use a good agent and you'll be fine. my importer had a guy on deck inspecting cars before the auction, gave me full jap report on the bodywork and inspected the car started and everything was there and sorted before auction. e-mailed me updates as the auctions were going through and made recommendations based on his guy in Jap.

downside risk- i bidded and won the auction, transferred money over to Jap bank, then the Tsunami hit. if my car was anywhere near the tsunami zone thats bye bye $$ so i got lucky. and yes i paid a lot less then market value for my ep3

would i do it again? hell yeah..