My car is finally Mexican

Process wasn't too bad. Paid over $21,000 pesos (importation, not driving to border, taxes, plates, smog check, permission to drive on the street while stuff was in process and required vehicle verification) but got it done pretty painlessly EXCEPT getting in line at 5.20am this morning to finish the process and not leaving the outer limits of Guad until noon.

Congrats! I can't believe you had to pay so much.

bimini6 wrote:Congrats! I can't believe you had to pay so much.

I can't believe anyone would pay that much when late model Jettas are pretty cheap down here. Never get it back when its time to sell.

When comparing driving back to the border, paying gas, tolls and then selling on consignment or a fire sale price (in the poor Us economy) to then have to get back to Chapala and buy something else, it seemed like an even trade. Also I put in HID lights and some other things that I wouldn't get my money out of. Also I've taken very good care of my car and any other car might be a gamble. I probably paid a premium to avoid hassle and have piece of mind.

OK, here's my question. What advantage do you have by having a Mexican plated car? I see no advantage, except you pay tenencia yearly and pay for registration and plates yearly along with cost of smog check.

I'll keep my expired US plated vehicle, sell it to a gringo here and pay his way to the border, room and food, then exchange title there.

I will NEVER buy a used vehicle in Mexico, too many extra costs, especially with the way they drive their vehicles.

There you go again John, using the "they"

spencer... thatx a great picture... one thing though... usually with volkswagons ... the oil is on the ground under the car...

Later this year I'll switch to an FM2 and keep my authorization to work so I cannot keep the sticker past the 6 month expiration. My situation is unique and only would apply to those being inmigrado or being citizens if retired.

johninajijic wrote:OK, here's my question. What advantage do you have by having a Mexican plated car? .

Well, John, I suppose there is more than one advantage but one clear advantage is that, if one seeks and truly wishes to achieve "inmigrado" status or even citizenship, one is not allowed to own and drive a foreign plated automobile. After ten years as, first FM-3 and then FM-2 visa holders, my wife and I achieved inmigrado status last year and never, EVER, have to worry again about renewing any visa status whether in Chapala or Guadalajara or San Cristóbal de Las Casas or the annual fees and tribulations of having to so do or the burden of proving our income or residency status or dealing with petulant bureaucrats. The fees and aggravation we will avoid by being "green card" holders alone pay us a thousand times over for any fees we incurred by buying a Mexican plated car in Guadalajara in 2004. I can also tell you this whether our experience is typical here of not and this is as people who typically drove across the heart of Mexico City with its thieving, predatory cops several times a year before the Arco Norte was opened; since we started driving with Jalisco plates in 2004 and got rid of those California plated vehicles, we have experienced ZERO problems with cops seeking foreign prey. Not even a dime of mordida nor the need to duke it out verbally with even one crooked cop.

I have said this even before we sold off those California plated cars at the border in Nuevo Laredo years ago and committed ourslelves to Mexico as our home country for the duration. Mexico should be charging substantial fees to non-immigrant visa holders to drive their U.S. plated cars in Mexico, whether with expired registration or not, as adjuncts to annual visa renewal procedures and those fees should be at least as high as tenencia fees charged owners of Mexican purchased and plated vehicles just as a matter of fairness. All FM-2 and FM-3 visa holders driving foreign plated vehicles would be charged for and issued stickers annually which would not be cheap and woe be unto the folks down here under "extended tourist " status who failed to have proof of having paid current annual registration fees. I can´t, for the life of me figure out why the Mexican authorities haven´t figured this out yet.

When Dawg is king of Mexico, you´d better lay low with that U.S. plated car. "Off with their heads", cried the Queen.

I think tenencia in Jalisco ended this year.

[quote="ferretI totally agree with you Dawg. It irritates the hell out of me that people drive NOB cars with outdated license plates and crow about it.
[/quote]

Tell me, ferret, do you suppose there is at least the possibility that these "carpetbaggers" who infest our Lake Chapala shores as those carpetbaggers who poured into Atlanta and New Orleans and Mobile after the Civil War, came here for indirect pecuniary gain? Are these the same redux-adolescent goobers who find it deplorable for some to take the INAPAM bus fare concession while benefitting from an overall substantial discount in the cost of living by pretending to migrate to Mexico under extended FM-3 tourist visas and inwardly deploring the inconveniences imposed by an unaccustomed culture? These same people who drive around Lakeside with expired U.S. or current South Dakota plates issued by a corrupt state agent in Clay County, S.D. and complain about corruption in Mexico while pumping their own tangential local status with phony papers as dishonest and less productive than the campesino cleaning toilets in a WalMart in Des Moines with a phony visa or no papers at all.

Hypocrites to the core.

Carry Bean wrote:I think tenencia in Jalisco ended this year.

We bought a new Mexican plated car last year and there had been a special lifting of the tenencia fees to help stimulate new car sales. This year we had to pay the tenencia, but it expires as of 2012. We hope it doesn't get somehow re-upped, but in any case we are glad to be free of the CA plates. The cops are no longer interested in us, it would seem. That is a good thing.

As I understand the rules, you must get Mexican plated right away if you are on a working FM2 visa, as Spencer is. Considering that Mexican mechanics are good with VW products, it will probably pay him to keep that car well into its old age.

The tenencia will never go away. Tenencia means to hold, or possess, it is the equivalent of the annual registration fees paid every year NOB. What is supposed to end is the special 10% tax on new cars imposed to pay for the 1968 Olympic Games, to be paid over a ten year period at the time the tenencia is paid.

Many people have confused that special tax with the tenencia itself, which will never go away. We have had 2 Mexican plated cars for several years here. We nationalized our originally US registered cars under 2 different vehicle amnesties several years ago. Both of them were over ten years old and no additional taxes were ever required for them, but the annual tenencia always has been.

We replaced one of those cars with a new van a few years ago, and I plan to replace my 26 year old Oldsmobile in the next few months. I just paid the tenencia for it, it will never go away. The tenencia on the Olds also expires in 2012. That means it will need to be renewed then, it will never go away.

Rex

I think we all should copy and keep it ferret. Matter of fact I wish I would have had a copy the other day to give to some fat old bag who was loudly lambasting the staff at Telecable because she could not understand them. Maybe I'll print some and start passing them out like religious tracts, start a new religion ... that's it, how about Pope Bubba the first as Patron?

IMO, we have enough work keeping our own noses clean before tsk tsking about what other people are doing.

Re Rex and the "tenencia". I misspoke on that one. I realize that there are yearly fees that must be paid forever, and that the 10 year tax is another matter. There are fees everywhere attached to driving vehicles and I don't object to paying my own.

oncesubtle wrote:I think we all should copy and keep it ferret. Matter of fact I wish I would have had a copy the other day to give to some fat old bag who was loudly lambasting the staff at Telecable because she could not understand them. Maybe I'll print some and start passing them out like religious tracts, start a new religion ... that's it, how about Pope Bubba the first as Patron?

Pope Bubba 1st thanks you oncesubtle my son (daughter?) not only for your unquestioned adoration but for your clearly superior discernment.

However, I must take exception to your having inferred that I, The Dawg, am somehow connected to the disgraced "Bubba" who was ridden out of town on a rail circa 2004 by the powers-that-be at Mexico Connect after having posted one-too-many "learned" messages on their forums (ostentatiously referred to as "fora" by the then head crone over there since excised in disgrace) construed by management thereabouts as flatulent posturing by some overreaching swamp bunny from the U.S. Gulf Coastal Plain only to have been re-invited to participate somewhere around 2008 but only if under another nom-de-intenet in no way connected to the disreputable "Bubba" upon which invitation to rejoin the family of fellow morons spouting babble, Bubba, all abuzz and filled with self-pride at having been considered worthy of rejoining others of likewise modest achievement changed his (my) name to Hound Dog and was readily accepted back in the fold until I took on one of the moderators over there whose exquisitely crafted phony meanderings had caused me conniption fits as she bragged ad nauseum about mediocre Mexican regional cuisine of limited merit and I´m a sumbitch if, after I pursued that line of thought for a while, they did not summarily kick me off again. This time, I can assure you, for the duration.

Over the years I was their most prolific poster but that was simply because I was in an onanistic frame of mind fueled by the playing of word games.

That was exhausting.

hound dog wrote: Pope Bubba 1st thanks you oncesubtle my son (daughter?) not only for your unquestioned adoration but for your clearly superior discernment.

Why thank you hound dog, I'm not sure about the unquestioned adoration part but appreciate the 'clearly superior discernment' as your rant was appreciated. I went with Pope Bubba because Pope Dawg had no ring to it and wouldn't inspire a southern following as would Pope Bubba l. And you can call me son but you are now communicating with me, Xoprotplxc, a former prostitute for the Olmec priesthood and the long forgotten creator of mole as I'm channeling through a rotund Neanderthal living in Chapala. With that in mind, I thank you for your righteous indignation of those who would take advantage of my people. It is appreciated and as a token I offer you a previously unknown historic sidelight; the term Holy Mole came about after a high priest stole my mole recipe and started using it in religious feasts, and it went downhill from there when they started using it liberally in the ritual orgies where a most descriptive verb was added. Sadly the mole of today is lacking the coca leaves, magic mushrooms and aphrodisiacal sap of the IxxxI tree but tasty still.

Intercasa, what year is your car as it doesn't look 10 years old?

It is a 2003, 8 years old.

Intercasa wrote:Process wasn't too bad. Paid over $21,000 pesos (importation, not driving to border, taxes, plates, smog check, permission to drive on the street while stuff was in process and required vehicle verification) but got it done pretty painlessly EXCEPT getting in line at 5.20am this morning to finish the process and not leaving the outer limits of Guad until noon.

Remember, here in Mexico knowing the right people and paying a little extra you can avoid hassles, lines and even times long drives.

I believe something some of us are forgetting is that the “ugly & kind “gringos”” are bringing thousands of their dollars into this economy. Not paying a few dollars for car plates compared to promoting temporary migrants and their $$$ seems like economic common sense to me. No? IMHO