Hi all,
I think it's about time to introduce myself. My name is Mikhail (yeah, yeah, I'm Russian) and I'm from the Russian Far East where everybody drives JDM cars.
I had a JDM 1997 Nissan R'Nessa GT with SR20Det engine, then I had a JDM 1997 Subaru Forester S/Tb with 250 hp and now I finally got a VX.
I live in Vancouver area in Canada. The first time I saw a JDM VX I thought this is an amazing car. I never knew they were ever made for sales outside Japan and I was thinking that once the car passes 15 year old mark and becomes admissible to Canada I may bring one from Japan. Sometime around December 2008 I found one picture on the web with a VX that had a stearing wheel on the left side and I was shocked. Further searches resulted in numbers of them made for sale in US and then I was searching and searching trying to find one from a southern state (so that it wouldn't be too rusty) and with low miles.
About two weeks ago I saw a post in our forum garage section on a VX for sale in Nevada. I wanted to get a black VX and later change rims to black on it but this one was a Silver VX but anyway I sent a PM right away, got a reply the next day, and the next coming Saturday I flew to Vegas. I left Vegas the same day in that VX and was back in Seattle area on Sunday with my new car. Finally US customs cleared the car yesterday and today I brought it across the border and it's in my garage. I still have some things to do in order to pass inpection - things like day light on all the time, change the speedometer from miles to kilometers and maybe some other things as well. (if anyone can help me with some info on where to through a wire from to the head lights to have them turn on when I start the car, that would be great).
As for myself - I'm an IT tech and love cars. I spent three years in Russia restoring my 1959 Volga which I then brought to Canada in 2008 but still haven't got to registering it, I love speed and good handling and miss my JDM turbo Subaru Forester and maybe will bring one from Japan once they become admissible. So I tend to collect cars and always have my garage and driveway packed with cars.
As for the VX that I got - the car has 55K miles now, unfortunatelly it's got some rust under it, the cover of the driver's door handle seems to come off on one end (maybe I can buy it from someone and replace it), rear door cladding has a dent and because of it the corner where the door opens catches and it's already cracked there (I'll try a heat gun and maybe will fix the dent and that will possibly bring that corner of the cladding closer to the metal of the door for it not to catch). There are some squeeking sounds coming form the front when driving so maybe I need to replace some of the rubber stuff in the suspension. Other than that I haven't found any issues with it. I plan to do some minor mods, change all the fluids to synthetic and change the tires at some point of time.
I love this forum and thanks to everyone for answering to my questions on other threads.
Mikhail.