My wife and I, who are both foreigners, live in Tokyo. I would like to buy a motorcycle, and she also wants us to get a car ( one of the Kei-cars ).
We decided to get a motorcycle first.
We \_could\_ just buy it outright, but we are thinking it may be better to get a 24 month loan instead and pay it off early, just so we don’t spend so much money all at once. We may do the same for a Kei car.
Has anyone used that “Honda Dream”? How does it work exactly? I couldn’t really tell if it’s more like a loan, or a lease. That level of Japanese isn’t so good yet for me, and it kind of looked like a lease program.
2 comments
Honda Dream are just Honda’s licensed direct sales showrooms (i.e. you are buying from them and not some third party car / bike sales company). They offer Honda’s financial options which include both loans and leasing, and the rate for the bike loans at least are pretty competitive. Honestly I would recommend it since you will then be doing everything through them (servicing etc too) and I feel like they have less incentive to try to rip you off on that kind of stuff than a third party garage since they have Honda’s name and reputation attached.
If you were to buy instead from a non-Honda showroom then the process will not be that different except you will get the car/bike from them and they will set you up with financing from some other company like JACCS. Different places might offer different deals and stuff. No harm in shopping around.
IDK about Honda but I bought my first car in Japan the day after I got PR, it was a Nissan kei. I got a car loan for it through Nissan Finance with my Japanese husband signing on as the loan guarantor. If you and your wife are both foreigners with no established credit in Japan you may need a Japanese national to guarantee the loan if you want to finance a car or motorcycle. When I traded that car in for another kei in July of this year I didn’t need a guarantor because I have established credit now from the first car loan and my credit cards.