How come people say “Congratulations” when you buy a new car? To me it seems like an inappropriate use of the word. Isn’t “Congratulations” used when you’ve succeeded in something or received something either by luck or effort? Buying a car is simply a decision to purchase and I never understood why people always say it. When I bought a computer nobody said congratulations to me. Does it have to do with the price? Perhaps it is for lack of any better expression. Strangely enough, a few Japanese people said it to me too (in Japanese) when I told them about the car. The only person who didn’t say it to me was the car dealer. He said thank you.
“‘Congratulations’ is used when you’ve succeeded in something. ”
Wow, you must come by 2,200,000 yen pretty easily. And that’s for the base model. I bet you could buy almost 10-15 laptops for the price of your car. Most of us try pretty hard to save up that much. Most of us for years & years. If some didn’t say congrats to me after I bought a new car or at least a “good for you!” I’d be pretty disappointed.
Well, you know, it’s pretty easy to get a car loan where you pay 40,000yen per month for 5 years. Anyone can do that, even a student..
You gotta point there, BTW I’ve been wanting to ask. I thought foreigners without permanent residency couldn’t get loans in Japan. Not true?
Depends on the loan. For big ones like house loans it used to be pretty hard but I have heard increasingly many of my foreign friends getting loans and they don’t have PRs. Shinseibank give loans to foreigners.
Car loans are relatively easy. Because if you look closely at the shakensho (registration) most of the time it is registered in the name of the dealer and your name is the person using it. Therefore, if you don’t pay the loan, they will just come and take away the car. After you pay off the car, you can change the owner to yourself. There is really no big difference unless you don’t pay it. The finance company is usually the same company as the car dealer, they also have an interest in selling cars, so they make the loan easy. With houses you usually have to go a bank.
That said, no matter whether you are a foreigner or not, the number of years you are working in one place, your income have more to do with whether you get approved for a loan or not. If you are not a seishain （正社員）generally it is harder or impossible. If you are a freeter, forget it.
Rick, have you ever thought of picking up a really cheap used car? Seems like you will be going out snowboarding alot this winter as well. Of course if you add up all the train fare it perhaps won’t justify buying a used car, but you won’t be as limited to where you go and you can split expressway fares with friends. Ask around at school if there is any parking space you may be able to use for a few months. Who knows? And then after the winter season, sell the car! When I was between cars, my space was open for 3 months. If someone had asked me I would have let them use it.
Check out yahoo auctions. You can get a fairly decent nissan cube for 10,000yen!
Just an idea. It may be more of a hassle for you.
Good to know that at least car loans are available. I wonder how much the interest rate was at?
I’ve thought about getting a beater just for a few months. But knowing how people in Japan are so afraid of buying old used cars, wouldn’t it be very difficult to get rid of the thing after the winter season is over? It’d be considered “over sized garbage” and I’d have to pay big bucks for someone to haul it away right?
My car loan’s interest rate was about 2.9% which is not bad for a NEW model. Usually it’s around 5.9% and can be as high as 9%. BMW has car loans for less than 1% so you might as well get a 5-6yr loan and pay like 10,000yen per month because the interest is like nothing..
For getting rid of used cars, if you have to pay to get rid of it, it costs no more than 10-20,000yen. These days, this price is pre-paid in the price of the car and you get a receipt so that if you sell the car, you can get reimbursed for it.
The easiest thing to do is just give the car to someone. There’s always someone who will take a FREE CAR.
If you are worried about it, try to buy a car with a better resale value, you may have to pay more but you won’t lose as much.
Talking to you is dangerous. Makes me wanna run out to a dealer and just yell out “gimme that one!” without doing any of the math. Need to budget & figure things out. *sigh* That damn takarakuji’s just not paying out!
Just showing you that anything is possible if you have a CAN DO attitude. There is always “a way” if you’re creative enough. Once you start to think about it, before you know it, what was once unattainable become within reach.
Now if only I could be like this with work.