Driving Mr. Ali in Abu Dhabi

Selling your car overseas can be an adventure.

One of the problems with expat life is timing the appropriate moment to sell your vehicle when moving to a new country. Too early, and you are doing a lot of walking. Too late, and you are at the mercy of vehicle resellers out to make a buck on your desperation. We have had mixed results in the past.

In Germany, our sad Volkswagen hatchback was in serious need of repairs. The engine would just die if we drove further than 100 km. Rain was a hazard as the floorboard was rotted and water would spray into the passenger side when we drove through a puddle. It rained a lot in Germany.

We were unable to find a buyer. Not even Echart, the language teacher and friend from East Germany, wanted it. On several bitter cold weekends, he and I would have the VW disassembled trying to find out why it would die after 100km.

So on our last day in West Germany, we drove the Volkswagen to a junkyard and paid the owner 100 Deutschmarks to take the car off our hands. We hopped into a taxi and headed for the airport.

We did not own a car in Beijing. Like most people at that time, we traveled the city by bicycle. Our lightweight 10 speeds were the high-performance vehicles on the roads.

In Malaysia, we had a beautiful Ford van. With two young kids, we were reluctant to part with it and didn’t put it up for sale in the newspaper until a month before our departure to our new jobs in Saudi Arabia. As the days ticked by we became more and more nervous about selling it. In the last week, we finally received an offer that was far less than expected, but we had to take it.

In Saudi Arabia, we worked for the Saudi Arabian International School in Riyadh. The school provided a car and free gas. It was a station wagon, which could haul a lot of camping gear, but often fell into the soft sand.

In our third year in Saudi Arabia, the school gave us a new Toyota sedan. Unfortunately, it was stolen. The police asked if I wanted to prosecute the offender if he or she was caught. I must have looked confused. He then made a motion of chopping a hand off. Then I understood. We chose not to prosecute. We moved the next year.

We lived in Abu Dhabi for seventeen years. We had four different vehicles during our stay. During the turn-down in the economy in 2008 and 2009, the Emirates was swamped with abandoned cars as departing expats were unable to sell their cars for enough to cover the loan on the vehicle. It was a good time to buy a used car (large supply), however, it was rumored that the country was going to outlaw vehicles older than 10 years. So we decided to buy a new car. That was when we bought our new Toyota Fortuner.

Finally, after living in Abu Dhabi for 17 years, we were moving to a new location, Kathmandu, Nepal. Again we waited, perhaps too long to put the car up for sale.

I started the process by taking the car through the car wash next to our apartment building. It was one of those modern marvels you drive into, a machine moves around you, and out pops a clean vehicle. I remembered that one of the parents at the school was responsible for bringing these machines to the Emirate.

However, the robot malfunctioned. It kept doing the soap cycle over and over, but not the rinse. It inspired a picture from the inside.

I was trapped inside the soapiest SUV on earth. Finally, someone noticed and I was hosed. Not a fortuitous beginning. Was this foreshadowing?

The Arab world has a great online sales site called Dubizzle.com. The site covers most of North Africa and the Middle East.

I didn’t have to worry about finding a buyer. Early Saturday morning I put up the ad on Dubizzle.

We drove to Ikea to shop for items for our new home in Kathmandu. I had been told to buy candles. Not a good sign.

Shortly after arriving at the store, the calls started coming in. “What is your last price?”. ”My price is firm”. Soon I was getting calls every five minutes, but not at my asking price. By the time we were in the kitchen section, I was getting tired of the calls pressing me for a lower price. I told the next caller I was getting lots of offers, but not for the full price. He said, in very broken English that he would buy it at full price and be in Abu Dhabi tomorrow. His name was Abu Ali. That’s when I noticed he was calling from Saudi Arabia.

We completed our shopping trip with a late lunch at the Meat Company near the Grand Mosque. The temperature was perfect and we were alone on the patio for most of the meal.

The calls kept coming, including more calls from Mr. Ali, “Is it damaged?” “Is it working?” “No, it’s in perfect shape.” It was!

The next day Mr. Ali flew to Sharjah and took a 200 km taxi ride to meet me and Haris that evening. Haris was the school’s driver and could translate Arabic for me. I drove the three of us through a rare rain shower to a garage across town where they could inspect the SUV for hidden damage. All along the journey, I was expecting a random car to come fishtailing into my beautiful vehicle. Didn’t happen, but it was stressful.

The shop’s owner was from Damascus, so the four of us talked about the Syrian Civil War, times that were, and things lost forever. The vehicle was deemed in perfect shape.

Early the next morning, I drove Mr. Ali and Haris through rush hour traffic to the vehicle inspection/DMV office. The process should only have taken an hour:

• Inspection — Good! Check!
• Temporary Insurance for Mr. Ali? — Check!
• No traffic fines — Check!
• Vehicle Loan Clearance Letter from the bank — WHATTTT!

Turns out I needed a clearance letter from the bank even though the loan had been paid off ages ago. We drove back into town to the bank.

Bank assistant: “No problem, it will only take seven days.” Me: “Mr. Ali traveled from Riyadh to buy the car today.” -Note: That is like flying from Denver to LA to buy a car. Bank assistant:: “Come back tomorrow.” Me: “How about 1 p.m. today?” Bank assistant:: “I will call you at 1 p.m. today.”

At 12:30 I went back to the bank, sat in the lobby, and stared at the bank assistant with a smile of encouragement on my face. By 1 p.m. the tension of my facial muscles was giving me a headache. By 1:15 the bank was beginning to close. Windows were darkened. Finally, I saw a paper move from his desk to another desk, then another, and finally back to his desk.

Bank assistant: “You have your paper.”

I again picked up Haris and Mr. Ali for the trip to the DMV. Transactions were finished and by 4 p.m. Mr. Ali was happily driving back home to Riyadh, Haris had his commission, and I was a little richer for the experience.

Adapted and expanded from a post originally published by the author at https://www.townhousegardening.com