Buying and importing our car
The experience of buying a car in Germany and driving it back to Turkey was nowhere near as daunting as we believed it would be and here we describe the whole experience, which we hope will be of help to any other ex-pats considering doing the same.
The prices of second hand vehicles in Turkey is horrendous, so we decided to take advantage of a system that the Turkish government set up for foreign residents, namely that if you are retired, you can temporarily import a vehicle tax free (Blue card). We flew to Gernmany and stayed with a lovely lady named Karin, who has a huge farmhouse in a small village called Luchau, just outside Dresden.
On our first day in Luchau, we went to a local Opel main dealer to see if they had an Opel Omega automatic diesel saloon, as we decided we would get better value than we would getting a Mercedes E220 or an Audi A6. They had one Omega but it was a manual Estate and as beautiful as it was, we decided to think about it and look further afield.
On our second day, we decided to go to Berlin, where there were many more car dealers and a friend drove us there after he contacted a dealer that had a 2.5 litre Omega Saloon. Although, at first glance it appeared to be a lovely car, closer inspection proved it to be a complete dog, with hidden rust and oil in the exhaust. We took Sven’s advice, decided it was not worth the risk and made up our minds to have another look at the Omega estate in Luchau the following day. Needless to say, the dealer was not surprised to see us back on the Friday for a closer look. The car proved to be a real bargain, as it was spotless, had every extra you can imagine and had obviously been looked after by the previous owner. It took us 30 minutes to make the decision to buy and that was when the bureaucratic bullshit kicked in. Because we were not German, we could only have a temporary 1 month number plate and because acquiring it is quite a lengthy process, with visits to several government offices, it is time consuming and the upshot was that we could not complete this procedure in one afternoon. This meant a long weekend in Luchau and what a great time we had with Karin, Sven, Evi and their friends. Karin took us out to dinner on the Friday night….Bratwurst and chips ….....wooohooo!!!! Saturday night involved a trip to the local bowling alley where they use balls without holes! It was a fantastic fun filled evening and we were made incredibly welcome by everybody there.
Monday was an early start to get things in motion and I should mention that we now had 5 inches of snow to contend with. Evi drove us to the transport and police offices in Dresden and we acquired all the necessary documents to legally drive to Turkey, fully insured. The total cost of the whole procedure, number plates, export docs, 30 days full insurance came to around 200 euros. If you ever go down this route, you will either have to have a German speaker with you or ask the dealer to do everything for you. Our advice is, ONLY buy from a main dealer.
We got back to Luchau at 3.00 pm and after a lot of farewells, we started our trip back to Turkey through driving snow at 4.15pm on the 12th. We hit the German-Czech border after 1 hour (25 miles) and had to produce the documents at the border post to prove we were not exporting a stolen car. You must purchase a motorway ticket at the border post or the first available garage; watch out for the signs!
After driving for around 60 miles in snow and passing several log cabins by the roadside, with young scantily clad young ladies displaying their wares in the huge front windows, we pulled into a service area for a coffee. When we came out of the restaurant, we were sitting in the car checking the satnav when there was a tap on the window. It was 2 gentlemen from a motorway patrol vehicle and they asked for our motorway ticket. Oh dear, I didn’t have one and I was asked to accompany them into their van. They explained that I should have had a ticket and because I didn’t, the fine was 240 euros. After much pleading and explaining that I was concentrating hard on the road and therefore missed the signs, they were good enough to let us off with a warning and a request to buy one at the first available garage. 10 out of 10 for the Czech Republic’s motorway patrolmen and their wonderful attitude to thick foreigners. Lesson number 1, buy your ticket ASAP!
We hit the Slovakia border after about 5 hours (235 miles) and after purchasing our motorway ticket, we had an uneventful drive through Slovakia. 10.30 pm (another 50 miles) saw us at the Hungarian border and yet another ticket purchase. Hatice, (our pet name for the satnav) was playing a blinder and after leaving the motorway at Győr to look for a B&B and ignoring all her requests to do a U-Turn, we eventually found a lovely little bistro at midnight. There are many B&B’s here and all are well signed. The one we stayed in was called (I think) Vincenzio Soho Café Room. It cost us 50 euros for a double room with breakfast, mini bar, shower etc and a warning to be out by 8.00am if we didn’t want a wheel clamp. 10 out of 10 guys.
The weather had drastically improved by the morning and after a hearty breakfast, a few photos and directions from Hatice, we were soon back on the motorway and heading for the arsehole of the world! Up until now, everybody we met had been very helpful and offered lots of smiles; this was all about to change!
We hit the Serbian border at 10.15; (540 miles) left the civilised world, purchased our first road ticket and stopped for coffee. Even Hatice seemed to take fright and her directions were getting few and far between. Our first bit of excitement was when we came across an old guy lying in the road next to his bicycle and money everywhere. I thought about nicking the money but realised it was probably only worth about 5p, so instead of robbing him, I helped him to his feet, thinking he had been the victim of a hit and run. Big mistake, I nearly passed out from the fumes. I ran around picking up his money, stuffed it into his hands and got him and his bike to the side of the road, trying not to inhale air anywhere near his person. How he even managed to recognise the bicycle as a mode of transport defies belief but to actually manage to ride it was nothing short of a miracle. I left him in good hands and staggered back to our car, secretly praying I wouldn’t get breathalysed within the next 30 minutes. We made it without further excitement to the next checkpoint, where we purchased a ticket and then stopped at a garage for coffee. Attila the Hun’s wife appeared to me in a vision and we tried everything to get her to smile. We managed to get a grimace just before we left and hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come. It couldn’t get worse…could it? After 2 more checkpoints, 280 miles and 2 more tickets and a promise that we didn’t need any more, we arrived at the last checkpoint. The woman (at least, I think it was), in the booth, obviously had a part time day job to supplement her evening earnings and made it clear with her facial expressions that we had now entered through the rectal area of Serbia and it’s no small wonder that Montenegro and Kosovo want to break away from these pathetic excuses for human beings, these perpetrators of genocide in the 21st century. She demanded 56 euros, as we didn’t have a ticket and although we showed her all of our tickets through Serbia, she got more and more unpleasant. Suddenly, this grinning, dribbling, slavering thug appeared, probably her pimp and at first I thought he was a tramp looking for a handout. He made it quite clear that we were going to pay his accomplice 56 euros if we were going to get away, so I had to cough up. My advice here is to plan your route avoiding Serbia, (Romania is one alternative) even if it means a detour of 1000 miles and an extra £500. Our last memory of Serbia was driving past slums, bombed out and burned houses and surly, arrogant gorillas. I can’t even bring myself to mention Lynda’s public toilet experience. Fortunately, we got to the Bulgarian border before we had to consider stopping for the night in the world’s backside.
Driving through Bulgaria was a joy and we didn’t need any motorway tickets. The cafes we stopped at were welcoming, friendly and clean and the hotel we eventually found at 8pm was up to 5 star standard, for a paltry 35 euros. We’ll add the hotel details later when I’ve found the receipt with the name on it. Petrol was the biggest surprise, about half the price of Turkey and we made sure we kept the car full. 10 out of 10 for Bulgaria and her people.
We got an early start on Wednesday morning at 9am, after a nice breakfast in the huge restaurant and headed for the Turkish border. The last few miles through Bulgaria were a bit of an eye opener and modern living was not very evident. We stopped for a coffee at a garage just before the border and didn’t realise we hadn’t paid until we had driven half a mile. Thieving toerags!!
We were dreading the border crossing with the new car, full of contraband but were looking forward to being back in Turkey. We had now driven about 1100 miles in 44 hours and I hadn’t busted a gut. When we reached the border at 12.30, we stopped off at Bulgarian duty free and picked up a bottle of vodka for a quid. Lynda has never been the same since!! The Turkish border control officer passed us through with hardly a glance and just stamped the passport to say that our insurance expired in 30 days. We could see the line of vehicles ahead at the customs control and my ‘you know what’ started twitching. We were through to the front in 30 minutes and told to pull up on the other side for the inspection. We sat in the car in pouring rain for over an hour, dreading the search but our fears were completely unfounded because as soon as the rain stopped, the officers came out, gave a cursory glance at the vehicle, checked our passports and said ‘Gulay, gulay’ with a smile.
It was now 2.30 pm on Wednesday; we were back in Turkey and had another 690 miles to go to Perikoy. We took the route to Eceabat rather than the long way round towards Istanbul and arrived in Eceabat at 4.00pm to catch the ferry to Çanakkale. We got on the ferry at 5.00 and the crossing was around 30 minutes, as the sun was going down. Apart from going a bit wrong on the other side for 20 minutes, we were making good time but unfortunately, Hatice had given up talking to us, so it was now down to Lynda and her navigating skills.
I was determined to at least make Izmir but unfortunately, the weather deteriorated again and we were in driving rain once more. The drive over the mountains even scared me witless, meandering down tight twisting turns and horrendous hairpins, much of it behind lorries. We could barely see out of the windscreen at one stage and some of the road edges were a bit lacking. The choice was simple, do the whole journey over the mountains at 5-10 mph or follow the Turkish example and overtake lorries on hairpin bends. We chose the latter but made sure that there was always another vehicle overtaking in front of us, which meant he got to kiss his rear goodbye before us. The view of Izmir at night, coming down the mountains was spectacular, even in the dark and the road system through Izmir put much of the UK to shame. We didn’t even touch the city and sailed through on the fabulous roads in record time. The amazing thing was that when we reached the motorway toll gate, the fee was 2.5 lira (£1). Because of the speed at which we got through Izmir, I decided to try and make Aydin before my eyes and back gave out on me; Lynda was also very tired through concentrating as hard as me on the road. We stopped at a small lokanta for a bite at 11.00 pm and we made Aydin at midnight. Our eyes were firmly glued on the roadside looking for a Pension and eventually Lynda spotted a sign for a hotel at 1.00 am. It was the Şafaklar Otel in Nazilli and you can’t miss it on the main road. The cost for a double room was 50 lira with breakfast and it was clean and comfortable.
Another early morning saw us on the road at 9.00 am and we were soon approaching the outskirts of Denizli, climbing higher and higher as we got closer. The drive was now getting interesting and the scenery was becoming more and more spectacular, reminding us of just what a beautiful country Turkey is, a country of extreme contrasts. After a 30 minute stop for lunch in Cokurtelli, we were driving through the mountains again with our ears popping like crazy. I have to say at this stage that the road system since we hit the border (with the exception of the descent into Izmir) was a pleasure to drive. Although the road surface in places was a bit rough, the roads were long, straight and flat, which meant we were never behind a vehicle for more than 2 minutes. The new road system, which is under construction for at least 100 miles, will be fantastic when it’s finished, probably in 5-10 years. The descent from the mountains into Antalya was the busiest road we had been on since arriving back in Turkey but we still arrived back at Perikoy at 2.00 pm. The total journey was 1800 miles in 70 hours and when you take into account some of the atrocious weather we had to contend with and the 3 nights in hotels, we could have done the drive in 2 days.
I would recommend this experience to anybody considering buying a car outside of Turkey and in spite of all the negativity from people who had never actually done the drive, it went without a hitch. The only advice I need give is, make sure you purchase road tickets in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and….Serbia (If you decide to ignore my warnings about Europe’s rectum). Make sure you have all of your car documents to hand, in the event you have to produce them. Do not exceed speed limits, as fines can be quite hefty and you will have to pay on the spot. Although we had no problems at the Turkish border, I would not advise you to try and sneak anything in without declaring it. Try and avoid doing the journey at the time of year we did and avoid a tight schedule. Above all, be nice to people on the journey and smile a lot, it goes a long way when you need help, particularly with directions. You are Ambassadors for England and Turkey!!!
The total cost of our journey was; diesel £140, tolls approx £30, hotels £70 and food and drink £40. These costs, along with the 200 euros it cost to sort out the car documentation and our air fares to Germany of 180 euros came to a grand total of approx £540. When you take into account the savings of around 40% when you buy a second hand vehicle in Europe, it is well worth it. What I haven’t taken into account is your possible costs of accommodation for 1 or 2 nights in Germany. All that remains now is to get the blue card for the car and sort out the Turkish registration plates. We think this will cost around £100 and it still makes the whole process worthwhile. I’ll keep you posted as to how this next part of the bureaucratic procedure goes.
Footnote: The alternative to this pleasant experience is to drive to Italy and catch the ferry from Ancona or Brindisi to Cesme or Izmir. It is incredibly expensive, as it is a 2 night, 3 day sea journey and only available from April through November. If you have a camper van, you can sleep in your own vehicle, so you will save the cabin prices. The website for this procedure is www.ferries.gr/marmara-lines/brindisi-cesme.htm
Please e-mail me with any questions you may have and I’ll do my best to help you in any way I can.
Registering our car
OK, that’s the relatively easy bit over and now we have our new car safely ensconced in Turkey, we now try for our first cardiac arrest in getting it officially registered etc, so that we can keep it here. This procedure is akin to a residency visa for the car.
N.B. You will find things a lot easier at the outset if you have a fluent Turkish speaker with you, especially when you go to get your Ikametkah stamped ‘retired’.
Firstly, unless you want to take the vehicle out of the country every 6 months (i.e., you only have a tourists temporary import permission, with a stamp in your passport), you will need to have 2 things sorted before you start out. Firstly, you must have proof of retirement from the Dept of Pensions in the UK and secondly, your Ikametkah MUST be stamped RETIRED or NOT WORKING by the police station in Antalya or at your nearest police station (Nil cost). Lynda got a letter stating that she was in receipt of a government pension and setting out in fine detail the pittance she is paid for 45 years of slave labour. I’m not quite sure what you do in my situation, where you retire early but I would think that if you have a word with your private pension provider, they may do a letter for you along the same lines. Since we don’t yet need 2 cars, I haven’t investigated this possibility. However, before you even embark on this adventure, get your letter well in advance. It should also be noted that if you bring your car in on a 6 month temporary visa, you will have to leave it at the customs pound every time you leave Turkey, at a cost of 15 lira daily. This is in addition to taking it out of the country after 6 months. There is no way around this because they will check your passport thoroughly at the airport and you will not be allowed to leave Turkey unless your car is in the pound and you have a stamp to prove it.
If you bring your car from UK, you will have UK plates with no expiry on them, so provided you have the necessary insurance documents, you have 6 months to complete the procedures to keep your car here. If, like us, you buy a car on the continent, you will only be able to get a number plate valid for 30 days, including the insurance, so you will have to do all of the documentation in Turkey within 30 days. You can bring your car in for a period of 1 or 2 years, depending on the length of your residency visa, i.e., if you only have 1 year to run on your visa, you will only be able to bring the car in for 1 year.
Depending on the vehicle age and cubic capacity, the tax will vary considerably. Our tax was 20,000 lira for a 2.2 litre Turbo Opel Omega Estate. This tax will have to be paid into a Turkish Government bank account but will remain YOUR money, while the car is in Turkey. This is to deter you from flogging it to a Turk and leaving Turkey for good. We did not have to pay this tax, as we went and had a word with HSBC in Manavgat, who agreed to give us a letter of guarantee for the 20,000 lira. If you are lucky, you may be able to do the same but you will need to have a very good relationship with them and have a substantial amount deposited. (Cost of open-ended letter of guarantee was 300 lira per annum).
Assuming you now have your proof of retirement from HM D of P, you will need to get the document translated by an official translator (around 90 lira) and then take it to the office of the Touring Club of Turkey, in Antalya. The wonderfully helpful Ahmet will check the document and provided it meets the criteria, he will sort out all of the necessary documents for the car. If you are getting a bank guarantee letter, he will give you a document for your bank to show what figure must be guaranteed. This will add an extra day of running around, as you will have to go back to your bank to get the letter of guarantee sorted and then take it back to Ahmet. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT THE BANK COPIES THIS DOCUMENT WORD FOR WORD. Once the TC of T has the guarantee letter OR your cash, they will start to sort out the documentation. You will need to give Ahmet ALL documents relating to the car, your translated proof of pension document, along with the original, your passport for him to photocopy and your Ikametkah for him to photocopy. This should only take about 3 or 4 hours max and the seafront is only 5 minutes walk away. The cost at the TC of T was 270 lira.
Once you have all your documents from Ahmet, you will then need to get to the main customs offices in Antalya on the Kemer road. Allow yourself a full day at Customs and get there as early as possible. They will go over the car with a fine tooth comb and you’ll find yourselves running up and down stairs like a yoyo, getting countless signatures and stamps. You will be charged 15 lira for the privilege of parking in their car park while going through all this crap!! Other than the parking, the cost here was nil.
Once you have acquired your 30,000 documents from customs, you’ll need to hire a removal lorry to transport them to the main police station in Antalya, so you can get your Turkish MB number plates. There is a Trafik Sigorta (insurance office) opposite the ‘Nick’ and the manager will do everything for you. Give him the papers from Customs, your Ikametkak and passport. Get there early again because he will take your car down to the local vehicle inspection depot where they check the chassis number and vehicle condition. Once you have the OK from here, he will sort out your traffic insurance and then take everything over to the ‘Nick’. They will take around 3 hours to issue your plates, depending on how busy they are. Total cost here was 300m lira for the traffic insurance and 290 lira for the plates etc. Once you have your plates and all the paperwork from the ‘Nick’, you have to shoot back to customs to prove everything is in order and they will then give you your car visa.
Total time involved was 3 days for us but should only take you 1 or 2 because you are benefitting from the hard lessons we learned about being prepared. The only expense over and above what everybody has to pay was 270 lira for the TC of T. Overall, we have saved a fortune buying outside of Turkey and all it cost was time, a commodity we are not short of.
Remember the 6 P’s........Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!
Please feel free to contact me if you need any sort of clarification on anything mentioned in this article or information about any office addresses.
The latest on the car is that we have just renewed the 'visa' for the car in Antalya. This time, we did it for 2 years and it only took us 3 hours in Antalya to sort everything out. Thanks to the fantastic service from Ahmet in the office of The Touring Club of Turkey, it was very painless and the fee was only 400 lira for the next 2 years.
This year (2010), we were only in Customs for about 15 minutes, so once all the paperwork is done, it's all very easy to renew. |
