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Post by MAS1 on Aug 29, 2012 20:02:33 GMT
Hi, I was planning to ship my 2009 Odyssey van from the US. We bought it new and have driven it carefully. It has a DVD player that really helps in entertaining kids on long drives. However, after reading some of the posts, I am wondering if we should just sell the van and buy an SUV in KSA. I have a very risk averse driving style. I assume I am going to have a very hard time outside the camp  All suggestions are appreciated. Regards |
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Post by halfwaythere on Aug 30, 2012 14:23:51 GMT
MAS1
I don't know if my feedback will help you since I am contemplating the same idea as yours.
My concern with buying the car in KSA is financing. What I have been hearing from this forum is recommendation to buy a car in cash in Saudi. If you do nt have enough cash, then you would need to deposit all your pay to a local Saudi bank to be eligible for financing. Most people do not want that since they want most of money in the bank in their home country.
And if you finance your vehicle, it would be hard for you to drive it to out of country such as Bahrain. Again, I am just summarizing what I read from this forum. Someone else who actually experienced the financing option, can correct me if I am wrong.
halfwaythere
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Post by expatwife on Aug 31, 2012 18:53:42 GMT
We've been here a month now and renting a toyota yaris (it's small). It hasn't been an issue as far as driving outside camp. We've been out quite a lot in Khobar and to the beach. People drive aggressively and cut here and there but they will cut any car from what we see. The most incident we see is when driving on highway near exit, a car would cut from 2/3 lanes over to exit last minute. Odyssey is not small anyway, so you should be fine with it.
Plus, from our experience, it's quite necessary to have 2 cars if you have kids. I've ask around and that's pretty much how it is here. So, if you don't feel comfortable driving your Odyssey out here later on... you can use that as the one you use in camp.
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Post by MAS1 on Sept 4, 2012 17:56:36 GMT
Thanks for the advice. With three kids, I will be needing two cars and we can use Odyssey for inside camp.
Regards
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Post by vpainter on Sept 6, 2012 2:45:21 GMT
There is a lot of information on the shipping of vehicles to KSA. This will be helpful to you.
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Post by Hadia on Sept 6, 2012 6:28:31 GMT
If it were me, I'd ship the Odyssey and rent a car until it arrives, and then figure out if a second car is needed.
Also, not true about needing all pay to be deposited to Saudi bank account to finance a car here. We financed our vehicle, and have split pay deposits between Saudi and US bank accounts. What they wanted to see: proof of employment and rate of pay, names of local references to vouch for you, bank statements for past 90 days showing direct deposits to Saudi account, iqama/driver's license. We bought from a dealership and financed through a major bank here. It was quite easy -- down payment, monthly payments, the usual.
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