After four months of having to rely upon guaguas, suicidal taxi drivers, and carros p?blicos that looks more like ba?os p?blicos, the day finally arrived when we had everything from driver's license to bank account in order to buy and drive our own vehicle.
Given the prices of new cars, it had to be a used one. But one question remained: how would we find the right car without being scammed twice or thrice in the process? Well, there's a right and a wrong way to do this, which I learned during the process. So I'll be sharing what we learned, hoping that it will help some fellow DR1:er in their search.
There are dozens of things one have to think about before buying a car anywhere in the world, not just in the Dominican Republic. Setting a budget (but not necessarily informing the car dealer about your budget, since he will try to get every single penny of that from you); deciding what type of vehicle you're looking for (sedan, SUV, diesel/gasoline); if the car is to be bought from a car dealer or private vendor, so on and so forth. Of course, knowledge is power, so research a bit before throwing away your hard earned cash on a salvage wreck.
Used cars: 14 tips to avoid a lemon - MSN Autos
Assuming that any DR1:er looking to buy a car have already figured these things out, I won't go into details about the usual pitfalls; instead I will focus solely on the things that one has to know when buying a used vehicle in the DR.
Step 1: find the vehicle
This is a no brainer, if you're used to searching for information on the internet. There's tons of sites out there where you can compare different makes, models, years, et cetera. We mainly used supercarros.com, lapulga.com, corotos.com.do, laclave.com, and called on probably fifty different ads. Scouring the market for some time gives you a good sense of what cars are going for here, even though reading stats and watching photos online won't say much of the actual condition of the vehicles in question. It can also be of some use to know how much the Dominican Direcci?n General de Impuestos Internos (DGII) values different cars.
Consulta Valores de Veh?culos Livianos
Step 2a: examine the vehicle ? the wrong way
From what I have figured from friends, acquaintances and family, the Dominican way is to go to the car dealer with a mechanic (which could be anything from a highly skilled professional, to a drunkard that happened to wake up one morning with a wrench in his hand - not knowing where it came from). And so I did. I went to check out a couple of Ford Explorers with my cousin's friend that runs his own taller at the back of his house. Paid him 1,000 pesos to accompany me a whole day. We started out early in the morning. After having spent almost an entire day of dismissing complete ?lemons? (in my opinion, that is ? he gave his ?green light? for all vehicles but one), we finally drove up on the parking lot of car dealer where a 2002 Ford Explorer V8 (4WD) were waiting on us.
I liked it right away! Shiny, without a single scratch on the outside, and with cool leather seats ? although one was worn as hell. But my mechanic told me that's a little thing one can fix for just a few pesos. He inspected the car on the outside (tapping a bit on the body at what seemed to be random places), then on the inside. At last he told the dealer to fire up the engine since we were to take her out on a test drive.
And so we went. Down the avenue, on to some small side roads, and back to the dealer within 7 or 8 minutes. The sound of the V8 was impressive, and the vehicle accelerated decently. That's pretty much all I could figure from the test drive. My mechanic told me that it was a damn solid vehicle because it had a great motor. Not that we had checked the behavior at its operating temperature, or that we had driven the car at high speed. Nor had we accelerated up a hill or a freeway ramp. I knew nothing about these things at the moment, but for some reason, I still wasn't completely satisfied with the inspection.
My mechanic's advice was to buy right away, before someone else bought the vehicle, since the engine was in top condition, and since it had never been in a serious accident (his word, and the dealer's word). But I wouldn't part with 300,000 pesos while still not being sure the vehicle was a safe card. Not knowing where to find a reliable, knowledgeable person able to scrutinize used cars for me in the Dominican Republic before deciding which to buy, I started searching the DR1 forum.
There are several posters that are highly knowledgeable when it comes to cars, so I just PM:ed them and explained my situation. Didn't take long until I got my answer from The_Gorgon:
?I would be available to help you do this inspection. Please, whatever you do, do not get a mechanic to tell you that the car is in good condition, because the motor is ?nitido". The body of the car is the most important thing. If you have a good chassis, and you blow the motor, you can get another. If you have a great motor, but the body is not straight, then what??
Sound logic, I figured, since I had been thinking along the same line while seeing the mechanic obsessed by the motor condition, and uninterested in the rest of the vehicle. So it was settled: I would contract this guy to do some proper vehicle inspections. Sure, with travel expenses it would cost more than the lousy 1,000 pesos I paid my cousin's mechanic friend. But if done properly, I reasoned, it could potentially save me tens of thousands of pesos for not buying a car in desperate need of expensive reparations.
Step 2b: examine the vehicle ? the right way
We agreed to meet outside one of the many economic hostels in downtown Santo Domingo, and five minutes before the agreed time he called me to check where I was. Nice to be dealing with someone that is on time to a meeting for a change, I thought, feeling bad myself for having gotten stuck in one of the countless traffic jams of la capital.
Eight minutes late, I arrived to the hostel where "The Gorgon" was waiting with a clipboard in his hand. En route to the first car on my list, he explained his working method. Step by step, he checked the different systems: lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment being one section; steering and suspension another; brakes and tires a third; body, structural integrity and corrosion a fourth, and so on. Everything a lay man like myself could ever imagine.
And once he got to work, it was no questioning that he knew what he was doing. The cars were inspected for vibrations in the steering, pulsing in the brakes, the smoothness of transmission shifting was evaluated, he listened for ticking sounds from the engine indicating valve issues, got under the car to check for corrosion ? giving priority to the load bearing parts of the vehicle, et cetera.
It took us about five hours to find a perfect vehicle: a 2004 Ford Explorer V6 (2WD). The dealer answered every question in a satisfying way, like saying that he honestly didn't know the mileage since it is always tampered with around here. He also said that the car had been manufactured to be exported directly to the DR, meaning that it couldn't have been involved in an accident in the US. A fact that remained to be checked.
In any case, during the car hunt I learned more about inspecting and evaluating vehicles than I thought it was possible to learn in a week. As a final comparison, I asked "The Gorgon" to check the green 2002 V8 my mechanic said was so good.
The first thing he spotted was the way the hood lined up shows it was in a bad accident. There was too much gap on the right side, and too little on the left.
The second thing he discovered was that the throttle response was very poor, which he concluded could have been caused by one of many problems, some of which might be costly to repair.
As a final test, he asked the dealer about the mileage, and got the response that it had only been driven 105,000 miles. An obvious lie,my inspection ally concluded, and said that it was definitely more than 250,000, given the overall condition of the car. A CarFax and some math exercises in extrapolation later, it turned out it was probably close to 300,000 miles. The ?honesty? of this particular dealer didn't impress very much, and so there was obviously no deal.
Step 3: CarFax
It's always a good idea to order a CarFax report on any vehicle you are interested in buying. Using the cars unique VIN, you will get a detailed vehicle history report in no time, showing everything from service and repair records to accident indicators such as airbag deployment, frame/structural damage, et cetera. Since a lot of the used cars that are sold in the DR are imported from the US, you get an extra chance to see if there's something wrong with the car when ordering a CarFax report (obviously this doesn't apply to cars that are manufactured in the US only to be exported right away to the DR).
In my case, the CarFax of the red 2004 Explorer revealed that it had been exported directly to the DR, just like the seller had said, meaning I couldn't get anymore info of it's history. But at least I could rest assure that it hadn't been crashed in the states, only to be shipped here in order to sell it to some poor guy or girl.
Step 4: get the paper work done
There's basically two ways to do this: 1) pay the dealer to sort everything out for you; 2) get through the hassle yourself. When buying from a private vendor, option 1 is out of the question.
If you're going to do this yourself, you better be able to read Spanish, or else it will be kind of a headache. With that said, the procedure is pretty straightforward and consists of five steps. At the DGII website you'll find more detailed information about how a ?traspaso de veh?culo? is done.
Step 5: Enjoy it!
Take your new car out on the road and try not to kill too many motoconchos while discovering the wonderful DR traffic, and all the beauty there is to be found in this country.
Post script:
I might have to add that it is entirely possible, and even recommended, to skip step 2a in this tutorial. But each to his own. Happy hunting ...
Given the prices of new cars, it had to be a used one. But one question remained: how would we find the right car without being scammed twice or thrice in the process? Well, there's a right and a wrong way to do this, which I learned during the process. So I'll be sharing what we learned, hoping that it will help some fellow DR1:er in their search.
There are dozens of things one have to think about before buying a car anywhere in the world, not just in the Dominican Republic. Setting a budget (but not necessarily informing the car dealer about your budget, since he will try to get every single penny of that from you); deciding what type of vehicle you're looking for (sedan, SUV, diesel/gasoline); if the car is to be bought from a car dealer or private vendor, so on and so forth. Of course, knowledge is power, so research a bit before throwing away your hard earned cash on a salvage wreck.
Used cars: 14 tips to avoid a lemon - MSN Autos
Assuming that any DR1:er looking to buy a car have already figured these things out, I won't go into details about the usual pitfalls; instead I will focus solely on the things that one has to know when buying a used vehicle in the DR.
Step 1: find the vehicle
This is a no brainer, if you're used to searching for information on the internet. There's tons of sites out there where you can compare different makes, models, years, et cetera. We mainly used supercarros.com, lapulga.com, corotos.com.do, laclave.com, and called on probably fifty different ads. Scouring the market for some time gives you a good sense of what cars are going for here, even though reading stats and watching photos online won't say much of the actual condition of the vehicles in question. It can also be of some use to know how much the Dominican Direcci?n General de Impuestos Internos (DGII) values different cars.
Consulta Valores de Veh?culos Livianos
Step 2a: examine the vehicle ? the wrong way
From what I have figured from friends, acquaintances and family, the Dominican way is to go to the car dealer with a mechanic (which could be anything from a highly skilled professional, to a drunkard that happened to wake up one morning with a wrench in his hand - not knowing where it came from). And so I did. I went to check out a couple of Ford Explorers with my cousin's friend that runs his own taller at the back of his house. Paid him 1,000 pesos to accompany me a whole day. We started out early in the morning. After having spent almost an entire day of dismissing complete ?lemons? (in my opinion, that is ? he gave his ?green light? for all vehicles but one), we finally drove up on the parking lot of car dealer where a 2002 Ford Explorer V8 (4WD) were waiting on us.
I liked it right away! Shiny, without a single scratch on the outside, and with cool leather seats ? although one was worn as hell. But my mechanic told me that's a little thing one can fix for just a few pesos. He inspected the car on the outside (tapping a bit on the body at what seemed to be random places), then on the inside. At last he told the dealer to fire up the engine since we were to take her out on a test drive.
And so we went. Down the avenue, on to some small side roads, and back to the dealer within 7 or 8 minutes. The sound of the V8 was impressive, and the vehicle accelerated decently. That's pretty much all I could figure from the test drive. My mechanic told me that it was a damn solid vehicle because it had a great motor. Not that we had checked the behavior at its operating temperature, or that we had driven the car at high speed. Nor had we accelerated up a hill or a freeway ramp. I knew nothing about these things at the moment, but for some reason, I still wasn't completely satisfied with the inspection.
My mechanic's advice was to buy right away, before someone else bought the vehicle, since the engine was in top condition, and since it had never been in a serious accident (his word, and the dealer's word). But I wouldn't part with 300,000 pesos while still not being sure the vehicle was a safe card. Not knowing where to find a reliable, knowledgeable person able to scrutinize used cars for me in the Dominican Republic before deciding which to buy, I started searching the DR1 forum.
There are several posters that are highly knowledgeable when it comes to cars, so I just PM:ed them and explained my situation. Didn't take long until I got my answer from The_Gorgon:
?I would be available to help you do this inspection. Please, whatever you do, do not get a mechanic to tell you that the car is in good condition, because the motor is ?nitido". The body of the car is the most important thing. If you have a good chassis, and you blow the motor, you can get another. If you have a great motor, but the body is not straight, then what??
Sound logic, I figured, since I had been thinking along the same line while seeing the mechanic obsessed by the motor condition, and uninterested in the rest of the vehicle. So it was settled: I would contract this guy to do some proper vehicle inspections. Sure, with travel expenses it would cost more than the lousy 1,000 pesos I paid my cousin's mechanic friend. But if done properly, I reasoned, it could potentially save me tens of thousands of pesos for not buying a car in desperate need of expensive reparations.
Step 2b: examine the vehicle ? the right way
We agreed to meet outside one of the many economic hostels in downtown Santo Domingo, and five minutes before the agreed time he called me to check where I was. Nice to be dealing with someone that is on time to a meeting for a change, I thought, feeling bad myself for having gotten stuck in one of the countless traffic jams of la capital.
Eight minutes late, I arrived to the hostel where "The Gorgon" was waiting with a clipboard in his hand. En route to the first car on my list, he explained his working method. Step by step, he checked the different systems: lamps, reflectors and electrical equipment being one section; steering and suspension another; brakes and tires a third; body, structural integrity and corrosion a fourth, and so on. Everything a lay man like myself could ever imagine.
And once he got to work, it was no questioning that he knew what he was doing. The cars were inspected for vibrations in the steering, pulsing in the brakes, the smoothness of transmission shifting was evaluated, he listened for ticking sounds from the engine indicating valve issues, got under the car to check for corrosion ? giving priority to the load bearing parts of the vehicle, et cetera.
It took us about five hours to find a perfect vehicle: a 2004 Ford Explorer V6 (2WD). The dealer answered every question in a satisfying way, like saying that he honestly didn't know the mileage since it is always tampered with around here. He also said that the car had been manufactured to be exported directly to the DR, meaning that it couldn't have been involved in an accident in the US. A fact that remained to be checked.
In any case, during the car hunt I learned more about inspecting and evaluating vehicles than I thought it was possible to learn in a week. As a final comparison, I asked "The Gorgon" to check the green 2002 V8 my mechanic said was so good.
The first thing he spotted was the way the hood lined up shows it was in a bad accident. There was too much gap on the right side, and too little on the left.
The second thing he discovered was that the throttle response was very poor, which he concluded could have been caused by one of many problems, some of which might be costly to repair.
As a final test, he asked the dealer about the mileage, and got the response that it had only been driven 105,000 miles. An obvious lie,my inspection ally concluded, and said that it was definitely more than 250,000, given the overall condition of the car. A CarFax and some math exercises in extrapolation later, it turned out it was probably close to 300,000 miles. The ?honesty? of this particular dealer didn't impress very much, and so there was obviously no deal.
Step 3: CarFax
It's always a good idea to order a CarFax report on any vehicle you are interested in buying. Using the cars unique VIN, you will get a detailed vehicle history report in no time, showing everything from service and repair records to accident indicators such as airbag deployment, frame/structural damage, et cetera. Since a lot of the used cars that are sold in the DR are imported from the US, you get an extra chance to see if there's something wrong with the car when ordering a CarFax report (obviously this doesn't apply to cars that are manufactured in the US only to be exported right away to the DR).
In my case, the CarFax of the red 2004 Explorer revealed that it had been exported directly to the DR, just like the seller had said, meaning I couldn't get anymore info of it's history. But at least I could rest assure that it hadn't been crashed in the states, only to be shipped here in order to sell it to some poor guy or girl.
Step 4: get the paper work done
There's basically two ways to do this: 1) pay the dealer to sort everything out for you; 2) get through the hassle yourself. When buying from a private vendor, option 1 is out of the question.
If you're going to do this yourself, you better be able to read Spanish, or else it will be kind of a headache. With that said, the procedure is pretty straightforward and consists of five steps. At the DGII website you'll find more detailed information about how a ?traspaso de veh?culo? is done.
Step 5: Enjoy it!
Take your new car out on the road and try not to kill too many motoconchos while discovering the wonderful DR traffic, and all the beauty there is to be found in this country.
Post script:
I might have to add that it is entirely possible, and even recommended, to skip step 2a in this tutorial. But each to his own. Happy hunting ...