Shaken by Shaken

Shaken (pron. shah-ken) is a tune-up performed on all used cars in Japan every two years. Shaken is basically an additional mechanical tune-up to make sure your car is safe to drive and road ready. Sounds kind of ingenious, right? The idea is that every two years your car is up to par and not going to spontaneously combust or have any other life-threatening malfunctions. Kind of like putting two diapers on a new born instead of one--it is better to be safe than sorry. The thing is, though, that if you put two pairs of pampers on little Johhny just to prevent a little accident you are wasting a lot of money. Same with shaken. Most shaken starts at around 100,000 yen, which is approximately $1000. Furthermore, if the mechanic finds anything wrong with your car, the cost will simply be added on the base cost. For instance, my timing belt needs to be changed and my driver's side automatic window doesn't work. Each of those things costs about 30,000 yen (another $300). So, basically all-in-all the shaken accomplishes the following: for about $1000 they check everything and tell me what is wrong (but don't fix it), refill the fluids in my car (not oil though...that is like going to get your teeth cleaned and not getting a free toothbrush at the end), check the tire pressure, vacuum the inside of my car, wash the outside of my car, and maybe one or two additional things. So you can understand the disappointment of many foreigners when they come over to Japan and need to buy a car (and then later need to get it shaken-ed).


The thing you have to remember though is that Japan is the birthplace of Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Subaru, and Nissan. Thus, cars are cheap (like $1000 for a nice used car). Supply is high over here and the demand is relatively low, thus the cost is low (that took me 4 weeks to figure out in 10th grade economics class). For those poor Ford, GM, and Chevrolet lovers back stateside you understand why the market is shrinking for American made cars. They have relatively poor fuel economy and they are generally more expensive. It is crazy to think that Japan can make cars, ship them to America, and still be increasing its shares and profits in the American economy.

So, what does all this automobile economics stuff have to do with shaken? Well, not much. It just shows that you can hit the lottery when you buy a car over here, but get the shaft when you need to shaken. One side note: Concerning gas prices, Americans have it made. Through traveling to many countries and owning a car in one, I have learned that Americans have the cheapest gas in the world (most likely excluding the Middle East). Furthermore, Americans are the first to complain about the price of gas. For example, I drive a car that sounds like your vacuum at home and when I fill it up it costs nearly $40. Back home, I could probably fill it up for less than $20. Maybe that is why Japanese cars are unbelievably fuel efficient, I don't know. If fuel costs can spawn the creation of fuel efficient cars, well then I'm not going to complain (at least not as much).