Day 17: Step #8, Figure Out What To Do With All Your Stuff
Should You Ship Your Car?
Dear Student,
Owning a car anywhere is a liability, an expense, and a hassle, so I recommend that you think long and hard before you make the determination that you want to ship yours with you to your new home overseas.
We spent more than four years in Paris happily car-free. This is a city easily navigated a pied. And we lived in Panama for more than a year before finally deciding to invest in a vehicle here. We used that first year as an opportunity to get to know our way around on foot and to determine what kind of vehicle would make most sense for our family in this city.
I would have been happy living indefinitely in Panama City without a car. The traffic in this town is indescribably chaotic, and the drivers can be most generously described as lunatics. On the other hand, this isn’t a city for walking either. It’s hot and humid year-round, and the terrain is not easily navigated in business attire (as we try to do each day).
Finally, therefore, we broke down and bought a car. A Prado, specifically, because to explore Panama beyond Panama City you need a four-wheel-drive SUV and because Prados are among the most popular SUVs in this country (meaning repairs and maintenance are easy and affordable).
When we made the purchase, we recognized that owning a car means registering and maintaining a car. It also means getting a local Panama driver’s license, which presents a separate challenge that I’ll address later in the program (when we talk about settling in in your new home).
In Ireland, we realized that we needed a car from the start. Ireland isn’t a place you can navigate easily without your own means of transportation. We set aside our first Saturday to go car shopping, only to discover that every car dealership in town was closed. Car dealerships in Ireland kept weekday hours only. Our second surprise, when we returned the following Monday, was the prices. Super-high import duties make even standard cars in this country—Hondas and Toyotas, for example—expensive. We couldn’t bring ourselves to spend 50% more for a new Accord than we would have in the States, so we bought used instead.
This turned out to be a very fortunate decision. Ireland is one of the most challenging places in the world to be a driver. The narrow, winding country lanes are bordered on both sides by stone walls and dense hedgerows. Outside the country’s biggest cities, there are no shoulders, no lane markings, and no streetlights. Around any bend could be a tractor or a Guinness truck, headed seemingly straight for you, as the road is rarely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. The farmer on his tractor or the Guinness deliveryman could be followed, over the next hill, by a mother walking her children to school or another farmer leading a flock of sheep from one field to another. You must navigate these obstacles all the while reminding yourself to stay to the left and, most days, trying to see through the rain and fog. During my first month behind the wheel in this country, I scraped three stone walls and two box hedges and got stuck in a ditch. This was all much easier for Lief to handle as our car wasn’t fresh off the assembly line.
My point is that, while going car-free has definite advantages and is my strongly recommended strategy if at all possible, it isn’t a strategy that works everywhere. Some places, you’re going to want a car, either immediately or eventually. So, again, the question is: Should you bring yours with you from home?
As I explained yesterday, If you’ve acquired retiree (or pensionado) visa status in your new country, typically the duty associated with importing your car is waived. This is true for some other visa options in some countries, as well.
If this is the case, and you won’t have to pay any import duty (which can be a significant expense, depending on the vehicle and the country), the consideration becomes whether the vehicle is appropriate.
Years ago, friends who relocated from Canada to Nicaragua decided to bring their van with them. “It’ll be great for sightseeing trips within the country,” they explained. “We’ll be able to load it up and take off for the beach or the mountains whenever we want.”
When I spoke with them a few months after their move, they explained that they’d sold the van and bought a truck. A city van, they’d discovered quickly, was no match for this country’s roads. By the time they decided to off-load the van, they’d already replaced all four tires and had the front end aligned twice.
The van’s suspension was shot. In a country like Nicaragua, where many of the roads you use on a regular basis are dirt, rutted, and flooded during the rainy season, you need a four-wheel-drive truck or SUV. Anything else is foolishness.
In Ireland, your U.S. car’s steering wheel will be on the wrong side. You see right-hand-drive vehicles on the road in this country, but I think sitting on the wrong side makes navigating these byways even more difficult than it is ordinarily. Different car makes and models are more or less common in different parts of the world, meaning that, for some cars in some places, it can be difficult to find either mechanics who know how to repair them or the parts that might be required to make the fixes.
If you want to own a car in your new home, it can be easier and more sensible to buy it there. The key is to be at least as careful during the purchase process as you would be at home. Don’t buy the first car you see, and don’t buy any car without having it inspected by a local mechanic you trust. Even if you speak the language, take a local shopping with you. Everything, including buying a car, has a protocol that’s different country to country. How much should you expect to be able to negotiate off the sticker price? What warranties or extras are standard? In Panama, used cars bought through a dealership should come with at least a one-month warranty. A local knows these standards.
In the United States, it is possible to shop for and even to purchase a car for the price you want to pay without leaving your home. In the rest of the world, this isn’t the case. The car purchase process works like it used to work a couple of decades ago in the States. You’ve got to invest the time to visit different dealerships, comb the newspaper classified ads (or, more likely in this day and age, online classified sites like craigslist.com), and pound the pavement looking for “Se Vende” signs in car windows.
Before choosing a car, research repair costs. They can vary dramatically for different makes and models. In places like Panama and Nicaragua, repairs are generally much cheaper than in the United States, because labor costs are so much lower. You can have a flat tire repaired at a gas station in Panama for US$10. On the other hand, the standard of typical repair work may not be what you expect. Mechanics, especially in the interior of countries like Panama, Nicaragua, and Belize, prefer to weld broken parts back together, for example, rather than replace them.
Know what you must carry in your car. In Panama, you’re required to keep an emergency reflector in your vehicle, as well as the most current edition of the national driver’s handbook (you see them for sale in pharmacies and at newsstands around the country). If you’re pulled over for any reason, the traffic officer may ask to see these things.
You pay an annual fee for license plates and vehicle registration everywhere in the world, as you do in the States. However, as can be the case with other bills and expenses in some countries, these fees must be paid in person. A friend, Lee, who lived in Ecuador for two years explains, “In all my time in the country, I never owned a car, but once I accompanied my roommate on vehicle registration renewal day, an event that takes place sometime during the first quarter of each year.
“The day begins early, as you jockey for position among a hundred other cars in an undersized lot. The hours tick by as two mechanics work their way among the vehicles, checking serial numbers, verifying that you haven’t installed a stolen motor since last year.
“But that’s just the start. Next, you stand in line to obtain verification that you have no unpaid tickets. Then you stand in line to verify that you haven’t changed your address. Then you stand in line for an administrative review. If, during any of these exchanges, some uncertainty arises, you typically have to start the process over another day. If, though, you get the A-OK from each of these reviews, then you’re set. You get to come back tomorrow, to pick up your new one-year registration. And to wait in line to have it laminated. People wondered how I got along without a car in Ecuador. I wondered why any sane person would keep one.”
A reader contacted me recently to ask me if I could help him to figure out how to ship his classic car from the United States to Panama City.
I thought about the effects of the Panama City climate…of the salt air off the Bay of Panama…of the ever-present construction (a cement mixer parked at an intersection once dribbled web cement onto our car’s roof as we passed by)…of the rugged roadways…of the sometimes torrential downpours in the rainy season (I’ve seen small cars immersed nearly to their windows in the pools of water that can accumulate within an hour or two when the rains are heavy and the road drains are clogged)…
“Don’t ship your classic car,” I responded. “Leave it behind. Or sell it.”
“But I can’t sell it. I restored it myself. It’s in perfect condition. It’s my prize possession.”
Not my choice to make, and I let the conversation go. But I’d suggest that allowing attachment to a car to interfere with your plans to reinvent your life in a new country seems a little…silly.