so how DO you get a car???

Hi! My family and I MAY be moving to Nairobi soon (pending some works stuff) and I've just been doing some research to prepare (THANK you, expatwives!!!). I think I've got a general idea of housing and schools, but the car thing has me stumped. We'd be coming from the US and there's no way we can plunk down $15,000 in cash at the car bazarre. Should we attempt to import something if we can get financing over here, or is that a total headache? Selling our current car will just pay off our loan, so no liquidity there. We've got young kids and I'm not looking for a transportation adventure!

Thanks!

We've just arrived in Kenya (2 days ago) and have a car on the way from Japan. We used http://www.autorec.co.jp/ ~ we are here with the Canadian Embassy & it is one of the companies others have used with good results. The car can take up to 3 months... however if $$ is an issue, not sure how it will work. We were able to get a loan through my husbands job - don't know if a private lender would work for you in the US. Not sure if all of that helps or not! Remember if you are importing it can't be older than 8 years.

Good luck!

Thanks for the info! I didn't realize it took so long to import. What will you do until the car arrives? Unfortunately, I don't think my husband's project makes provisions for vehicles. Just another one of the billion questions we'll need to ask...

Not sure what we will do - we are still in a hotel & will move into our place on Wednesday. Hopefully the other Canadians at the embassy will "take care of us" until the car arrives. We have a little one too so it makes things more essential!

If you are negotiating a contract maybe they will agree to advancing a loan or something. We are lucky that the embassy does that or we would have been in the same boat as you. Our car is supposed to arrive on the 14th in Kenya then to go through customs - customs is the issue really. It only took a couple weeks to find what we were looking for (got a Toyota 4Runner - called a Hilux Surf), and they were going to send it to arrive a couple weeks ago, but I think you have to be here before your shipment arrives. I think 3 months is a worst case senario (I hope!). All depends on how long it takes to clear customs! I think autorec says 4 weeks from the time of purchase to arrival...