Buying a second-hand car

I saw this late, but thought I'd make a comment.

I live out in Pilar and bought a car to make life easier. When I bought the car, I had not even started my residency process. As Attorney posted, all you need is a CDI, which is the only identification a tourist is allowed to get as far as I know. You can get your CDI pretty quickly - it took me a couple of hours. you have to have copies of your passport (don't remember how many) and get them stamped at an escribania.

IF you decide to buy a car (and there are a lot of reasons not to), I would suggest going to a car dealership that sells used cars. They will handle all of the red tape required to get your cedula verde (which is your car's registration) and deliver it to you in about 10 days usually. If you do it with an individual, it will take longer because the dealership will have already done the checks required to make sure the cedula verde can be transferred.

Traffic tickets here are attached to the car, not the driver. Of course, only "authorized" drivers can be driving a car - as an aside, if you don't have a cedula verde in your name and you are driving, you better have some kind of authorization from the owner to be driving the car, or you might have some problems if stopped at a traffic check. If a car has fines against it, it cannot be sold until the fines have been taken care of. Make sure you do everything above-board if buying a car directly from an owner to make sure the car has a clear title and all issues are taken care of. You could end up in a case where the CV was not transferred because of problems, and you don't really own the car even though you've paid for it. Then YOU will have to take care of whatever fines or issues are against the car.

Car insurance is required. I own a 1999 Megane 5-door. Insurance costs me about 2,000 pesos per year. Find an insurance company before you buy the car. You're supposed to have insurance when you drive off the lot. The Renault dealership where I bought my car sent me to a company (Caja de Ahorro) that they suggested to get insurance. You have to get the car inspected so that the insurers know exactly what condition it's in - no pre-existing conditions! After waiting for an hour to get the car inspected (on arrival at the Caja de Ahorro facility), it took about 20 minutes for the inspector to look it over. He gave me the results and directed me inside to sit down with an agent and get the policy written.

At which point I was told that it was impossible for me to get insurance from them, because their clients must have a DNI or a diplomatic passport! The lesson being that there are companies that offer insurance without a DNI, but don't depend on the dealsership you go to to know that and steer you correctly.

Used cars here hold their value FOREVER it seems. Be prepared to spend more than you might think. The good news is, the difference in price for comparable cars between individuals selling and dealerships is almost non-existent unless you might get lucky and find someone who is truly desperate to sell, but Argentinos are rarely desperate to sell if they own something.

Driving is a trip and a half here.

In the city, no one understands what a lane is for. It can so aggravating to be behind someone going along slowly down Libertador in heavy traffic, taking up two lanes because he or she is oblivious to the rest of the world.

Traffic lights are very hit or miss outside of the city. Be prepared to muscle your way through busy intersections because NO ONE will just "let" you in. Many intersections inside the city don't have lights either. Makes for an interesting feeling of Russian Roulette as you approach an intersection wondering if someone is coming from the left or right at high speed, expecting anyone else to get out of their way.

The general rule of the road is that anyone behind you MUST look out for you, not vice versa. In fact, drivers in front don't need to look in their rearview mirrors to see if it's clear to change lanes - the assumption is always that the person behind must make way no matter what.

If you park your car in the city somewhere temporarily, always use an official parking lot/garage. If you try to park on the street somewhere, you will surely get your car towed at some point, even when you're sure where you parked that it is permitted to do so. Even if 10 other cars are parked there.

On the freeways outside of town, the left lane is for people moving fast (actually, each lanes has a different speed limit going slowest from right to fastest on left, the fastest supposed to be 130). It's not uncommon to see someone in a luxury car blasting away at about 170/180 or so - best get out of their way. Don't worry, you'll know they're coming up on you for some time - they'll flash their lights like crazy to let you know you are in their way.

I've seen someone slam right into the back of another car that was stopped, going at full speed, completely oblivious to what was going on around them. I've seen trucks and cars upside down all along the freeway, in the middle of it, over the railings, etc. They drive like they don't believe in death.

I've driven to Paraguay (Asuncion, all the way to the north), through a lot of the "breadbasket" of the country to the north, which is fairly prosperous. I've never driven down south to Patagonia, so I don't know what it's like. But the 4 lane highway to Santa Fe, through Rosario, is not a very good road. There are places where the macadam has been pushed out to the side from the weight of trucks, causing "waves" of pavement. Big potholes. Large stretches of cracked, uneven pavement.

The four lane highway ends and turns into two lane highway to the north of Santa Fe. It's decent road for the most part, but it's small. They are tollroads. If you want to go more than 50-80 kph, you have to play the passing game, getting around slow cars, trucks, and farm equipment. This probably won't be a problem going south, but in the north and west, you would have problems if the farmers are striking with roadblocks all over the place.

I wouldn't suggest buying a car unless you are going to use it alot. People own parking spaces - there's a pretty good market for them. You have to find one to lease first (may not be too hard). I lived in the city previously, and had a car there for about a month. I found a place in an apartment building across the street and paid 450 pesos a month. This was in Barrio Norte (Juncal between Ayucucho and Riobamba). Monthly rent probably runs between 300 and 800, depending on where you are.

Getting work performed on cars is about like most things here. You can spend an awfully lot of time and money sometimes trying to find a place that knows how to work on your car. I've had problems even at the Renault dealership getting things fixed.
 
I cannot imagine buying a car here.

Yesterday I came across two Ford Falcons for sale in my neighborhood. It was a '73 and a '76 model, and, according to the signs; both with around 130,000km on them. (Yeah, right!)

They were priced at AR$ 14,700 and 15,300!

Neil
 
ElQueso said:
I saw this late, but thought I'd make a comment.

I live out in Pilar and bought a car to make life easier. When I bought the car, I had not even started my residency process. As Attorney posted, all you need is a CDI, which is the only identification a tourist is allowed to get as far as I know. You can get your CDI pretty quickly - it took me a couple of hours. you have to have copies of your passport (don't remember how many) and get them stamped at an escribania...

great article and spot on with your descriptions;)I am going to the capital this morning to pick up my Car history document,what a pain in the ass to get a car here...on the positive side,I bought my Fiat Palio weekender 4yrs ago for 33,000 pesos and sold ¡t last week for 38,000-My new one(zero km)cost me 49,000,,,and I will be without a car for 3 days until the process is complete:mad:...saludos:rolleyes:
 
ElQueso said:
I saw this late, but thought I'd make a comment.

I live out in Pilar and bought a car to make life easier. When I bought the car, I had not even started my residency process. As Attorney posted, all you need is a CDI, which is the only identification a tourist is allowed to get as far as I know. You can get your CDI pretty quickly - it took me a couple of hours. you have to have copies of your passport (don't remember how many) and get them stamped at an escribania...

100% correct. A couple of points more on freeways when a car wants to exit many drivers don't bother to move to the far right lane in preparation to exit. They may be in the far left lane and will simply cut across all the lanes (without looking or signaling) and on to the off-ramp. I have seen the same thing with cars crashed all over the place, even bodies on the road-way once or twice. I once had a motorcycle crash directly in front of me and stopped to give assistance. An ambulance came after about 20 minutes and the police took about an hour to get there. I've had people lean on their horns behind me at red lights, I was blocking them from running the light. I sometimes for fun count the number of cars running the light at a given intersection. I have also heard that the companies that sell insurance without the DNI also won't pay claims if you are in an accident, don't know if this is true or not. Ditto on getting cars fixed, very difficult and time consuming, labor is cheap but the spare parts are very expensive.
 
I've driven a bit in Patagonia, but not a tonne. However I can tell you, main hwy between Bariloche & San Martin in great shape as far as roads go here. "Scenic" route = gravel road. Gravel roads and dirt roads dominate. The trips between El Chalten and Calafate are pretty hairy. Route 40 between Chalten and Bariloche takes minimum one week according to most reports. However, somewhere on the board is some Canadian couple that have been driving the whole way from Canada to Argentia, do a bit of a search through the site and maybe you'll find a link to their blog.

Cars definitely hold their value here. My husband's car wouldn't be worth more than 1500 or 2000 US in the States, here he's going to sell it for about 8k US!! Craaazy.

One thing to note -- rolling back odometers = very common practice. The only history kept on a car here is he number of fines it has. You could easily be buying a car that's had it's entire front end replaced twice and a broken rear axle and you'd never know. These things are not kept track of the way they might be in North America. If you ask me this is part of the reason cars hold their value so long. Whereas in North America if you get in an accident you're car gets devalued, here it doesn't seem to matter all that much.

By the way, if you DO get in a accident here -- say someone rear-ends you, as a tourist you might as well forget about seeing any money out of them to do your repairs. My husband got rear-ended by a woman while sitting at a stoplight. She was talking on her phone, plowed into him fullspeed, saw neither the stoplight nor my husbands car. That was in May 2008. We are still in court to get the money out of her insurance company to pay for the 7000 pesos worth of damage she did to his car. Yes, she had insurance. Yes it was 100% her fault. No, they do not want to pay -- somehow they say it was my husband's fault for existing. We are hoping to get the money by December this year, otherwise the courts will shut for the summer and we won't see anything until at least March 2010 -- almost 2 years later!

In the meantime he got rear-ended again! By another woman but she has a better (read more honest) insurance company -- this happened in September, he picked up the cheque on monday.

So if you have the unfortunate situation of getting in an accident with someone who has a crappy insurance company, and you don't reside in Argentina, you might as well forget it. Hopefully you don't end up in hospital from it or need physio therapy because you could be in court literally for years! Ours was a simple rear-ender -- should have been a clearcut case, and it's been 2 years -- imagine if you were T-boned or in a head-on collision or any case where there may be doubt...
 
I just did this. I heard it was very difficult and that I should not do it- but I did it anyway. It was not that bad- but I also did it in Bariloche- where the town is not so big and offices are not too far away. We also bought our car from an amazing couple who walked us through the entire process and went with us to all of the places that we needed to go- THIS IS A MUST! They know the ins and outs- and it would have taken weeks without them.

Your first step is getting a CDI #. You will need to take your passport- a few copies of it as well- and your address to the local AFIP office. Ask around in BA- someone can guide you.

There is also a form called a 08 that is very important. You should get it first and then have help filling it out- this will help speed up the process.

The rest can be done after you find a car and a helpful owner to walk you through the process. Govt. offices open at 8 and close at 12 and there can be long lines- so be prepared to be patient.

Also, if you are not an Argentine, you are not permitted to drive ethe car out of the country. For this reason- and a few others- I wish that I would have gone to Chile to buy my car. They are cheaper and don't have the ridiculous laws that Argentina does.

As you go through the process- feel free to PM me and I will help if I can. It has many steps- too many to post here. The process took about a week from finding the car to getting everything in our names. Really not that bad- esp after all I have read saying how difficult it is.
 
Skibunny said:
Also, if you are not an Argentine, you are not permitted to drive ethe car out of the country. For this reason- and a few others- I wish that I would have gone to Chile to buy my car. They are cheaper and don't have the ridiculous laws that Argentina does.

I don't know about not being to drive the car out of the country. I've never been told I coldn't and in fact drove from here to Asuncion, crossng the border into Paraguay. The Argentine immigration people looked at my cedula verde, my insurance papers and my passport, gave me a piece of paper that I took down to the Paraguayan guys who made a note and passed me on through.

It is very difficult to get a car's registration transferred to another country. I've been told impossible before, but my wife's father was able to get a Brasilian Ford pickup registered in Paraguay.

Your car can only be in the other country 90 days or face impounding.
 
We have bought a car here, and it is really easy, you only need a cdi (as said before).

We bought a new car. If you look for cars/models that are manifactured here the price is really interesting. We got all the docs in order from the dealer. No problem to get an insurance (we are with AON, no DNI required.)

Our appartment goes with a garage so that is very convenient, but it is easy to rent a space in public parking lots. The price is indeed around 300-500 pesos/month.

In the beginning, when we came here as tourists, I didn't drive as it scared me, but now that I live here I had no choice but drive, as I didn't want to take taxis while we had a car in the garage. In the beginning I was waiting for other cars to let me pass, so my husband said that in this way we will never reach our destination. So I started to drive a bit more agressive (quite easy, being Belgian, there is a good reason why we are in the top 10 of most dangerous countries :D) and I found out that driving here really isn't that hard. Keep your eyes open and look at the cars in front of you.

We love to take the car out to drive in or out of the city. It gives us freedom. (although to European standards taxis are really cheap here, we start thinking line Argentines and hate to pay 15$ for a ride, also when it is raining it is impossible to get a taxi.)

As soon as you drive out of BA, 1 or 2 hours drive, the roads get quite empty, and the condition of the roads is really good (at least those we drove on). The farther away of the capital the more chance you have to get unpaved roads. If you want to travel a lot (and far) you need a good car or you 'll be dead by the end of the road.

Now I take my car out almost daily. And I am really happy to have it.
 
I am curious if anyone has had any experience of knowledge of buying a car that is NOT an Argentine plated car. For example, say a car from Chile, or from Europe. And then driving the car into Argentina for permanent use. Did you keep the other country plates on it? Did you nationalize the car and put ARG plates on it? If so, how?
 
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