I need spare part for my Japanese car. Is it safe if the part is imported from Japan nuclear disaster area?

Question:

Will the spare part be contaminated by radiation? How dangerous it is if my car is fitted with contaminated parts?

Answer:

Parts, clothing, and just about anything you can think of (other than pieces of the reactor that some enterprising soul might sell as a souvenir) are perfectly safe. You are more likely to become contaminated by your cellphone or microwave oven. Most of the radiation leaked (about 80%) is iodine-131 which has a half-life of about eight days. The no-entry zone is a whopping 8 km (about 5 miles), and the precautionary evacuation zone where there might possible be a risk is all of 16 km (10 miles). Really, it's just not a problem. Note that the disaster was the non-nuclear tsunami which killed over 10,000 people. The power plant problem has injured no one and isn't expected to.

If anything, the situation shows how safe nuclear power is. Consider that forty year old plants were hit with an earthquake five times the strength they were designed for and yet they still shut down safely. The generators came on like they were supposed to when grid power was cut. Then the tsunami hit and the generators were wiped out. However, the battery backup still worked for the designed eight hours. The problem happened when no new generators could be put in. Even so the problems have been minimal--media scare mongering for ratings not withstanding.

Here is an informative article describing the situation:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fu…

And here is where you find current, factual status information:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsun…
Historical status:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011…

And a slide presentation that describes the effects:
http://www.slideshare.net/iaea/radiologi…

And here is a chart that helps make sense of the numbers:
http://www.xkcd.com/radiation/