Buying a Car in Quito – Vlog 8

Buying a Car in Quito – Vlog 8 (Transcript)

Jason    00:00 

Good morning welcome to today’s vlog. Today we’re at the Cuenca airport, but we’re going to Quito because we’re buying our car. It feels like a little bit of an episode of The Amazing Race. We’re at the airport, we have a lot of activities that we need to do in Quito; transfer the car, buy the car, buy some tires. And then we have to be back in Cuenca tomorrow because I have a real estate client coming in, which means that we obviously need to be back here in Cuenca. And so I’m a little bit stressed as well. So there we have it let’s go on our little Amazing Race. Let’s go.

Jason    00:56 

So we’ve arrived at Quito Airport, just having a little bit of a breakfast at El Espanol. But before we get there, Michelle, what do you think of the car right now that we’re going to buy?

Michelle    01:38 

I mean, I like the car and I think it’s big enough for us. I’ve always liked the Toyota brand. I think it’s a reliable brand here in Ecuador and I’m looking forward to riding it back to Cuenca.

Jason    01:56 

But what do you think of this actual car?

Michelle    02:00 

I mean it’s kind of hard for me to have a mind in the car other than us looking at the pictures, but we are very blessed that we have my uncle…

Jason    02:09 

So we haven’t actually seen the car yet. We haven’t seen it in person so obviously this is a huge risk in a certain way and we certainly wouldn’t do this unless we had someone like Michelle’s uncle who’s really helped us out. He’s a mechanic, lives in Quito, and actually lives close to where the owner or the current owner is selling the car. So he’s checked it out, he’s spent a couple of days, he went to the Casabaca, Is that what it’s called? Yeah. So the Toyota dealership, the main licensed one here, they’re also quite expensive so he went there, did all the checks and so we’re very comfortable and…

Michelle    02:47 

The thing that kind of gives us some of the guarantee is that this car has been checked mostly in Casabaca – like 99% of the time has been there. So you have a history, a record of all the things that have been done to this car. And also we’ve talked to the owner and we really like him so.

Jason    03:11 

You definitely do need to be super careful when you’re getting a secondhand car. Make sure it’s checked. There are so many little dodgy tricks out there that they do, for example, the kilometers winding those back, maybe the car’s been in an accident and that’s been hidden as well. And for our particular circumstance, we’re buying a car that has a battery. And the battery, they generally last about five years and so this car is from 2010 and obviously he needs to have the battery replaced and they have had the battery replaced or at least part of the batteries replaced. But that’s a bit of a risk and every single car here has these risks so we can’t emphasize enough how important is just to have a really good mechanic that you trust. Definitely don’t use the mechanic that the car owner suggests. That’s obviously not going to work well for you it’s going to be a biased opinion. And so hopefully when we turn up to our car today, we’re not going to find any nasty little surprises. Enjoy.

Jason    04:16 

So here in Quito, they don’t have… Actually, do they have AzuTaxi here? I’m not sure. There are a bunch of taxi apps here though. What’s the one we’re using right now?

Michelle    04:26 

InDrive.

Jason    04:27 

InDrive. This one’s a little bit different in that we basically say, “Hey, this is the price that we’re willing to pay” and then the driver says, “Do they want it or not?” And so for the fare right now, from the airport to where we’re going, we’re offering $12.50. And do we have a taker? Looks like we do. Israel Javier, 4 minutes. Ok. Vamos.

Jason    05:31 

We’re in Quito. We’re stuck in traffic a tiny bit, but it’s taken us a long time to find the car. We’ve been looking all over Cuenca, looking at all the different used car lots, we went to all the different ferias, online, different websites, particularly Facebook Marketplace. Probably for the past year or so. We found this car on Facebook Marketplace, but of course, we were searching for the Quito area. There just seems to be a lot more competition when it comes to cars in Quito, at least compared to Cuenca. For example, last time we were here we were driving around the Old Town, and at the traffic light, someone just stopped us. Like, I thought maybe they wanted to sell us some candies or some fruit or something like that, but no, he said, “Do you want to sell your car?’ So he was trying to find people to sell cars at the traffic lights. That’s just an indication that there are a lot more people in Quito that I guess are in the car business and looking to buy and sell cars. A little bit more of a marketplace I guess.

Jason    06:33 

So which suburb are we going to right now, Michelle?

Michelle    06:35 

We’re going to Valley Los Chillos.

Jason    06:38 

And why do we love going to this valley?

Michelle    06:45 

Because my Grandpa the king of my house lives there.

Jason    06:46 

And what is also in your grandpa’s house?

Michelle    06:58 

Avocados. The most delicious avocados that you’ve ever had.

Jason    07:02 

So right now we’re just in a shopping center heading to the notary and we’re going to meet Michelle’s uncle as well and we can start the paperwork for the car transfer.

Jason    07:21 

So yes, we have our first little snag. We’re at the notary and they tell us that it’s going to be another 2 and a half hours wait because the notary needs to sign our contracts and other paperwork, they are at another appointment somewhere else, maybe in court or something we’re not too sure. And so we just have to wait here for another 2 and a half hours. So we’re just grabbing another coffee and just chatting with the owner and Michelle’s uncle. It’s actually quite nice to spend a little bit of time with the owner learning a little bit of history about the car and just his life in general because he’s taken a lot of care with the car and he told us before that when he’s leaving the house that he actually had some tears coming down his face so he clearly really cares about the car and that’s really coming through as well. So we’re all in all feeling very comfortable with this purchase now. And so we’re going to definitely go through with the purchase. We’ve checked out the car already. It’s in the car park just out here. And so yeah, we’re excited. We just need this notary to come back so we can proceed to the next step.

Jason    08:27 

And the notary finally arrived and he signed out the documents and we’re pretty much good to go. We’ve signed everything in front of the notary and now we just have to wait for another 10 minutes hopefully we don’t get any sort of bad news or any other hiccups we shouldn’t from here it should be just formalities, a few more rubber stamps and then we’re good to go.

Jason    08:46 

Talk to us Michelle, what do we have?

Michelle    08:50 

The contract, notarized, saying that we are owners of a Toyota Highlander.

Jason    08:55 

Let’s go.

Jason    08:58 

Michelle, we are in the car park of our new car. What do you think?

Michelle    09:06 

It looks really good.

Jason    09:09 

Hola. Wow. Que chevere. Que bueno. Me gusta. Wow, que chevere. 3 lines of seats for the kids. Que?

Michelle    09:36 

I’m just taking your happiness.

Jason    09:44 

Awesome. Me Gusta.

Michelle    09:49 

Three hours later.

Jason    09:50 

Yeah, too much. Yeah bueno. Ahora. It’s in the park.

Michelle    10:13 

Have you driven an automatic car before?

Jason    10:17 

I mean, of course. Ok, that’s it. Tranquilo senor. Don’t rush me.

Michelle    10:28 

Don’t make him nervous, please.

Jason    10:29 

Making me nervous. Watch out, lady. Don’t bang me.

Jason    10:34 

So here’s, I think, the last thing we need to do before we can actually leave Quito and drive to Cuenca and that is the tires. We have to change all four, you know, safety and all that sort of stuff and the cops may pick us up. So we definitely need to change them. Yeah, it’s kind of expensive with a car like this they’re probably like $220 – $250 per tire, but it is what it is and so we’re going to go get them changed.

Jason    11:27 

Morning.

Michelle    11:27 

We’re on our way to Cuenca leaving Quito right now, and it’s a beautiful morning as you can see.

Jason    11:41 

Yesterday when we tried to buy the tires, that was a pretty big fail. Even though they’re called Llantas 24/7 or Tires twenty-four seven they close at five o’clock. At least the bodega where had the storage for the tires that we wanted, and they simply couldn’t make it work when we were there around five-thirty. And so we basically had to make a decision, do we want to stay in Quito for another day or do we want to come to Cuenca? And it was a pretty easy decision in the end because yes, we do want new tires, but they’re not at the point where we absolutely need to replace them from a safety point of view or also from the police point of view. So we’re just going to basically take it slow on the drive to Cuenca today and we found a nice little detour right now. And so we’re definitely taking it nice and slow.

Jason    13:14 

So this is a bit of an accidental stop. We got a little bit lost and we ended up at this tiny little town that we’ve never heard of before called Pinguili. And the reason we’ve stopped is that they’ve got all these beautiful shrubs that have been decorated like the cemetery in Tulcan – if you’ve ever been up that way towards the northern part of Ecuador with the border of Colombia. But this is beautiful.

Jason    13:45 

So you’ve had your first little drive how do you feel?

Michelle    13:48 

Oh, it’s really nice it’s very comfortable and very easy to drive.

Jason    13:52 

Fantastic and what do you think of Pinguili?

Michelle    13:55 

It’s freaking cold.

Jason    13:59 

It’s beautiful.

Michelle    14:00 

It has a touch, and I respect that for a little town in the middle of nowhere.

Jason    14:08 

Trying to attract people.

Michelle    14:11 

It’s like they cannot control the weather.

Jason    14:14 

They can control the trees.

Jason    14:47 

We’ve had the car for about 24 hours now so we do have some initial feedback on it and by and large, we are very happy. It handles extremely well, it’s got a lot of power and probably the most important thing for me is that it’s just going to be comfortable for the whole family – it’s very spacious inside. So obviously with the three lines of seats, we can take 7 passengers in this car. So we have our family plus you know what, another one or two people, maybe Michelle’s mom or something like that, and also clients. It’s very important to us that we can take our real estate clients for viewings comfortably and I think this is really going to help us achieve that.

Jason    15:33 

Unfortunately, we did arrive to Michelle’s grandfather’s place quite late last night. It was already dark, so we couldn’t show you the big avocado tree out the back. But what we can show you are all the avocados that we were able to get from it. Look at them all, they are amazing some really big ones too. They’re probably going to take about two or three weeks to ripen, and then it’s going to be a little bit of a mad dash to eat them all at once because they’re all going to ripen at the same time.

Jason    16:02 

Last night we stayed at Michelle’s Grandpa’s or Abuelo’s, but this morning I had quite the issues. I woke up without coffee. I didn’t have much sleep last night. I do suffer from insomnia so it was a tough night to begin with. I didn’t have any coffee and I had my socks on and then I decided to walk down the stairs and I did a big whoopsie do and I took the handrail off with me. So I broke the handrail at Michelle’s grandfather’s place. I was feeling pretty bad about that. I went down and had breakfast, he made all this fruit for us it was beautiful. Five AM, like he got up early, just basically put out the red carpet for us. And then after I made sure I ate all the fruit because I felt kind of like we needed to because, you know, he’s gone through all the effort we’re not going to be rude. But it was a lot of fruit. It was a ton, with juices and coffees and all the rest of it. Honestly, it was probably too much for me and I went upstairs to clean my teeth and I vomited everywhere. And so I was feeling very terrible this morning and I had to leave a little note for Abuelo just to make sure that he knows that I am sorry about the handrail and offered to basically fix it. But at the same time, I didn’t want to draw a lot of attention to it because if he knew that I was slipping all over the place then maybe it’s going to be a little bit dangerous when we’re driving all the way to Cuenca today. So it was a bit of a tough situation this morning.

Jason    17:46 

Here’s what I was doing yesterday at the bank. This is the Matricula and so this is basically think of it as like a driver’s license but for the car itself. And so this always stays with the car. I had to pay to basically get this transferred from the previous owner’s name into my name. Now, I’ve already paid for this, but I have to do it or I don’t have to, but I’m going to choose to do it in Cuenca because this is going to be easier for us to do it that way. And it shouldn’t be too difficult. Normally getting appointments for this sort of stuff is relatively straightforward. The other thing that I paid for was the payment for this, but the other thing I paid for was the actual transfer fee. So you can see this cost $140 and this was just to put it in the vehicle in my name, so you pay based on a percentage of the value of the vehicle. So this is going to change a little bit, but I paid $140 for that and I paid $133 for the Matricula transfer.

Jason    18:54 

Quick pit stop here at Iglesia de Balbanera the reason that this place is important it was the very first church in Ecuador. It was established in 1534.

Jason    20:10 

So what are some of the challenges that you found with this car, Michelle?

Michelle    20:20 

I mean, it’s just a little adjustment it’s like don’t forget to put the parking mode whenever I go to park.

Jason    20:29 

What happened yesterday when we parked for the first time?

Michelle    20:33 

What was it? Oh yeah, the car got blocked. The car got blocked and we didn’t have a clue how to move it.

Jason    20:40 

The steering wheel wouldn’t turn. It had a steering lock yeah.

Michelle    20:45 

So we had to call the previous owner…

Jason    20:49 

That’s a bit embarrassing, yeah.

Michelle    20:52 

But he helped us through and Jason kind of figured it out too, so.

Jason    20:56 

And honestly, the owner or the previous owner, we do really like him. So he wasn’t, it wasn’t a problem for him to take the phone call or anything like that.

Jason    21:05 

Did you know that you can determine where the car is from just by looking at the number plates in Ecuador? For example, that truck ahead has G as the first letter and that’s G for Guayas. So that’s where Guayaquil is. And so our car, we have a number plate that starts with P for Pichincha. That’s the province that we bought the car from. And our car in Cuenca starts with A for Azuay. And so it’s kind of cool just looking around at all the different letters that you come across because I know most of the provinces, but every now and then we do get stumped by a random province.

Michelle    21:47 

This is where the landslide in Alausi happened. So we are having a little bit of a lot of traffic because the road is not the best, but it is what it is for this part of the road. Umm, I’m not entirely sure if the way to get into Alausi is already fixed. Yes, we can see now the town of Alausi in front of us and the weather doesn’t really help this either.

Jason    22:25 

So yeah, we’re excited about the car or the new car for us, but I think the kids are actually going to be way more excited than we are. They’ve been calling out for a new car forever, particularly just because of the space side of things. They’re really looking forward to, I think just playing in the back on the 3rd row. And little Billy, our 2-and-a-half-year-old, is obsessed with cars. And so I think when he sees this car which is substantially bigger than our old car, I think he’s going to lose it.

Jason    23:05 

Almost home.

Jason    23:08 

So here’s the final piece of the puzzle, the tires. We did find a place in Cuenca that could do the job for us. We like Maxxi’s. Well, when I say “we” I know nothing about cars, including tires. It’s Michelle and Michelle’s uncle who do know something about cars. They reckon they’re just good tires all around, durable and not too expensive. So this is a big car and the tires are pretty expensive. We’re going to pay here $200 per tire plus $25 to have the aligning and balancing as well.

Jason     23:54

We’ve just arrived back in Cuenca it has been a very busy two days we are super tired, but we’re very happy with the end result. The kids love it the looks on their faces when we took them for a little ride around the block were just priceless. So, a great result in the end, but now it’s time to get some sleep. Thank you very much for watching. We’ll catch you in the next video. Ciao ciao.