Pistonu Slappu: Scheduled Service, Japan Style. Or: The Secret Of The Round Sticker

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Yesterday, we introduced you to a matte-black LFA and a baby-blue sticker that led us to the car’s owner. There was another sticker on that car. A round red one. If the global automotive industry should copy anything from Japan immediately and now, then it’s that round sticker.

Eons before social networks came upon us, the automotive industry became obsessed with maintaining customer relationships, creating traffic and maintaining customer loyalty in showrooms and service departments. Bazillions have been spent for that effort. Millions of them went into my pocket, which, years after leaving the lucrative business, still enables me to work for TTAC and not go hungry. The ingenious Japanese solved it all with that sticker.

The officious-looking sticker is known in Japan as the “tenken-seibi stecker,” or the annual service sticker. Don’t confuse it with that vague “Next service by” sticker your shop leaves in your door, only to be ignored. The tenken-seibi sticker reminds car owners in Japan of their legal obligation to have that check done. It’s the law. Toyoda-san is not above the Japanese law, and the reddish round stecker reminds him that his check is due by December this year.

According to Japanese law, each car must be checked periodically. This has nothing to do with the mandatory, government-administered Shaken mentioned yesterday. Every twelve months, a pretty involved check must be performed.

Legally, you can do that yourself. You won’t. DIY is frowned-upon in Japan. I recently joked that “in Japan, people call an electrician to change a light bulb.” That earned me a quizzical look and a “what’s wrong with that?”

For the tenken-seibi, one drives to the friendly place of regular service, says “tenken-seibi kudasai” and some $130 later, the check is performed and that sticker is placed in the windshield. Or not. This is when it gets really lucrative for the shop. Customer relationships are kept, loyalties have been maintained and refreshed, and all with a slick little sticker.

While the check is mandatory by law, carrying the sticker is not. But this is Japan, and everybody has one. The sticker is issued by members of the Japanese Motor Service Industry Association, which obtained special governmental permission to stick that on your windshield. This is Japan, you can’t just put anything on your window, who do you think you are?

Again, while the check is the law, the sticker is not actually required, nobody stops, or arrests you for not having one. It is not even clear what happens if you did not do the check. But the whole scheme performs miracles for the business, keeps service bays occupied, and dealers afloat during times that suck.

But you have not seen it all.

While studying the law, you will notice that you must perform a daily, yes, daily 12 point check of the essential items of your Japanese motor vehicle, from brake and engine all the way to the windshield wiper. Don’t dare to start your car without checking, for instance, the “waipagomu,” that’s wiper gummis to us gaijin.

There is no sticker for that 12 point pre-flight, but there are involved websites that explain how it is done.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • JEC JEC on May 21, 2012

    In some Canadian provinces we have required annual inspections. They are done by private shops. Most of the time they are an opportunity for the less-than-honest mechanic to gouge a clueless owner by claiming a bunch of things need to be fixed, and it just so happens they can do it for them right there... Other times you just slip the guy a 20$ and he ignores that one little issue that should have failed the car (rust spot in the fender or something like that). In Quebec you only need to inspect a car when it is newly registered or imported from outside, or taken out of storage after not having been registered for at least a year. The inspections are done by government mandated and run shops that do ONLY inspections, no repairs. Sounds better right? Except these guys are HARD CORE bureaucrats that will fail you for having an incorrectly coloured reflector, or a lit check engine light, or (swear to god) missing valve caps. It used to be you could bribe some of the more lenient shops (some were just more relaxed without the palm greasing) but a government crackdown put an end to that. They gutted the friendly shops and replaced the entire staff with pencil pushing petty bureaucrats who have no problems with failing you for the slightest infraction.

  • Speedlaw Speedlaw on Feb 12, 2014

    In NY or NJ, the most important part about an inspection sticker is, if you don't have one, or if it is out of date.... It is easy to spot by color-and last year's stickers are the wrong color. You might as well paint "PULL ME OVER FIRST" on the sides of the car... why, you ask ? Per several cops "If the car has no inspection, I have a 50% chance of catching an unlicensed driver, finding the car is also uninsured, or unregistered". Oh, and as some poster in NY commented, you get tickets from meter maids as well.....for that expired sticker. We also occasionally have local cop do "sticker checks" usually in nice weather. A correct sticker avoids an official conversation. For most enthusiasts, the sticker is pointless and only makes you annoyed...for the know nothings, which are 98% of the rest, they might make some folks actually fix things. Spend some time listening to the conversations at any larger auto repair store. "how long can my brakes squeak" is a common question.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
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