Date : October 13th, 2000
From: America Latina 2001
Subject : 505
Place : Chili / Santiago

WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW...

We arrived in Chile with the plan to buy a car for our trip. But how to proceed? Who shall we go and see? What are the formalities? How much does it cost...?

On tuesday morning, we first went to the French ambassy expecting that they would explain us the required procedures. But the guy we saw at 9.30 am was of no use: those weren't the kind of questions he has been used to answering. Therefore, we went back to the car seller who sold a Peugeot 505 of 1988 that cost around $ 4 000. Oscar, the seller, told us that before we could buy a car we should first get the RUT (the Rol Unico Tributario) from an office that was 10 blocks farther. We jumped into a taxi and five minutes later we found ourselves in front of the office of the administration where more than 40 people were already queueing. The woman at the Information desk told us that we were in the wrong place and that we had to go to the office of the Servicio de Impuestos Internos (SII) that stood 3 blocks from there. Once we got to the SII we filled in a RUT application form but a nice lady behind the desk asked us:

"Which area do you live in? Nunoa or Providencia?"
"Well... Providencia..."
"Then you're in the wrong place, you've got to go and see the office of Las Condes."

We set off again, quite enthusiastically, to the other office of the SII. Once we got there, a welcoming lady who took less than 2 minutes to give us that RUT (on presentation of our passport). All in all it's quite easy to get this stuff !

THE OIL LEAK

On wednesday morning we returned at the car seller, determined to buy the Peugeot 505. Oscar barely attended to us and the mechanic was not there... we understood that they didn't care at all to sell the car, hard task. We kept on insisting and we managed to make them set the car on the elevator. What a surprise !!! the propeller shaft was soaked in oil... we consulted each other and we decided not to buy this 505. Oscar remained unconcerned but proved very kind as he indicated to us the adress of "Peugeot Chile" that was in the north of the town. We took the subway for 20 minutes and then a taxi for 20 minutes as well and we finally arrived at "Peugeot Chile". We tried to get information from a small old man dressed in a pink shirt. But he too seemed unwilling to sell his cars... 5 minutes later we went out. We felt really annoyed to have made such a detour and not to get what we wanted. Then we had the feeling that there weren't any car dealers left in town (we had already checked during the week end), and it would have taken us too much time to look up in the ads. We decided to return to Avenida Irarrazaval where all the car dealers were. In the end we found one Toyota Tercel that cost 2 500 000 pesos which amounted to $ 5000 and one Subaru 4x4 that cost 3 000 000 pesos (around $ 6 000). Those were too expensive and exceeded the limit of our budget. We returned to Peugeot to borrow the 505 and to have it examined by another mechanic. The mechanic went under the car and told us that there no problem... we went out not quite convinced and returned to see Oscar: we arranged an appointment the morning after to pay for the car which let us time to think about it: we wondered whether the shaft would held, and whether it wouldn't be better to choose the Subaru instead. In the evening we met Marcelo: the owner of the guesthouse, we told him about the 505 we were about to buy, so he took us to the opposite garage owner. It took 15 minutes to introduce to one another and then Marcelo got it all set in order for us to bring him the 505 the day after for another technical check.

THE BUY

Around 9.30 am while walking towards Peugeot we chewed over what we would say, indeed we already borrowed the car the day before and if we did again Oscar might not like it... But actually Oscar answered "Si, no problema"... as if he didn't give a damn to it ! It shows that in life we always see barriers where there are not. The mechanic in our street checked the car and set the reparation to 150 000 pesos ($300). We therefore decided that we should make the original price of the car less expensive of 150 000 pesos. But Oscar answered didn't agree "No, no es possible!"... big deception, he definitely seemed unwilling to sell this 505 !!! We kept on talking and we succeeded to get it for 1 700 000 pesos ($4000) instead of 1 800 000 pesos; cool we had a 2.5% discount (we did great!) Oscar explained us that we would get the car papers the week after but that we could use it though. But we must wait for 20 or 30 days to recieve the official papers allowing us to go out of the country... this papers stuff was not very clear, we didn't have the choice therefore we're going to take that time to discover the South of Chile.

See you
Olivier and Philippe