We wish someone had told us to make sure, before moving to Yucatan, to have our plans for a car sorted out before arriving. If you are contemplating a move, it is absolutely critical that you either:

1. Drive your own car down from the States, or
2. Arrive with enough cash on hand ($10k or so should do it) to walk right into a dealership and buy a car, new, with cash.

What you should never, ever do, what you simply cannot do, is buy a used car.

In our four years in Yucatan, we have owned five vehicles, all purchased used. The first was a 1996 Volkswagon Jetta, purchased for $30,000 MXP in the parking lot of a MEGA supermarket. It had stick-on tinted windows, a massive spoiler, and an “enhanced” muffler that made the car sound like a tugboat. It overheated constantly, and had the unusual habit of dying if you rolled down the power windows while at an idle. After a few months and dozens of trips to the mechanic, it finally exploded at 50MpH on a road in Progreso, with steam pouring out of every seam in the dashboard. We sold it for $12,000 MXP.

Lesson learned, we bought our next car from a used car lot in Merida, a 1999 Jeep Wrangler. We were very proud that we negotiated the sale in Spanish, our first truly complicated transaction conducted entirely in a foreign language. If only we’d read the fine print: sure, we had put $40,000 MXP down on a $120,000 peso car, but in the two years it would take to pay off the car, interest would make the final cost more like $160,000 pesos. Oh, and that if we missed a payment, the dealership had the legal right to sell our house, take the payment, and give us the difference. Worse than that, the car began a schedule of breaking down within one week of purchase. We made trips to PROFECO, the consumer protection agency. The dealer just smiled. We intervened with our lawyer; the dealer listened, smiled, and cashed the checks. Over a year, we broke down and were stranded dozens of times. We began keeping an “emergency kit” in the back, which contained not just roadside flares and a tire iron, but a pint of tequila to treat Jillian’s ever-increasing anxiety. Everything on the car broke, one piece at a time, before we finally replaced the whole engine. By the end, we found that our “mechanic,” a fat, crooked Chilango, had been systematically removing the car’s remaining functioning parts, one at a time, and replacing them with non-working parts. Finally, heartbroken, we sold the Jeep for scrap, for $5,000 MXP.

While figuring out our next move, we bought a Nissan Tsuru for $28,000 pesos. It had clearly had a recent slapdash paint job, but we weren’t worried about that. We were just looking for something to use instead of a rental. There was just one problem: it never really shifted right. You could find the gear, but there was kind of a pause before it would actually shift. Our mechanic explained, with a perfectly straight face, that of course it shifted strangely; he had converted the automatic transmission into a manual, and used an undersized gearbox, because it’s what he had laying around. So, why on Earth would we EXPECT it to shift right? What were we, stupid? We sold the car a few weeks later for $15,000 MXP.

Over the course of several years, this constant cycle of buying cars, getting stranded on the side of the road, waiting for the Green Angels, hitchhiking to the next town, dropping the car off at the mechanic, picking the car up from the mechanic, ordering parts from the States, carrying parts to the States, breaking down again, renting cars, returning those rentals, selling cars, and buying new cars, really, really took its toll on both our relationship, and our first impressions of life here. It seemed like no matter how hard we tried, no matter how much money we threw at the problem, we could never, ever count on having a car. We could never get our most basic needs met, no matter what we did. That is an unbelievably frustrating way to begin your life in a new country.

Fortunately, it is completely, totally, 100% avoidable. You see, here in Mexico, we have no Carfax. No dependable record-keeping, tied to vehicle identification numbers. When you buy a car, you have no way of knowing what happened to it in its prior life. It could be salvaged. It could have been used as a taxi. For that matter, it could have been used as a dumptruck. There is simply no way to know what you are buying, and no way to check on the history. Further, you immediately must become exposed to the least fun parts of living here. Rather than sipping a margarita and nibbling on some ceviche, you will find yourself standing in a filthy mechanic’s yard, listening to a guy explain to you, in very technical Spanish, with an entirely straight face, that, no, of course your car is not running properly, because the previous owner used it to smuggle two tons of illegal, duty-free gouda back and forth between Valladolid and Motul on the weekends. And what are you, stupid?

The only way to avoid this is to bring your own car. Barring that, bring some cash. The day you arrive, march yourself right into the Nissan dealership, and buy a brand new car. Buy something common, like a Tsuru, or a Platina, if you are feeling fancy. Something with parts widely available, and that can be fixed inexpensively. Do this immediately. Don’t buy a “for now” car, don’t buy “just something to use until we can get something nicer.” It will, quite possibly, destroy you, or at the very least, make your first few months or years here terrifically unpleasant. Bring a car, or buy a new car, and if you can’t do that, don’t come. Seriously.

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