by mid-next week.

Bruce

Old post but I just wanted to comment on this as I know the 993 market very well. There are two reasons that stand out as to why this 993 has been on the market a long time without selling.

The most obvious is price. Narrow body c2/c4 manual 993's are rarely selling over 50k unless they are very low milage. Plenty of examples on rennlist for sale in the 40s. Since velocity lowered the price they are closer to market value.

The second is the amount of modifications. Many 911 air cooled owners are looking for as close to original as possible with acceptable upgrades such as new suspension, FD golden rod short shifter, and others. Many buyers see these cars as toys but also as assets. Their value takes a hit when they are heavily modified.

Example of another modified 993 for sale. Been on the market for a month at 52k USD and had to drop their price to 46.5k USD:

1995 993 C2 Black/Black - Rennlist Discussion Forums

Thanks for the input TouringTeg.

We have lowered the price on all of our Porsches and the 2 Corvettes in stock. These were "test market" buys for us and the result so far has been rather underwhelming. Although our focus is on JDM, RHD cars and vans, we want to see if we can capture interest from other sections of the used market.

The Z3's and the SLK's have sold well as we have them priced right and their overall condition is usually better than the local market. At this point we want to move the Vette's and the Porsches so we've dropped the price to a touch below our cost. (more than a touch on the Vette's). Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

For those of you following along at home, Timewav3zer0 is now driving his S15 Silvia!

The financing went through without any hiccups and he drove away on Saturday. FYI, he happens to work at a Nissan dealership so getting the 3rd party inspection was no problem and the car is in great shape, inside and out.

We have 4 more in stock right now although I think one of the silver ones is spoken for.

I'm happy when a deal like this gets done - great car, happy customer, no major issues along the way.

Bruce

stop bugging these guys about side markers for fucks sakes. give it up.

Hey Bruce, just reminding you that my girlfriend and I are driving all the way from Edmonton and will be there tomorrow afternoon to talk about possibly trading in our Audi and importing an R34 GTR, not sure if Vincent ( who we've been dealing with on the phone ) has let you know that yet or not, but we look forward to meeting you and seeing what the place is all about tomorrow. :)

Chris

my experience so far
 

I came to velocity cars 6 weeks ago for an fd rx7 that they have on their website. It was still in transit so i agreed to put don a deposit on the car so i would have priority when it lands. They told me that it was gonna be 2 weeks tops. It's been 6 weeks already. Luckily, just a few days ago, the sales called me to tell my that the rx7 i've been waiting for has finally arrived. I was excited. The next few days after, i looked at the website again and saw that the price on the fd rx7 that i wanted increased by $2000. I don't know what's going on, but it's beginning to look a bit sketchy. Honestly, i want to purchase a car from this dealership, but not when they're trying to increase prices behind my back.

I went here a little over a week ago to check out a vehicle I was legitimately interested in. I happened to be in the neighbourhood on my way to an appointment so I thought 'why not'.

Greeted by a salesman (sales manager I think?) who passed me on to one of the salesman. We talked for a bit.

One of his questions early in the discussion was what I owed on the vehicle I pulled up in. I was like 'WTF?'. We didn't even discuss trade ins at this point. I let it go and told him to show me the car.

He did a good job of explaining how the business operates and then gave me a quick history on the car.

Not even 30 min later, I found myself in the office with him and the first salesman I met pretty much coercing me to put a deposit on the car. This is well AFTER I explained that the figures presented would not work for me. Plus I didn't even look at the inspection report / auction sheet etc.

I told them there COULD be some leeway but I would have to get back to them another day. This was a back and forth that went on for about 15 min. I had to force myself to leave and that's when one of them became dismissive and stopped caring. I walked away feeling pretty uncomfortable. I guess this is what I get for going alone?

Not impressed. I might have had a different experience dealing with Bruce directly but all staff should be trained the same. I don't see myself going back there. Way too much pressure especially for a specialty dealership.

ahahaha i stopped by yesterday just for the hell of it since i was around the area and LOL so apparently Bruce no longer works there

place is so damn sketchy that their last bit of hope who actually made an effort to give us a positive feedback for all our negative comments here couldn't handle their shady business practices anymore and decided to quit himself... poor guy probably had problems sleeping at night

Yeah my visit there was borderline scary. It stank of every cliche that used dealerships were plagued with 20 years ago.

I'm not well versed in the import market but saw this via CL

JDM Car Import | Importing cars from Japan to Canada

???

look guys...... if you wanna import cars yourself, find an exporter there are alot in japan only a few good ones.

ive been in the jdm scene for 6 years now, and only know of 2 high quality low volume exporters.

pm me for emails.

unfortunately with velocity cars, they entered the market toooo late. anyone that is smart enough to want a rhd car can and will import one himself.

its a car dealer they have over head, you will pay to be LAZY

stop bugging these guys about side markers, headlights, blah blah blah. every single car is illegal by the books (even stock)....

if your lazy buy from velocity. btw velocity it would help if you detailed your cars. every car ive imported (about 10) needed a polish or interior detail of some sort. cant just bring them over accross the world and just give it a wash and a vacuum and throw it on the lot. for example that evo pajero you guys had at the summer meet, the white paint was in dire need of a polish( chalky and faded )

Yes, its cheaper to import yourself, but most people dont want to risk sending a wire transfer overseas for a car they have never physically seen before.