I have heard there is a place on island that you can do this and you will get more money then just junking it... Does anyone know about this and where it is? Really busy today so i will be off and on...  

The below (by the numbers) can take approximately 2 to 3 hours of your time, depending on how fast you move. However, so as long as I’m on Okinawa, I’ll never turn my “junk” vehicle over to Typhoon Motors because you will receive nothing by them recycling your vehicle for you. My vehicle, a Toyota Surf (bad engine) gave me a return of $800.00 by doing these steps myself. First: • Drive/Tow the vehicle to the recycling center. Here are the directions: • Go towards Naha (south) on route 58. Make a right turn as if going into Camp Kinser’s gate 4 (Esso station on right). • Go past the first set of traffic lights to the bottom of the hill. On the right hand side you will see a yellow/tan warehouse. In between the two warehouses is the entrance. • Once you go in, about 75 meters up, you will see a huge weighing scale on the left. Drive your vehicle onto the weighing scale. • There will be a beeping sound once your vehicle has been weighed. Once you are done, you will be directed to another garage. • Once you get your vehicle to the garage site, there is where you will be turning over your vehicle. At that point, you will be given your license plates (2) and your road tax sticker off of the windshield. Remember, at this point, you will no longer have the vehicle, so make sure all personal items are out. • Take the plates, road tax sticker, paperwork from Foster Veh. Registration and all of your paperwork from your vehicle back to where you got the vehicle weighed. Go inside the bldg thru the sliding doors. • Once inside, the civilian will call you for your signature and address on a sheet of paper. They will then pay you (in Yen) depending on the weight of your vehicle. This might take about 15-20 min. • Once you are paid, they are done with you. Second: • Take all of your paperwork that you will have in hand (to include paperwork from recycling cntr, license plates and road tax sticker) and go back to the vehicle registration office at Camp Foster. Ask the people behind the front counter for the paperwork to recycle/junk your car. They will then direct you to a counter on the right side of the bldg (same office space). There they will stamp some of your paperwork and you must pay a 1,000 Yen fee to have your vehicle deregistered (on base). They only accept Yen. Third: • Once again, take all items (plates, stickers, paperwork etc..) to the Land Transportation Office (LTO) which you passed when you went to the recycling center. Here are the directions: • Make the same right turn as if going to the recycling center (Esso station), but this time, you will make a right turn at the first stop light. You will see a sign above the street light that reads “Land Transportation Office”. • Follow the road (downward) for about 200 meters until you come to BIG (there are a few smaller ones) open parking lot almost at the end of the road. Turn left into that lot. • You will know that you are in the correct parking lot because you will see a garage type bldg with numbered stalls directly in front of you. • To the left of all that, you will see a bldg marked with LTO. Go inside. • Once inside, ask sometime to direct you to Counter D. There you will turn in your license plates. They will keep the license plates and stamp your paperwork. You will then be directed to report to the Military/SOFA Status Counter, # 2. • At Counter # 2, you will hand them all of your paperwork (they’ll return what they don’t need back to you). They too will stamp some of your paperwork. This is the counter where you will actually receive the original “de-registration” paperwork that clears your name off of that title. It’s very important to keep this until you actually check out to leave Okinawa. • Once you are done with counter 2, you will be directed to report to a separate bldg (behind the bldg your in) and you will report to the “Road Tax Refund Center”. • Here they will either refund you a portion of your road tax (in Yen) proportional to the last time you paid road tax, or in my case, I had to pay one month’s road tax because my vehicle was coming up on needing the road tax in May. *Side note* The bank that refunds the road tax is only open from 0900-1500, so you will have to make two trips if they are closed. Fourth: • Take whatever remaining paperwork that you might have to your insurance company (AIU, ACE, etc.). Then they will cancel your insurance policy for that vehicle (JCI, American Insurance) again proportional to when you last paid for these and refund you a portion back. Last and final note: • You might want to check with vehicle registration at Foster about a week or so later and have them check to see if all has cleared for you on that vehicle. This may sound like a little bit of inconvenience and some driving, but it was worth it for a vehicle that I would not be able to sell. 

THANKS for all this typing sure will be doing this with our car.. 

THANKS for all this typing sure will be doing this with our car.. I assume she copy and pasted it. Also the directions/instructions that she gave you are for the junking place. That's exactly what we did with my husbands vehicle. 

sorry 2 butt in but momof4, is there something terribly wrong w it or do u just need 2 get rid of it (b4 a move or something)? cuz my hubs & i have a little 1 & i'm due anyday w our 2nd. we really need a van but don't have much $. if ur looking 2 sell it i could probably get close 2 what u'd get 4 junking/recycling it & w/o all the hassle (sorry i'm sure its worth it 2 some ppl but just seems like alot of work & typing-lol). anyhow, if u wanna sell instead, send me a msg. thanks 

Yea that was a copy and paste job, lol. I got it from Okinawa Hai!, and after I went through it myself I just updated a few of the steps. 

Yea that was a copy and paste job, lol. I got it from Okinawa Hai!, and after I went through it myself I just updated a few of the steps.


is there anything else you would recommend? Can I do it without my hubby or a POA? 

We junked our van back in Dec 2008, so the process may have changed a bit.
We simply went to Miyagi's (a junk yard outside of gate 1 at the end of the seawall...take a right out of Kadena Gate 1 onto 58 and then make a left at the first light). They paid us then and gave us a piece of paper. We then took that paper to our insurance agency. We paid them around $40 and they did the rest of the legwork for us. About a week or two later, we picked up our JCI refund. 

This is what we are doing today :) 

You won't get as much because the price of metal has gone down. You should get a prorated refund on JCI and Road Tax. 

well our JCI is expired and there is no insurance on it...so I know we won't get anything from those...we are junking a Delica...I just needed to know if I can do it withoutmy hubby or POA... 

Look it up on Okinawa Hai. That's where the article that was posted on here is from and they probably have more information on it. 

Yeah our car is junk. I will be happy with anything and I'll be happy to get rid of it. We recycled our 4 door Honda Civic about 6 months ago and got about $400 total back for it. Today we are getting rid of our 2 door Civic.

Not Afraid - if the car is in his name, you are going to need him or the POA, I would assume. There isn't much they will let you do without a POA. 

I went to ACE Insurance (On Kadena, junked a car there before) and they were only going to give us 250.00 (after yen rate) for our Delica...she also suggested we go off base...
ChiTownGrl...do you mind to let me know what kind of refund you received. 

The lady there said there was no fee but I was like that is it for this monster of a van...ok I'll try to find Miyagi's number to call right now. Thanks! 

We got about 29000 yen from the recycling place outside of Kinser (plus what we got back for insurance). It ended up being like $350 when I exchanged it. We can't deregister it today since vehicle registration is closed. We will also get more back for road tax and JCI when we go to LTO after they reopen after the holidays (Jan 4, I believe). Our car was small but I'm not sure what it weighed. 

Thanks so much for your info :D 

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