Buying a car in Chile and South America

I bought a 1997 Ford Explorer 4x4 in Santiago, Chile in July. The process took me six days in total.

I drove throughout Chile, Argentina, and Peru with zero hassles. I lived out of the car, thereby avoiding hotel or hostel expenses.

Anyone who plans to buy a car here in Santiago or Chile in general is welcome to shoot me any questions. I should be able to answer them since the process is still fresh in my mind. Not quite coincidentally, I am looking to sell my car around the end of October.

ciao,
John Barker

Hi John....

Just came across you thread a bit late on. I am soon to be hitting S.America taking in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru.

Could you give me an idea of how much the whole process costed, i.e. insurance, tax, transfer, etc...? Also, roughly how much was your explorer..(If you don't mind me asking). As it has crossed my mind to maybe purchase a car / jeep and travel around at my own leisure...

Many thanks. Good Luck

burnsie

Yes, we did the same thing, bought a car in Chile and travelled around for several months. The car is now for sale, so let us now if interested.
Toyota Landcruiser Prado te koop in Chili, ideal for Patagonia, Carretera Austral, Ruta 40...
Info: 4x4, 1997, 152 000km, new tires. Can help with info on border crossings, insurance and paperwork. Nothing too difficult really.

several questions

1. i understand there is some limitation on amount of USD you can import to pay for car. can you clarify?

2. can you get a cheap car in chile ...under $1000 to $2000 USD....and easily resell?

3. which other countries can you drive in with USA passport and car purchased in chile?

4. what happens if you simply abandon car without reselling?

thanks

ozzie

09.12.2008

1. We did not take any cash money with us from home so no info here. We got half the money out of the ATM (our limit is about 600 US$ per day per person) and took out a lump sum of 3,000 US$ using our credit card (I would recommend banco santander, they were very helpful).
2. Yes there are cars for sale in that price range. Look at www.demotores.cl and www.chileautos.cl. Don´t know how well they would sell.
3. You should be able to enter all bordering (and other) countries provided you make sure you have some valid insurance for the countries you would visit (there is one exception which is if you buy a second hand car in the tax free zone of Iquique, I don´t think you will be able to take a car bought in Iquique out of the province which will defeat the purpose of buying a car for travel in the first place - I would recommend Santiago as the easiest place to buy a car). At the border they may ask you if you are a resident of Chile but because you have a RUT (which you need when you buy the car) you just show them the RUT and use the address you used to obtain your RUT. Wrt insurance, we bought a standard car insurance for Chile at falabella (a big shopping mall). Then when we crossed to Argentina we bought a 7 day car insurance for Argentina in Chile and as soon as we got to Argentina we bought an in comprehensive and thus cheap insurance for several surrounding countries at a local insurance company in Argentina. We only went to Argentina with the car (6 times, acc. to one officer I was supposed to be a resident, the others did not seem to be interested as long as I had the right paperwork). Right paperwork for the car is the padron (your proof of ownership), a RUT number, insurance and the yellow form they/you fill in at the initial border crossing out of Chile.
4. Don´t know and not going to find out. My main worry would be that somebody makes havoc with a car which is under your name. I would like to make sure it is registered on somebody else it´s name before I leave the car. You may come back in 4 years and find a few outstanding tickets. Actually I more or less abandoned my car in Australia and now pay a fine each 4 months for not having returned the number plates......
Hope this helps, exact (and very help full) manuals on how to buy a car can be found on http://groups.msn.com/CHILEBUDGETTRAVELTIPS/buyingautomobiles.msnw and http://community.iexplore.com/planning/journalEntryFreeForm.asp?journalID=986&entryID=659&n=How+to+Legally+purchase+a+car+in+Chile.

hi there, glad i stumbled upon this thread.

im just about to buy a car in Punta Arenas. I know now that it can't be registered in the tax exempt zone here, zona franca.
*HOW do you tell if the car has full registration? not tax exempt? is that what the GNR sticker means?

I was trying to find out what i needed for the rego today but my spanish is too shit to understand what they say. they speak so fast.
*ALL i got was that i needed:
- A receipt, which they said i needed to ask the Servicio de Impuestos Internos about. But they also responded positively when i said i could get one written out by the previous owner
- An address, well thats fine, i'll use the hostel address BUT DO THEY NEED A DOCUMENT STATING THE ADDRESS?
- Insurance. Ok SO WHERE CAN I FIND THE CHEAPEST INSURANCE? And WHAT IS THE MINIMUM LEVEL YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH?

ALso i wanted to know when you go into argentina do you need to pay a special charge at the border to bring your car in? if so how long does it last for?

Any info you people can give is greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Beuno Viaje

Well some advice i can give is that if you are looking to buy a car in Chile

DO NOT

start in Punta Arenas.

Because of the tax free zone here people import cheap cars and have them registered on a special permit. this permit only allows travel in the Patagonia area, to go further you need another permit which lasts for a max of 90 days, so im told. the cars can only be sold back in Punta Arenas as well.

the registration you need is the Liberado.

The tax free cars can travel in all the other countries without restriction though so i may be lazy and decide to do chile in 90 days then move on out of trouble

Hi

we want to buy a car in chile but if we find one, is it possible to send it overseas? do you have more info on this? we might want to send it to belgium so we can still use it at home

thanx

greets

RE: Buying a car and sending it home.

Anything is possible. It depends on how important the car is to you and therefore how much you are willing to spend shipping it home. The first question thats jumps to mind is why on earth would you want to? cars in Chile are not cheap. i'm sure you can find something better in the EU or somewhere at least where you can drive it to Belgium. If the car is that special then you best consult the import/export authorities of Chile www.aduana.ch and if the answer is no from them my suggestion is to drive it to Colombia and ship from there out of the Caribbean.

For an example of the time and cost of buying a car in Chile this is my recount of my purchase a few days ago.

1. Get an RUT document - an identifaction document for non-Chileans. You need a permanent address, thats it. and its free.

2. With the current owner of the car go to the Notorio (the government solicitors office) and get them to create a contract which you and the owner sign then the money is exhanged in front of the solictor and the solictor stanps and certifies the contract. This costs around 50,000 pesos

3. Take the signed and authorised contract to the Registro Civil (Motor Registration Office) and they will do the registration transfer into your name. This costs around 20,000 pesos

4. Go to an insurance office to buy compulsory 3rd party insurance. Really easy, costs around 10-15,000 pesos for a year

5. Hopefully you will have checked the date that the circulation service (road worthy test) is due. If its due while you own it you need to get it done in Chile of course and if all things go well its around 10-15,000 pesos

So all in all you're looking at 100,000 on top of the purchase price.

My car cost 1,300,000 and with all that done i've spent around AU$3,500 which is a fair bit more than what i would be willing pay for this car back home in Australia, or Europe for that matter (its a 1987 Suzuki Samurai). However i made the mistake of searching for a car with free (liberado) registration down south (Patagonia) where the tax free zone is close enough for people to use it to save money on registration costs. However foreigners cannot travel with one of these 'tax free' registered cars.

Hope this helps someone

Dear friends,

I am planing to do the same, buy a car in Chile and travel around south america. My question is, could I then sell the car in any south american country?

thanks vm!