We purchased a 4 cyl 2001 Nissan Sentra - 2016

Middle of June 2016 - Tied up in Marina Mazatlán, Mexico

Los Angeles June 13, 2016

We bought this car in Las Angles, CA 

The car

The car we purchased is a 4 cyl  2001 Nissan Sentra with 159,000 miles. Why you ask?

Well here goes - I will tell you 😀

Because we were needing a car to get around in. We were renting one by the week here and there but it was a pain and getting too expensive. We decided the cash we saved from car rentals, airplane fairs, luggage charges and airport shuttles would pay for this car in not a long period of time.

First off, it is made in Mexico. It is used as taxis some places in Mexico, and parts are easy to find.

This car has a vin number starting with a 3. You need to have a vin # starting with 1,2,3,4 or 5 to import the car into Mexico. That means getting Mexican plates and being able to drive it in places outside the free zones, like Mazatlan. Importing is still a big question mark and we will answer that in the future and post it here, on the blog.

This is a nondescript car. It has no distinguishing features. You probably have seen a lot of them but never noticed. They have been made for almost 20 years now. Parts easy to get almost anywhere. (Say Perkins diesel engine?)  They are easy to find and easy to sell. (Can we say a Catalina 30-foot sail boat?)

The price. Well a Toyota Camry is more money. There are similar cars by Toyota as the Sentra but more money. You could look at the HYUNDAI ELANTRA, TOYOTA COROLLA, OR HONDA CIVIC for comparable cars in the price range. 

We did not want to spend more than $2,000 cash including taxes, insurance title change etc. We also had a time frame to purchase a car, a couple weeks. That would avoid renting a car for another week of time. We found this car on The Auto Trader and it was $1700.00 and the seller was firm. The car has some body damage on the right side from one of those yellow steel poles they hit. It does not affect the doors working or anything working. We do not care much how it looks.

We brought the car to a mechanic before we purchased it. The mechanic said the car was in very good condition and worth the cash. The tires are in like-new condition also.

We wanted AC and were hoping for cruise control for the long drives. We got both.

So this is an easy car to get parts for, easy to sell when we want to upgrade to whatever. It will go to the grocery store and all around Mexico no problem. It is very good on gas and will carry most things we want back to Mexico. OK not 300 feet of 3\8 anchor chain but a lot of other stuff :)

It will, like all used cars we have purchased, need a few items. We will need to tint the windows so the AC can keep up better with the heat\sun coming into the car. We will need to fix a small exhaust leak. And sometime in the distant future we will need to rebuild or replace the high pressure fuel pump. These things we will probably do in Mexico as the labor is way, way, way cheaper than L.A. But the car runs great and rides nice. The interior is nice and comfortable. It does have tilt wheel, power windows etc.

We should be able to easily add 100,000 miles onto this car with little coast to us.

We do have our "Permanent Residence" status in Mexico along with our Mexican drivers license. We realize there are issues in importing the car into Mexico so we will work with a broker/agent when the time comes.

Elegant'sea has a cruising car!