Buying a car

[viciouskinid]

Hi All,

My Wife and I are going to Santiago Chile in about 6 months. The plan is to buy a 4runner (or something similar), do a bit of a conversion to an RV and travel south america in it. I am an Australian by the way.

I have a few questions on buying. I would like to get it mechanically checked before I buy it, in Australia you can join our equivalent of AAA and for a fee they will look at the car before you buy it. Is there anything like this available? Is there a good reviewing site like Yelp that can help me find a trust worthy mechanic? Does anyone know a trust worthy mechanic?

What is the Chilean equivalent of AAA? I am looking to get road side assistance.

Is there anyway to check if the car has been stolen/in an accident/ has a loan on it etc.

I am currently looking on yapo.cl, it seems like it is the place to by and sell cars in Chile. Is this correct or is the another place?

I would like to do some research before I go. So I was hoping to look at a few online stores for products I need to convert the vehicle. Can anyone advise the names of a common store/franchise for the below:
-Automotive (like autozone in the US)
-Hardware (like homedepo)
-Discount store (dollar general)
-Closest thing to Wallmart
-Closest thing to a Ikea (mainly for a foam mattress)

They would have to be large enough to have an online store.

I am planning to remove the back seats and a few covers. Because I plan to sell it again I was hoping to store these somewhere for about a year. Any suggestions on how I could do this for free/cheap (can be outside Santiago).

I also found this topic that was helpful we it comes to the buying process.
http://allchile.net/chileforum/viewtopi ... ar#p148148

Is there anything else you think would be helpful?

[marti]

...

[marti]

...

[joostjakob]

Have a look at chileautos.cl too

It took me half an hour to get a RUT in the central Santiago office. I met other people who bought Chilean, never heard of problems getting the RUT.

Largest problems we had is with the border people in Arica (to Peru), some people haven't been able to cross there. And you only get 6 months outside of Chile with the car, though you can get a "prorroga" for another 6 months.

[lotn]

-Closest thing to a Ikea (mainly for a foam mattress) ====> not an Ikea but try Líder for cheap foam mattress. Bigger cities like Stgo will have many outlets for mattresses to replace the thousands thrown daily into rivers and ditches alongside the roadways.

Homy and Sodimac also sell foam mattresses. Incal is an independent store that arguably has a better selection of foam mattresses than anywhere else in Chile.

The autoparts "area" of town in Santiago is along 10 de Julio Huamachuco in the center. It's a mixture of the official dealership-type places and independent stores that specialize in a few parts deeply or in many parts superficially. I live a block away from it and it's an interesting street.

[ABIII]

have you thought about buying from another overlander?

I have no idea how they transfer ownership
but locals cannot buy these, so the prices tend to be well below market rates
(and then it becomes your boat anchor)

http://www.drivetheamericas.com/forums/ ... salewanted