[Jadykeery]

This is what i wrote this past November about used cars.

I was living in Bonao, circa 1993-2004, i was playing poker at a family member's house when someone came over to look at some cars he was selling. we stopped the poker game so that he could go outside and show some cars he just imported; every one sitting around the poker table immediately got up and ran to the bathroom, because, as many people already know, when playing poker, no one wants to leave the poker table--even to pee. Of course, this sometimes results in urinating in your pants, but it could also contribute to being at the table when that straight flush is dealt to you. As a result, we all sit around suffering for hours...sometimes even days before our bladders explode and we're carried off to the emergency room so that some other idiot can take our seat at the table.

My cousin--who's not really a cousin--we just call each other cousin because we're all related somehow through other distant dominican cousins--was outside showing a round 5 or 6 cars that he had just picked up in the Santo Domingo port the day before. he imports around 9 or 10 cars a month, sometimes more.

Anyway, i was doing nothing, so after peeing for what seemed like, maybe 30 minutes or more, I nearly passing out from the ecstasy of extreme bladder relief (EBR)--i walked over and looked at some of the cars he had for sale: he had mini-vans, Honda CRV's, Toyotas, etc. i've seen so many cars pass through his house over the years that, well, i've seen just every make and model over 20 years--including the "Pope Mobil" and "Back to the Future's"--Delorean. Ok, maybe not. I drink a lot.

Anyway, I was looking at a beautiful, nearly new Honda mini-van. it was maybe a year old. it was beautiful and smelled great and it didn't have a dent anywhere. in fact, there was still plastic on the seats. it looked as if it had never never been sat in. it had few miles...did i mention it looked and smelled new?

There were a couple guys looking at the engine bay. you could have eaten off the engine. it was that clean! it was easy to see this was hardly ever driven. the stickers on the radiator and water hoses were as clear and new as they could get. did i mention the engine looked new? Well, it looked new becuase it turned out that it was in fact new. however, after some closer inspection i noticed something odd. i didn't bring it up right there and then because, well, honestly, i kind of forgot about it becuase i was still swimming in the ecstacy of my bladder relief after urinating for 30 minutes.

Then, sometime during the poker game, I turned and asked my cousin--who's not really my cousin--"How much are you asking for the Honda mini-van?" he thought about it and said, "well the blue book value is around $30,000, but in Santo Domingo the same van would cost you "new" $48,000. However, i'm only asking $18,000." I thought to myself, man, thats a very good deal for a fully loaded mini-van, especially one that was only a year old! but then i remembered what i noticed while i was looking inside the engine bay, and said, "Oh yeah, i almost forgot, when i was looking inside the engine bay, i couldn't help but notice that, although the engine was clearly new, the bolts on top of the struts, and the bolts surrounding the engine bay were all very rusty. Why is that? Everyone at the poker table laughed. I laughed with them. I had no idea why? And then he told me something as if it was such common knowledge that i must be an idiot not to know about it..."All those cars out there, Frank, are from the Katrina hurricane that rolled through New Orleans. they were all flooded. We purchase all our cars from car dealers auctions (You must have a dealers license in order purchase vehicles wholesale at dealer's auctions in the USA). Anyway, we clean them up and then send him to different central and south american countries. Although they all had salvage titles when we bought them, once the vehicles enter another country (any central or south american country), a new Matricula (Title) is issued and the original "Salvage Title" is replaced."

Then he proceeded to explained why this is neccessary. "Think about this for a second," he said, "how could I purchase a nearly new mini van for $30,000, then pay to have it transported, then prepped, then pay all of the "Aduana taxes" (Customs taxes) for this country; then pay the "first time registration" taxes (for the license plate) for this country, then pay for the handling and transporting to different dealerships around the island, and then make any kind of profit that would justify the financial investment and logistics involved?

After everything is paid for, the profit margin would be so slim, actually non-existant, that the only way to make it worthwhile is to buy vehicles whole (at a dealer's auction) with either very high mileage (which gets rolled back) or with a salvage title (which gets replaced with a new title)."

Frank