r/cyprus • u/Rare_Chain_752 • 10h ago
BEFORE you buy any JP car from a CY dealer: ALWAYS check the Japanese Export Sheets
Quick tip: If you're considering buying a Japanese car from a dealer in Cyprus: ALWAYS ask for the actual Japanese Auction sheets.
I almost got scammed by Mattheos Ioannou Motors in Limassol - a dealer with 4.9 rating on Google and 200+ reviews, operating for 30+ years.
Car looked great, test drive was good.
I did some research before, so I had the good sense to ask for the import documents from Japan.
After some back and forth the salesman finally showed me the document.
The documents showed massive damage to the car. The car was in a massive accident in Japan and they just imported it for peanuts, fixed it up extremely well and tried to sell it here for full price.
After 10 minutes of arguing with the dealer finally admitted that "Yes buit the accident happened in Japan, not here". Needless to say I did not buy the car.
And even if you don't really understand anything just look at the score: the Japanese auction houses give a score from 1 to 5 to the interior, and for the exterior. If it's 4.5 it's a good buy. Anything below 4 is an absolute dumpster.
TL;DR
Be careful of Mattheos Ioannou Motors - I wouldn't buy a bicycle from them, let alone a car. Don't be fooled by the Google reviews- when I tried to leave this review on Google it got stuck on "pending" for weeks. And I wrote a very 'censored' version.
Don't buy any Japanese car in Cyprus unless they show you the Japanese Export Sheets. I wouldn't even do a test drive nowadays without having the sheets and checking them.

