Buying a car

[French jurist]

Update :
The 0 kilometro/0 interest plan from the gobierno has stopped in december 2009.
See http://www.perfil.com/contenidos/2009/12/12/noticia_0014.html

Initially the aim was to sell 100.000 vehicles that way, only 15.000 were sold.

Still, I see here and there 0 interest plans but as Gouchobob said, better be careful and read the fine print.

For Mini : There can be 0% loans but always are charged various things : administrative fees, life insurance, unemployment insurance or whatever. Usually, it seems this represents around 4 to 5% but sincerely, this is not my specialty so take it with a grain of salt grueso.

Still, I repeat one thing : read really well the fine print and watch for any indexation (dollar) clausula as you could end up owning a Fiat Uno while paying for an Audi.

 

[mini]

For Mini : There can be 0% loans but always are charged various things : administrative fees, life insurance, unemployment insurance or whatever. Usually, it seems this represents around 4 to 5% but sincerely, this is not my specialty so take it with a grain of salt grueso.

Still, I repeat one thing : read really well the fine print and watch for any indexation (dollar) clausula as you could end up owning a Fiat Uno while paying for an Audi.

I'm not asking about the insurance etc. I'm asking about the dollar indexing.... I don't get it.

 

[tez]

My experience: last month I went around with the bf checking out 0km. We went to Car One (in San Martin I think, and there is another in Pilar, maybe more around), and to two different VW dealerships. Car One had the best plan, and it was that 0km plan. How it works is you enter into the plan and pay the first month's cuota, which is also the most expensive, and you say how much you have to put up (it can be your car, which at Car One is held there while they sell it, or at the dealership they just buy it outright, but for less). So if you have 35,000 pesos and everyone else in that plan has only 30,000, you'll get the car the next month. If you don't get it the 2nd month, you go into the "auction" the following month. You are guaranteed the car after the 12th month, and all this time you are paying your cuotas, even if you don't have the car. It gets sort of confusing with the cuotas: every plan is a plan of 80 months. For example for a VW Gol full which costs $60,000 you'll be paying a base cuota of $552 pesos or something like that, and you can pay two cuotas whenever you want to go taking down the number of cuotas. It also depends on how much money you put up from, as that will take down the number of months. My bf has a friend who put up only $25,000 I think and he got his car the 3rd month. Not bad.

Anyway, that is a very rough understanding of it. It is sort of a confusing system but honestly when I think of the peso inflating a 3 year plan doesn't sound like a bad idea since it will just keep getting cheaper, right? I'm not sure about any indexation or anything like that, that is probably more for imported cars (which VW I don't think is considered since it is made here? Or is it in Brazil? Not sure).

Good luck.

 

[French jurist]

I'm not asking about the insurance etc. I'm asking about the dollar indexing.... I don't get it.

Like I said, it's not really something I know much about. I may have been wrong on dollar indexing.

Still, the banks behind the loans are probably wary that the peso has a 10-25% (??) probability to get devaluated abruptly within 10 years : an external indexing would be wise.
But I don't know much about loans here.

 

[FAS]

A couple of additional questions related to buying a new car:

Is it true that you cannot take a vehicle purchased and registered in Argentina out of the country? I would like to buy a 0km car here, use it for six months, then drive it to Lima when I move there in February.

I intend to buy the car in cash (no loan), but all of my assets are in dollars in American banks (Citibank). How can I get US$20,000 into Argentina? I am not a resident and do not have a DNI.

Thanks for the help! Frank

 

[SaraSara]

I checked into this a year ago. You have to be a resident to take a car tagged in Argentina out of the country.

 

[FAS]

I checked into this a year ago. You have to be a resident to take a car tagged in Argentina out of the country.

Thanks. When you checked into it, where did you look? Is there a good source of information on this subject on the internet? I googled around, couldn't find much more than personal anecdotes that frequently contradicted one another.

 

[gunt86]

Is it true that you cannot take a vehicle purchased and registered in Argentina out of the country? I would like to buy a 0km car here, use it for six months, then drive it to Lima when I move there in February.

Yes it is true. You cannot take an argentine registered vehicle outside of Argentina unless you are a citizen or permanent resident. Even those two types of people must obtain a temporary export permit when then leave the country.

I intend to buy the car in cash (no loan), but all of my assets are in dollars in American banks (Citibank). How can I get US$20,000 into Argentina? I am not a resident and do not have a DNI.

Bring the money on your person or use a quasi-legal money transfer service based in BsAs (lots of threads on this forum under the topic of buying a home).

I suggest that you buy a foreign registered vehicle in Argentina or Chile or Brasil and take that to Lima. You are going to have problems with importing a car into Peru anyways ( i believe it is a 30 day max for a non-peru registered car). Foreign registered (USA or European) are available to buy in Argentina from travelers who are trying to sell them at the end of their journey. Only other foreigners can buy them, so the prices are much cheaper than regular Argentine vehicles. You can enter/exit any country with a foreign registered vehicle, though for a limited amount of time (8 months ARG, 12 months URU, 1 month Bolivia, etc)

 

[SaraSara]

Thanks. When you checked into it, where did you look? Is there a good source of information on this subject on the internet? I googled around, couldn't find much more than personal anecdotes that frequently contradicted one another.

The Honda dealer told me that when I bought my car. He had to check with his "registration specialist", who said I could buy a car and drive it in Argentina but not take it outside the country unless I was a resident.

This was a year ago - maybe regulations have changed since.

 

[FAS]

I suggest that you buy a foreign registered vehicle in Argentina or Chile or Brasil and take that to Lima. You are going to have problems with importing a car into Peru anyways ( i believe it is a 30 day max for a non-peru registered car). Foreign registered (USA or European) are available to buy in Argentina from travelers who are trying to sell them at the end of their journey. Only other foreigners can buy them, so the prices are much cheaper than regular Argentine vehicles.

Thanks. I have a friend in Peru helping me on that side of things, where I expected problems. I had no idea that Argentina would even care that I took a vehicle out of the country, so long as I paid for it here.

In any case, is there a place on the net to learn about foreign registered vehicle opportunities? I recall seeing one post on this site, a while back.