I greatly appreciate the effort put forward to discuss this.
I have to side with the other guys who are saying its a fundamental misinterpretation of the law, possibly on purpose, on behalf of FHI. How long ago was this notice given to the Subaru dealers?
I use to run the parts department for a Toyota dealership back out east, and I understand that its a pain in the assay and not the most profitable to order in JDM parts.
I believe Subaru at the time and possibly still is using the same brand specific parts catalog that Toyota used, which is the Snap On catalog. Generally we only had the full vin breakdowns for vehicles sold locally likely as part of some licencing agreement to save costs, so when you put in a vehicle that was not sold locally it would either give you incomplete data to narrow down the correct part or would be absent from the catalog altogether. A few dealerships I know have gone out of their way to acquire the catalogs from EU and Japan to help out enthusiasts, but is this something I'd say we should expect? Absolutely not, but it is very cool when the odd dealership does this.
To the not profitable side of things, lets be honest here and say that in general but obviously not across the board a lot of people buy JDM cars because of performance per dollar vs their USDM versions whether there was an equivalent sold here or not. Generally this means they're not looking to spend tons of money restoring and maintaining these cars with new oem parts. Usually this means that the majority of what is ordered from the dealership is going to be things like seals, gaskets, weatherstripping, minor trim pieces etc. Ordering low volume parts from overseas is a pain in the assay and can sometimes require special ordering techniques that are a pain in the assay on the dealer end and on the manufacturer end; and generally the money value associated with these don't make it worth while. Then there are the associated shipping costs and handling fees, and draining the local stock of of quite possibly discontinued items is another concern.
This is my reasoning for why FHI has decided to pursue this avenue and siting a law to make it look like it is out of their hands rather than simply telling the customers that they have decided not to allow it.
That being said it is obviously greatly appreciated that the OEM's support their products long out of their general product life span which is why most manufacturers Toyota included have never went out of their way to do anything about this. Which is why many car manufacturers get cult followings as kids, from the supra to the sti to the rx7 and skyline and so on. Some people will end up being able to buy their childhood dream cars, others may not; but usually that person will go on to buying other new products from that brand either from familiarity with the company and product, or from trying to recapture what they wanted as a kid but in the form of the new version of that car.
