How To Determine The Year of Manufacturing of Your Toyota Alphard

So you have taken the first step and walked into the dealer premises. Looking at all the units on display and the price tag which state the year and the price, how do you tell which year is that unit manufactured in?

Over here, the Toyota Alphard is not available as a new car from the official Toyota distributor. Almost all unit available for sale here are fully imported used car. By that I mean the car has been registered and used in Japan. The owner than sold the car to a used car dealer who in turn sell it oversea. The parallel importer will import these cars into our market and distribute these cars to the local used car dealers.

The used car dealer will normally advistise these car as "unregistered" unit and sell at the premium they set. Different dealer will sell these cars differently depending on the year of manufacture of the car. Some will offer to display all the details of the car together with the price while other will tend to hide some of the details and try to sell the car at a higher price from what it really worth.

So what can a potential buyer do to find out what year is that unit manufactured in?

1. Check out the chassis number of the car to ensure that the year of manufacture of the car is what the dealer claim to be.

If the car is a pre-facelifted model, look for the chassis number at the left side of the car bulk head and copy it down. Look at the photo below for the location of the chassis number on pre-facelifted model.


If the unit is a new facelifted model (NFL), it is hidden behind the engine bulkhead. You'll have to open the plastic cover as shown in the photo below (the red square I marked) and look inside. You'll may need a torchlight to see the chassis number if it is rather dark.

Once you have copied the chassis number, input the chassis number into the input box on this page:

http://www.japan-partner.com/check-manufacture-year.php

and it will tell you which year this car is manufactured? This is the first step to verify that the car is manufactured in that year. I have tried a few chassis numbers including mine and it is proven to be very accurate.

2. Check out the seat belt label attached to any of the seat belt. It usually state the year this car is assembled. Look for a label as shown in the photo below and check out the year.


However a lot of dealer has the practice of cutting off the label so you might not find it anymore in the unit you look at so you have to go for the 3rd option. If the label is cut, then you'll have to exercise caution and should at least follow step 1 above.

3. If you can't find the seat belt label and don't have the means to check the chassis number on the spot, the next option is to look at the toolbox cover. At the left side of the boot, there is a plastic toolbox cover. See this photo for the location of the toolbox cover.


Remove that toolbox cover, flip it over you will find some dots in a table layout. The left column shows the year, the top row shows the month while the dots in the cell shows the week. Therefore you can tell from the imprint which week in which month in which year that it is manufactured. In the photo below, it shows that this unit is manufactured on the 1st week of July 2005.


During my search for my giant, I realized a lot of dealers doesn't know about this little "secret" until I show it to them. Do realized that some unscrupulous dealer might swap the toolbox cover (very rare since they are also not aware of this fact) so do check out item 1 and 2 first before you rely on the toolbox cover for the age of the car.

If you cannot use any of the option above to ascertain the year of the car, my advise is to walk away, and find another unit that does.

So far my experience tell me that the chassis number is the best way to verify the year of the car. If you can verify the year on the seat belt it is also very accurate. The toolbox cover date is also very accurate unless the dealer did a swap.

Why it is important to ascertain the year of the car?

Due to the way Approve Permit (AP) work in this country, imported cars cannot exceed 5 years from the date of manufacture. For example, any car imported this year (2009) must be at least manufactured in 2004 and above. Because some cars maybe manufactured in end 2003 and registered in 2004 in Japan. When it is sold oversea, the dealer using the AP will have to pay the duty for year 2004 and yet the car will have the year 2003 printed everywhere. So effectively you might be paying the price of a year 2004 car when in reality it is a year 2003 car.

I have actually seen several units that is manufactured in 2002 but sold as 2004 model by one dealer. Buyer of these cars will lose out on the second hand value when they want to let go of their car in future.

In the next blog, I will briefly cover how to identify a pre-facelifted and facelifted model.

Edit: I have also since found out that on NFL model, the chassis number is also printed on a face-plate on the left column of the passenger door. Below is a faceplate of the chassis number on a NFL model. The chassis number is the alphanumeral starting with ANH10 (MNH10 for 3.0L model). It also shows the engine variant (2AZ-FE) which is a 2.4L model, with U241E transmission and 2-wheel drive (02A). The colour of the car is white (042), trim (FB03) and manufactured in plant C32. I hope to find out more about the trim number.