Buying a Car

I’ve never enjoyed buying a car. There’s just so much at stake. You know, is it going to run well? What’s the gas mileage? Is this the best price for the car? How do you know that all those wires and buttons and cylinders are in top notch shape? Here in South Africa, things are slightly more complicated in that when you do a test drive, especially when you’re an American, you have to remember how to shift with your left hand, drive on the left hand side of the road, lean left when you make a left-hand turn and go wide right to make your right hand turn. So, how does a single female who knows very little about cars go about buying one in another country? For me, it’s all about the kindness of strangers.

After arriving in South Africa on Monday, 18 January, I was eager to buy a car so that I could have the flexibility of getting around without burdening all my friends in Johannesburg and Pretoria. On Tuesday morning, Steven came by in his bakkie to start the hunt. Themba and Thembela, my host family until I moved to Pretoria, both had to work so Steven was able to arrange time away from work to take me shopping. What Steven didn’t quite realize was that Ben was with me and so the three of us began our search with Ben and I sharing the single passenger seat. There is certainly quite a bit that I could say about just that aspect of our day of car shopping, particularly since Ben sat next to the window and I tried to balance on the seat between Ben and the gears that Steven had to change. At one point Steven looked at us, laughed and said, “My wife (a traditionally built African woman) would never try that!”

We drove to a number of car lots to check on what kinds of cars were available in my price range and try to figure out both how well they would run during my six months here and still hold their resale value when I left for the states in July. Around noon, we met with one of Steven’s friends who worked for a company the sold cars by having people submit tenders or bids. The car was a beautiful white 2006 VW Polo and the minimum bid was R42,000. There were about 5 other people looking at the car with us and everyone was impressed. As Steven, Ben, and I left to do more shopping, we tried to figure out a strategy for our tender. I had no idea how high people would tend to offer and Steven wasn’t really sure either. He had bid on one car before and lost out, but then later was successful with a bid on another vehicle. We decided that we would offer the top of my range, $49,000 (about $7,000) and see what happened and Steven agreed to submit the tender on my behalf.

More shopping and one more possibility emerged. A cute little Corsa Opal, one-owner, with air con was there in my price range at R 43,900. We looked at it closely, talked with the salesman, checked through the service log, and agreed that it would also be a good investment. A few more brief stops and then we headed home, ready for some lunch from Wimpy’s. Now, the dilemma became which car would be the better buy for my particular needs and circumstances.

I moved to Pretoria with the help of Nkidi and Linda on Wednesday. They took me grocery shopping and helped me get unloaded and I began my work at the university with Nkidi picking me up in the morning and returning me to my flat on Thursday and Friday. Friday afternoon Thembela came by when she finished at work in central Pretoria to check out my flat and bring me to J’burg for a family weekend. Saturday, while she was in class and the children were at a birthday party, Themba and I continued the quest for a car, making sure to check out the Opal. He, too, thought it would be a good investment and we talked about the price with the salesman who stood firm. At the end of a lovely weekend, Themba and Steven brought me back to my flat to start my first full week of work at the university.

Monday was the full day workshop at the sports ground near my flat. I now know that it’s just a 15 minute walk away, but I was grateful for the ride because the rain was pouring from the sky. I mentioned to some of my new colleagues that I was trying to purchase a car and several people mentioned that Annalie’s husband was in the car selling business. I asked her if he had any cars that I could look at and she promised to check with him and get back in touch with me. By afternoon it was sunny and hot and Nkidi helped me pay attention to the directions to get me back home. Tuesday and Wednesday were supervision days so again, Nkidi picked me up to visit the schools and run some errands. While observing lessons, I received a call from Steven to let me know that our tender was rejected in favor of one for over R60,000. I let Deon, the Opal sales person know I was definitely interested in the car we had seen twice and that I would try to arrange to come by. Before I could make the travel plans to get back to J’burg with Thembela, Deon called to say that “my” opal had been sold but that there was a nicer Opal that had come in that cost even less! I let him know that I would continue to try to make arrangements to get to his lot.

While the phone calls and texts kept flying back and forth while I was trying to observe students, Annalie’s husband, Nico offered to take me to look at some cars in Centurion with some of the people with whom he works regularly. Annalie had already checked out Nico’s lot and found no cars meeting her approval for me. We set up a Thursday morning appointment, drove out to three lots, and promptly found a car that we thought would work. I was feeling some pressure to get a car so that I could drive to the airport to pick up Ben on Sunday, 31 January since Themba and Thembela were going to be out of town for the weekend. I also didn’t want to burden friends with driving between J’burg and Pretoria on a weekend when everyone has so many things to do. Nkidi assured me that she was available on Sunday to take me to the airport and would bring me home again. I had already made plans with Maggie and her family for lunch at their home so I started thinking about how to coordinate all the transport without creating additional hassles for everyone. Convinced that I had found the perfect call with Nico and his enthusiastic agreement, I asked him about how to proceed with the purchase.

First there was the matter of wiring money from my account to the Active Motors account, then I needed to register the car, and finally I needed car insurance. He assured me that he would help with all the paper work so the process of paying for the car was my first step. I spent much of my time on Thursday afternoon and Friday trying to figure out how to make the .pdf form for the wire transfer work. A volley of emails went back and forth between Julie at the bank and me. Soon after thinking I had submitted all the appropriate information, she let me know that she had to have my “live signature” on the form. Knowing that this would require faxing and everything was closed for the weekend, I decided to make sure I had all the proper information on the account. Texts with Nico explaining exactly what kinds of account and banking numbers were required by the bank led to phone calls with the car lot owner who got busy selling cars and didn’t get the information to me until late on Sunday evening. By Monday, I had the form completely filled out with my signature so that when Nkidi came to get me for work, I was ready to fax.
We arrived at the office bright and early, ready for a busy week. I asked about faxing my document and she showed me the fancy copier, fax, scanning machine they had in the office and we began the process of faxing the paper to my bank so the wire would be ready to go when Julie came in to work. The first attempt failed, as did the second and third so we called in Tebogo, our departmental secretary to try. Still no luck! Finally I thought about the scanner option and asked if Tebogo would scan it. Nkidi recommended that the scan be sent to her and then she would email it to me. By noon, I managed to have my scanned image and I emailed that to the bank, hopeful that the money would move forward to Active Motors.

More travel arrangements had to be made so that I could get Ben, so I took Nkidi up on her offer to take me to the airport. I also asked if she could drop us off at Greenstone Mall where I would ask Karabelo to pick us up and take us on to his house for lunch. Nkidi graciously agreed, but was concerned that she really wasn’t familiar with the mall and wanted to be sure that I got good directions. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that Karabelo might be able to simply meet us at the airport so that Nkidi could get home and that’s precisely what we ended up arranging.

By Monday I was sure that my car would be delivered and that I could take care of all the paperwork on Tuesday after visiting a few students with Ina in the morning. I checked in with Nico on Monday only to learn that the money hadn’t made it to the account. I assured him that I had heard from my bank that the wire had been sent. On Tuesday, I called Nico again to follow up on the wire transfer. He was certain at that point that I should be able to get the car. He called his friend from Active Motors who again said that the money wasn’t in his account. Nico then checked with the bank to see about the problem and the bank informed him that the funds had been transferred but the account owner needed to activate the funds. More phone calls and a visit from Nico to find out what was going on and finally a call to me that he was going to pick up the car and bring it to me. At long last, my car was ready.

Nico arrived in the afternoon with my new car. He agreed to drive it out to Centurion so that we could get it registered and then I would drive it back home. On the drive Nico extolled the virtues of the Citi Golf, telling me how easy it was to be serviced, about the cheap replacement parts, and the great gas mileage. He also reminded me that he would purchase the car back from me in July so he thought that he would get the car registered to him through his business. When I asked about how to get the insurance, he had a new idea. He phoned his agent to tell him how he purchased the car and was letting me use it for 6 months and managed to get the insurance through his own business. Nico decided that with the rate of only R260/month, he would take care of it and I would pay him the full amount when I left!

Along the way to Active Motors with my new car, ready to be registered and insured, the car started to jerk a little. Nico looked at me and asked, “Did you feel that?” and then the car settled down again. Once on the highway, the car started sputtering and jerking again and Nico was clearly dismayed. He had been assured that the car was in top shape and road worthy. We began tossing ideas around. Maybe it was really almost empty. Or perhaps there was a clog in the fuel line. Or it seemed possible that a cylinder was missing. We arrived at the car lot with lots of questions.

Inside the office, Johanes was busy with a man and woman and his daughter around his computer. The conversation was all in Afrikaans so I remained clueless. Ben and I just took a seat in the office where it was much cooler than the ride in the car had been. After 30 minutes or so, Johanes was free and Nico explained what had happened while we were on the road. Immediately he told his mechanic to take a look at the car. More waiting to replace a bad spark plug and further checking around to see if anything else could be going on. Johanes brought us a bottle of cold water to drink while we waited for the mechanic to finish up his work. While we waited, he checked his bank account to see if the funds had been deposited yet. Earlier in the day the bank’s website had gone down and he had not been able to confirm that the wire had gone through. He proudly announced that the money was now in his account so his daughter started the registration process for the car. More waiting and Nico came back into the office to tell us that there was still a little more work to be done to be sure that all was well with the car. However, since it was almost closing time, Johanes was going to let me take another car from the lot so that I could get home and still have transport available and Nico would bring me the car on Wednesday.

Thanks to Ben’s help, we drove off for our first solo trip driving from Centurion to Pretoria with a stop for gas (thanks to Nico’s R100 gift) and a stop at the Brooklyn mall to search for a basketball. Ben paid close attention to how I shifted gears and managed the clutch, clearly an astute student with a desire to take over the driving! We made it home safe and sound – but still without the car I bought.

The next day, while once again in a classroom, the phone rang. I rushed outside the classroom to learn that the car was officially repaired and that Nico was going to drive it all the way to J’burg to make sure that everything was really all right. He let me know that he would bring the car to me later in the day. You can’t imagine my surprise when the car with Nico behind the wheel actually arrived! I was so excited that after the eternity 3 weeks, I finally had a car to help me get around.

You know, Nico was the real hero in the Golf purchase. I can’t begin to explain how much time he spent negotiating with Johanes to take care of the car, the funding, the additional repairs; his test drives; his time spent shopping around with someone who simply worked with his wife. He took on the responsibility for having the car registered in his name and securing the insurance at an affordable rate.

But there was also Annalie who told her husband about my desire for a car and who made sure that he helped me select one with care. She continues to be the little faery to checks in on me to be sure I get directions to places I may like to visit and offers suggestions for fun things to do.

And of course, there are my friends Steven, Andiswa, and Elizabeth who call to make sure I’m settled in Pretoria. And my younger brother Themba and my sister Thembela who fill in the gaps and provide a base of support and love.

The kindness of people…