new RI?????

[firefighter0143]

http://forums.freshalloy.com/ubbthre...=&fpart=1&vc=1

check this out....in this forum!!!! can there really be another RI that can legalize skylines!!!!!!
can someone here prove this forum wrong or do we have another legalizer????

[RazorGTR]

Read the thread there. Sean Morris has reconized the VIN number as one done by MotoRex.

[thegladhatter]

It has been deleted by ebay. Maybe it IS a fraud.

[ZedEx]

Invalid item may mean that the memory of the item has run out... I had some old Ebay links from a while back, that said Invalid item.

Anyways, anyone can become an RI, $800 and some paper work. And your good to go. It's pointless unless you are going to be importing MASSIVELY.

My opinion on that...

-Wes

[SAPrez]

Here is the link to the NHTSA list of RI's.
If you would like, call each and every one up and ask if they will legalize Skylines, which models, etc.
I know of two that are in my "backyard", i.e., Florida.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/...t03012004.html

I believe WebAutoWorld's Skyline legalization efforts will be in full swing this month. I spoke to the owner a few weeks to a month ago. Currently SA will be doing our legalization work through one of the two below importers on the East Coast, or, if our customers prefer, on the West Coast through either RB or Motorex, depending on the model.
Currently I do not know of any company other than Motorex who will legalize an R34.
We will continue outsourcing legalization work until we become an RI. Although the application process SEEMS easy, it is still up to the NHTSA if we are given the certification.


Automobile Concepts
Price= $15,000 (Pre-1996)
location- North Miami, FL
Phone#- 1-305-893-1950

WebAutoWorld
Price= $15,000 (unknown models)
location-Pompano Beach, FL
Phone# 1-561-305-2500

mB

[RazorGTR]

Interesting though as you mentioned, legalization is still going through MotoRex or RBMotoring. As long as it is going through them the prices will be higher than they need to be, IMO.

[my3rdskyline]

Holy shit. Deja Vu or what? EVERY post in here has been said before, this time it's just a different car on E-Bay.

[SAPrez]

I agree--the pricing for legalization from any outfit is too high----makes the realities involved with selling or owning a Skyline very difficult.
Skyline America does prefer to use our East Coast connections, as opposed to RB or Motorex, because of geography. I can be in Miami in less than 12 hours to oversee all aspects of import/legalization, to give our customers further assurance that everything is going according to plan.
The only problem I have with using those companies on the West Coast are there location 3000 miles away.
I also do not like Motorex's self-created monopoly myth. They contribute to that myth with various incosistancies and outright lies on their website, which goes further to both advance their myth and deter potential customers for all of us.
I wish there was some way to erase that myth in one blanket press release or something--but I see it on this site and others from people who claim that Motorex is the only place to go. Is not Sean Morris of RBM on this site? I bet he feels the same way that I do---that MX is the 800 pound gorilla in our industry.
If I had an unlimited budget I would be 100% okay with utilizing RBM for our legalization but I do not. Currently, many of our customers are in proximity to our base organization, and it is an unbelievable asset to our company to be able to take a person to our stock and let them touch and feel the vehicles we have for them to choose from. Now that we have expanded beyond just trying to sell vehicles that are overseas (although we still do that to fulfill special orders....) things have been going increasingly well for us. Our stock and legalizers are all located in Florida, so the process is almost completely seamless.
Perhaps someday I will open a base in SoCal but right now we have branding, internet presence, and overall visibility issues to concern ourselves with before we can look at expansion.
So, until the day that we are a NHTSA approved RI, we must continue to outsource Legalization, which means that we, like all individuals, are pawns in the marketplace. Perhaps once we are an RI we can increase competition and lower prices across the board, but that day is a little ways off. We are still preparing aspects of our application, then comes review, and hopefully, certification.

mB

[my3rdskyline]

Originally Posted by SAPrez

So, until the day that we are a NHTSA approved RI, we must continue to outsource Legalization

aren't these two different things? Once you are an RI arent you still going to have to outsource legalization?

[SAPrez]

No, in fact it is one in the same.
See, I was even speaking with some of my employees today about how I thought the term "Registered Importer" was both misleading and confusing.
With the NHTSA, the term "Registered Importer" signifies a company's "certification" to street legalize vehicles that were not manufactured to DOT, NHTSA, and/or EPA standards. It does not in fact play any role at all in the ability to import/export a vehicle, etc.
If you were to question some of the companies on that list you would quickly see that many do not in fact import vehicles at all, but wait for other companies or individuals who ARE importing a vehicle to bring it to them to "legalize" it.
I was saying earlier in the day today that I wish the NHTSA title was in fact "legalization service/outfit/company" or something along those lines because it casts a disparaging shadow on a company that is in fact a very legitimate "import/export" company, but outsources legalization to a company who is a "registered importer".
Skyline America is a legitimate "import/export" company who is in the process of applying for status as a "registered importer" so that we can no longer outsource LEGALIZATION (only a small part, although important, aspect of our business) to a different company. Do you see how this is confusing----much of the confusion and misinformation in the Nissan Skyline pipeline of information, including the Motorex myth, extends from this confusion of distinction

Thank you for the amazingly simple, yet deep rooted, question that plagues many.

mB
http://www.skylineamerica.net

[my3rdskyline]

Well I'm am glad to see that I really am asking these questions because I am curious, not just to sling shit in anyones face. Good info though. I know there are a large amount of importers. I've seen a list and I'm sure it's quite old by now, but it had a lot of companies on there.

Are there different "levels" of RI's? e.g. does being an "RI" give you gods finger to christen all foreign vehicles "legalized". Does it go by make, or model or do you have to have paperwork to back up each make/model.... let's say I'm Mike the import company and I want to be an RI. what do I have to do to be able to import a skyline R32 GTR vs. say a Nissan Cube?

But if being a RI meant that you could also legalize them then why would any RI have to outsource to MotoRex?

[SAPrez]

No, in fact, that is why a person would have to call each of the companies on the RI list to see if they handle Skylines. A company must be certified for each individual type of vehicle, and model years depending on changes in emissions standards for those years.
Example---none of our partners in Florida do anything past 1996. For that I would have to use RB or Motorex. The reason they say is the increased emissions standards for post-96 model years. Which is why primarily I push top of the line 1995/96 GT-R R33's. I think they are the best value for the price, etc.
There are a list of things that must be included in the application to the NHTSA and this is quite intensive. Currently I am more focused on gathering these resources than the actual "method" of how legalization is to be done once we can do it. I imagine some of this is proprietary knowledge, or perhaps it is in the literally hundreds of pages of NHTSA, DOT, and EPA literature I have sitting on my desk that I am currently cramming on. Hopefully all the answers are in there, or provided once the application is accepted.
Otherwise I am rather concerned about what to do after that. In effect I am trying to say in a round about way---I don't know. I am not detered by the Motorex site that says it is all super-duper-national-security level secret. I know of five modifications in particular that must be done, and I am sure there are more, and I am counting on at least one or two that will be difficult to learn, etc. Luckily one of my best friends is a mechanical genius and I am an electrical engineer so between the two of us I know we have most of the ground covered. I actually tried to contact one of the RI's who I know personally to find out exactly what I was looking at having to worry about once I have the certification but he had an urgent call from Sweden he was on and then I got distracted with other stuff today so hopefully I will know more later.
This is kind of a conundrum, you might say. My wife says that if I DID have proprietary information I should not reveal it at all. I, on the other hand, am a fan of open-source information. I believe information hoarding should be a crime. So I don't know what to say. If there were 3 million RI's I would still want to be one so that our company would not have to outsource. Microsoft doesn't like to outsource. My father does not like to outsource in his business, and I am in that grain of individual that I prefer to do all of our work in-house. Instead of signing a publishing contract when I was 18 years old that would have netted me millions (potentially....) I ripped up the contract and founded my own publishing company. I am a do-it-yourselfer. I prefer to do all my own work on my vehicles. My wife makes fun of me for that. She prefers the "take-it-to-a-professional" type of thing(although she is also a mechanical whiz that makes me feel inadequate on an almost daily basis). She says the rest of the import community would also laugh at me, whereas I prefer the kind of guy that can fix his own car than the guy that has to take his car to a shop to "upgrade" his spark plugs, you see? Make fun of me. Who would you rather have riding with you if your car suddenly goes dead for no reason? A guy that knows stuff about his car or the guy who gets ALL of his work "professionally" done?
So, to be honest, if I knew the "secrets", I would tell them to you because I feel that if there were 3 million RI's the prices would be realistic due to market pressure. I am that manner of "capitalist". I believe in the ABSOLUTELY FREE MARKET.
Here is the stuff that I know.
1) DOT approved windshield, vehicle glass
2) five mile per hour bumpers
3) new gauge cluster
4) catalytic converter
5) VIN number
there are a couple others that aren't popping into my head in this late hour for me. I work 16-18 or 20 hour days of late. And this one is quickly running to an end. But I believe that if everyone knew the truth then the MX myth would be quickly squashed and in fact the entire community of Skyline enthusiasts would turn against MX for lying, withholding knowledge (no matter how proprietary), and using false information to try and deter competition.

gotta sleep. wife waiting and giving me that "workday ended hours ago and you are still working" look that I am becoming increasing frightened of.

mB
http://www.skylineamerica.net

[my3rdskyline]

I hear you. There is some bullshit somewhere, just can't seem to pinpoint it. I also believe in open source information and not just when it comes to computer software.

I really do not see why it is so hard to bring a skyline to the states.
And as far as crash safety. Think about this. Crash my skyline at 60mph onto a wall with a dummy and a seatbelt.

Now crash a motorcycle at the same speed.

Why is my skyline the problem?
It's not that it's right hand drive, I've seen right hand drive cars in the US. Do I have to get a new guage cluster? Need MPH.... uhm. okay.
The glass?

How many people have thrown a concrete brick thru the window of a skyline? (This is me jumping up and down raising my hand).
The first 5 times I threw it it bounced off the windshield.

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/c...line/2004/may/

I have also crashed a skyline at about 60mph. I've been there and seen it first hand from an inside the car perspective. It's a pretty solid fuckin car, let me tell you that.

Oh, maybe it's because I'm not aware that the objects in my mirror are closer than they appear? I can fix that. get me a stencil and some paint.

It's just hard for me to believe that motorex is and always will be the only way to legitimatly import and legalize a nissan skyline. It's not a government backed monopoly. So I guess they have some information that is copyrighted? great. what's to stop another person from doing the same shit.... need to crash some skylines, come to japan and have a ball. you can get skylines for 2 grand here. all you need now is a brick wall, some paint and a video camera. I just don't see why it hasn't been done yet.

[RazorGTR]

SAPrez:

Forgive me if I sound sceptical but, others have claimed this and that. I've made it quite clear I'm not a fan of MotoRex's prices. Irreguardless what they claim is the reason for the compliance costs. To charge 15k to comply an R32 GTR is without a doubt highway robbery. You could replace every outter pannel, pane of glass, the entire wiring for less.

Now I've also made it clear I'm not here to "look after" MotoRex or RBMotoring, however again others such as Fuel Imports have claimed this and that yet they were found to be full of shit as it were.

I do WANT others to begin to comply these cars at a reasonable rate, 1st and foremost is I'm looking to move back to the states in the next couple of years and I want to take my R32 GTR with me. However paying to comply it what it cost me to buy it isn't right! Basiclly if it comes to that I'll remain in New Zealand sad as it may sound.

On a different note what you are saying about the glass is odd, since it complies with the european and asian standards. The bumper must be the rear because of the massive steel front bar on these cars can sustain substantially more than a 5mph impact. I know this for fact on a GTS-t I had which I was involved in a 40mph impact (frontal) and other than the bonnet, lights and front guards the car was fine. The car I hit however wasn't. Yes I went up someone's ass on an motorway here (interstate) , I was the 4th car in a 4 car pile up. The guage cluster makes sence because the factory one is in KPH, and the cat would be normal. None of these would be very expensive or should be. I would imagine the R32 needs side intrusion bars in the doors, and possibly some sort of rear intrusion for the gas tank. Other than that I honestly can't see where the car needs to be modified at.

[GTES-t]

Originally Posted by SAPrez

1) DOT approved windshield, vehicle glass

This is a myth when it comes to the Skyline. The Skylines are equiped with DOT standard windscreens. I have a 1990 4 door skyline (never intended to see the states and can't be converted yet to US legal due to being 4 doors) and every window has the DOT stamp. If the window has that it meets US DOT standards and is street legal. It's much like tyres requiring the DOT marking (one thing several Skylines need changed to make US legal because only about half of the tyres in Japan have the DOT marking).