I’ll be buying a car in Japan soon, and I’m leaning toward a Honda N-Box.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has experience with a used one—how often do you run into issues, and how often do you need to take it to the mechanic? It would also help if you could mention the age and mileage of your car when you bought it, since I’m currently considering a pretty wide range of options.
From what I’ve seen online, there are plenty of N-Boxes in the 400–600k yen range, usually 10–14 years old with mileage between 50k and 150k km. That seems to fit my budget, but I could push things a bit and spend up to 1 million yen for something newer—maybe 6–9 years old with 40k–80k km. I could even stretch to 1.5 million yen for a very new, low-mileage one, but I’m not sure that’s really worth it. Honestly, my preferred range is under 600k, maybe up to 800k if I find a REALLY good deal.
For context, I plan to keep the car for about 3–5 years and then resell it.
I’ll be using it casually during the week (short trips to the mall, errands, etc., probably around 20 km per day on average), and on weekends I’d like to take longer trips—anywhere between 100–400 km round trip. So overall I’d probably end up driving between 10,000 and 20,000 km per year.
I’m also open to suggestions for other models I should look into. The reason I’m leaning toward the N-Box is that Honda has a good reputation for reliability, and since I’m 196 cm (6’5”), the high roof and roomy interior are a big plus for me—especially for a kei car.
by Pretty_Amphibian5971