We’ve Got Us a Tidy Car!
We are now the proud owners of a silvery-blue 1990 Honda Civic 4-door sedan, 150,000 kilometers (100,500 miles), purchased for the most excellent sum of NZ$1300 (approx US $870). And it came to us with what we like to call ‘a little bit of New Zealand magic’:
On Sunday we awoke to the annoying sound of our alarm clock at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am (heheheh). After a quick shower and breakfast, we made the half-hour walk downtown to the Britomart Transport Centre (ie: train station) where we boarded a slow-moving train for the 10 kilometer trek to Ellerslie. Held every Sunday from 9:30 am to 12 noon at the Ellerslie Racetrack is the Ellerslie Car Fair. We had read that this was the place to find a good used car. Folks from all around Auckland county will pay the NZ$35 fee to display their car for a few hours and be able to reach a rather large audience. Also at the car fair were various agencies to help with car inspections, title transfers, insurance, and registration. It all sounded quite ‘tidy’ as they like to say here and quite a civil way to conduct this type of business.
We were very curious and a little anxious to arrive and see it for ourselves. Car buying, I think, it more anxiety-provoking than home buying. I’d only ever purchased a car twice in my 25 year driving history and they both occurred when I was in my early twenties with my parents along doing the negotiating. I don’t really have a clue how to buy a car, but Bruce was a little more equipped than I and had packed his torch (ie: flashlight) so he could look under the chassis and check for whatever one does under there.
There were hundreds of cars for sale, all arranged by type of car and price in the raceway parking lot. Utes (pickup trucks), 4×4’s, and campervans had their own locale, sedans/wagons/ hatchbacks/convertibles were arranged in three sections by price: “NZ$10,000 and up”, “NZ$5,000-10,000” and “Under NZ$5,000”. We had to walk through the area with the more expensive cars to get to the other and as we were doing so my eyes widened with glee as I spied a couple of very nice convertibles for sale at quite reasonable prices. It is my intention to fulfill the middle-life crisis meme and have myself a go at a convertible; it is a gift I’m giving to myself for managing to delay my gratification for 18 years while I drove around in my practical 4-dr Nissan Sentra. I’m not one for ‘wasting’ money on a car, but if I can find a convertible for the equivalent of $US5,000, by golly, I’m going to get one. But just not today……. We have too many bags……… It wouldn’t be prudent….. Next time!
At least 200 cars were in the “Under $5k” section with their owners sitting either next to, or in them, waiting to make a deal with any one of the equally numbered potential buyers. It was a little overwhelming. Originally we thought we’d have to spend around NZ$3,000 to get a nice car, but after our experience at the Backpackers Car Fair the previous day, we realized we could get a perfectly good vehicle for under $2k and possibly even cheaper. We also had come up with some parameters: Car must be a light color, have a boot (trunk), preferably a 4-door (easier to deal with all the luggage), Japanese made (easier to service), and be manual (better to handle on the winding and hilly roads for which NZ is famous). Quite a few cars met this criteria, but before we’d stop and actually scrutinize a car, I wanted to walk through the whole lot to ascertain what was available. Close to the end, we glimpsed a 1988, white, 4-door Toyota with 230k kilometers and a NZ$800 price sticker that caught our eye. (We love a good deal). It was being sold by a limited-english-speaking Japanese man. We started walking around the car checking it out and as Bruce was down on the ground checking the chassis, a middle-aged kiwi man started chatting with me about the car and offering up pointers as to what to look for. I eagerly latched on to him and began asking him all sorts of questions. He was super, super friendly and ended up chatting with me and Bruce for a solid half hour. We all decided that this wasn’t the car for us as it appeared it would need a bit of work in order to pass its next WOF (Warrant of Fitness).
I have to digress a bit here and talk about the WOF as I think it’s the niftiest thing since sliced bread and something that could only be pulled off in a low-density country which also happens to be an island. Every car owner is required once a year, or twice a year if the car is over six years old, to get a WOF inspection. It costs about NZ$33 and is a guarantee that the car is ‘fit’ for the road – ie: the car is driveable, the chassis is in good shape, all key components of the car run well. It is mandatory when selling a car that it comes with an active WOF; the seller must make any repairs before it’s sold. Given that there’s a lot of reselling done here in NZ, especially of older cars, the result is that they are in great shape (we never saw a car with any rust) and last a really, really long time — hence the plethora of cars for sale with over 200,000 kilometers on them. No bother at all.
Grant wished us well in our search and we parted. Within a few seconds, however, he spotted a friend, called him over and asked whether he had any cars for sale. Kevin was a stout hobbit’ish looking man with disheveled hair and dirty fingernails and toenails. Turns out he was a mechanic and made a hobby of hunting the car fairs for good deals and then reselling them. He had a thick kiwi accent which was hard to understand at times, but Grant and he did all the talking. Kevin had actually picked up a tidy Honda Civic the week before, planning to use it as his ‘tooling about the city’ car. But he said he’d sell it to us for NZ$1300 if we couldn’t find anything else to our liking. It sounded too good to be true – it was Japanese, 4 door, with trunk, low mileage, and cheap. He had the car at his home but said he would bring it around to us on Monday to have a look. We took his phone number, shook hands, and parted ways. Grant said he was trustworthy, though a bit eccentric, and not to worry and off he went. Bruce and I walked around for another 15 minutes, saw one other Honda Civic with more mileage for NZ$1800 and decided to just take it on faith that Kevin had the car of our dreams. After spending just one hour at the car fair, we hopped on the train and made the journey back to our backpackers where we had a lovely afternoon of exercise, reading, and relaxation.
We called that evening and arranged for Kevin to come by Monday morning at 10:30 am. We were up early again, feeling anxious, and ran over to the Internet shop to do some research on car buying. Bruce found a handy list on a NZ Govt site that detailed what to look for in buying a used car. I was nervous at the thought of driving a manual car for the first time, in a big city, on the left hand side of the road. I had finally mastered my ‘right hand shifting’ these past few months in San Francisco, but I wasn’t confident this was going to easily transfer to ‘left hand shifting’ in New Zealand. We had a moments thought that we might be being ‘taken.’ Bruce mentioned that the two-man con is the classic setup, but that’s not really the Kiwi way, and we let it go.
Kevin showed up right on time. While Bruce checked out the car, I wrote down the license plate number and ran inside to make a call. This is the second niftiest thing since sliced bread: For a NZ$25 fee, one can call an 800 number (0800-53-66-62), give the license number, and get an instant report on the status of the car: what type of car it is, whether any money is owed, whether its stolen, how long the current owner and previous owners had it, and whether it has a current WOF or not. Every car in the entirety of New Zealand is listed in one central database; the license plate the car is issued with stays with it forever. They will also email you a copy of the report. How cool is that? Everything checked out ok; this car had had nine owners in its history, several for under a month, but the others for a few years a piece. Bruce gave the thumbs up and now it was time for me to give it a test drive since Bruce still had not driven here and was quite scared to try on this occasion. We all piled in and around the rather long hilly block we went, only making left-hand turns so I wouldn’t have to cut across any traffic lanes. The car shifted remarkably well and I found it quite easy to ‘left-hand’ shift.
The WOF was due to expire at the end of the month so Kevin needed to go get another. He said he’d take care of it and call us if there were any issues, otherwise he’d be back around 3 pm to finalize the transaction. The car passed the WOF with the minor repair of a new used front tire which, to us, was indistinguishable from the old one. Kevin came back to our backpackers and off we went to the Post Office to file a Change of Ownership form (Form MR13B for the nifty sum of NZ$9.20). Kevin was indeed a bit of an eccentric fellow which endeared him to us and was quite keen on chatting about all sorts of things including global warming, real estate comparisons between San Francisco and NZ, and of course, the requisite politicking and GW. He also had a keen sense of humor. When I mentioned that we first came to NZ on our honeymoon, he quickly responded with “You know there are three rings to marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and suffering! Hahahaha”. We had a good chuckle and said that was not the case for us thankfully. Kevin drove us to his house, we paid for the car, and we shook hands and said goodbye. We were a good 6 or 7 kilometers away from our backpackers and I started feeling anxious again about navigating back since we lacked a map and NZ streets are highly nongrid-like. Kevin said to turn right and just follow the road and the buses back to Ponsonby. Sure enough, he was right, and if I must say so myself, I deftly motored us back to the backpackers parking area without a glitch.
We own our first kiwi car! We celebrated with a few pints at a local pub and marveled at the Kiwi Magic we seem to encounter every time we come to NZ. We still have to register the car (current registration expires next month) and decide if we want to get insurance (it’s not compulsory because there is national accident insurance for everyone) but we’ve got time for that.
We may eventually have a photo for you of our lovely new car-don’t mind the splotchy paint on the bonnet-Kevin points out that the sun can be harsh here, and more importantly, “That’s not what makes it go!”
Update Nov 06: Car registration for our car is costing us $183/year. We decided to get supplemental insurance through AMI Insurance. We purchased basic fire + theft plus coverage for any damage to another person’s property or car due to an accident (doesn’t include any damages to our car since the car isn’t worth much). $250 deductible. Total annual insurance premium cost = $80. Sweet as……